Mend It, Don't End It

I have been wondering what it is that enables some long-term marriages to rise above the obstacles that crop up periodically in every marriage and brings others to a breach so cataclysmic, they cannot mend it. Facing a couple of surprising long-term marriage meltdowns in our extended family recently, my daughter and I have been speculating on this topic, with some heartbreak. For a broken marriage reverberates far beyond the borders of the couple or even the whole family involved.

"It only takes one person to break up a marriage, but it takes two to hold it together," Debbie remarked. With great insight. My thoughts are that those couples who make it last do so because they have found the ability and desire to see and think beyond themselves. Some sacrifice is needed to make any two-person relationship work, be it at work, with a friendship, or in marriage. Every individual differs from every other. Each thinks, acts, and hopes things the other does not. In facing these differences, we can either rise above, attempt to share, or try to accept these differences as a means to broaden and enrich our own personal lives or we can choose to travel own road, free but alone. Often those who walk away find it is not the road to happiness they expected.

Divorce is extremely hard on the children involved. It ought to be a last resort. History suggests that is no longer the way of things. For some reason the rate of divorce has sky-rocketed in recent decades. Could it be attributed to the fact that the "me generation" became the preferred approach to living at about the same time? Given that there are certain factors in a marriage that are unsupportable (addictions, abusive behavior, adultery), I believe many threatened marriages today could be saved by making a decision jointly to use these differences as opportunities to work together towards building a marriage that is better, stronger, and closer than before. In my early years, staying together for the sake of the children was a golden rule that saved many marriages. People often found that they needed to change to accommodate that goal, and they found new closeness and greater joy in doing so. My own marriage faced the doldrums at one time, but we never considered divorce an option. Instead we took marriage enrichment classes, and the second twenty-five turned out to be much happier than the first.

Wanting a happier life for today's marrieds,
Margaret