I don't think most people who get divorced have taken either their vows, the marriage or the divorce lightly. At least nor the ones I know. So many people wait years to see if things get better, or in the hopes that one partner will be interested in fixing what's wrong in the relationship.
Loving and responsible parents especially, perhaps, take divorce most seriously of all. These are people who a) don't want to hurt their children at all, and b) don't want to be separated from them through divorce/custody issues.
As far as couples without children go, I don't know... If there's so much wrong in the relationship that either of them is thinking about divorce, maybe it's better they get out before there ARE children. When a relationship has what relationships need in order to survive so many differences and challenges, nobody even thinks about divorce - at least I don't think - when things get rough. I think when a relationship is what it should be, the difficult stuff brings people closer together rather than driving them farther and farther apart.
The only people, I think, who are in a position to make guesses/judgment about someone else's divorce is both of the the people involved in the relationship, and sometimes even one of them doesn't even really understand what happened. :/ I think one reason so many people think that divorce is taken lightly more often than it really is is that divorcing people don't always tell all that's wrong in the marriage, so it looks to others as if they're divorcing "for no reason" or "for stupid reasons".
Most of the things that are bad enough to make a lot of people even consider divorce are pretty ugly things They're often not the kind of thing people want to share with anyone else, and they're sometimes not the kind of thing people would choose to share with their children (sometimes they do because they have to, or because the children have already lived with whatever it is and so already know about it). Not all divorcing people hate the other person, so not all would be willing to shame the other person by sharing shameful behavior or deeds.
Sometimes, too, even if one person does try to tell someone else how bad things were in the marriage, others won't/can't believe it was really that bad because a lot of "bad behavior" is something people only do behind closed doors and in front of the spouse.
As someone who had no choice but to divorce, I've so often run into people who opinions about divorces. Some have never been married. Some are happily married. None of these people have run into the realities of some situations that require divorce. One day they may, but they haven't yet.
Then there are those who will say (and maybe even are) they are happily married, but only because they worked hard on staying married. Obviously, both were willing to work hard. Obviously, too, the challenges and differences were the kind that - even if awfully difficult - these two people happened to be able to overcome together. These are people who obviously have not encountered the kind, or number, of challenges that were far too much for even the most willing of individuals to overcome. And, I don't want to seem gloomy and certainly don't wish this on anyone, but of all the people who think/believe/say they are happily and permanently married today, "x percent" of them will discover otherwise some time in the future.
Finally, there are those people who are willing to stay in an unhealthy and destructive - sometimes extremely miserable - marriage for their own reasons, and everyone has a right to his own reasons. When this is case, others have their opinions on how unhealthy it is "to stay", but those others should realize, too, that judging the choices of someone else always means judging a road being travelled in shoes other than one's own.
I have no doubt that there are some people who are too cavalier about things like marriage and divorce, but I don't think that's most of them.
Photo: ME Whelan, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment