|
May 1, 2006
They offer
advice to people in pain. On the surface, their advice sounds
forward-looking, pragmatic, and helpful: Get On With Your Live…GOWYL.
Psychologists
and counselors are dealing with a problem that many in America
consider inevitable…divorce. “We think of a marriage as a crap shoot,
with worse than 50-50 odds of finding and marrying ‘the right
person,’” writes Diane Sollee of Smart Marriages. “If we marry ‘the
wrong person’, we want the right to exit and try again.” GOWYL.
It’s hard to
imagine a family that hasn’t been touched by divorce today. The
method preferred by social scientists in determining the divorce rate
is to calculate how many people who have ever married subsequently
divorced. Counted that way, the rate has never exceeded about 41
percent, researchers say. Rising radically in the 1960s, since the
1970s, the rate has steadily been inching downward.
Still, even as
divorce rates decline, the number of lives impacted is staggering. In
2003, based on the 45 reporting states (excluding CA, HI, IN, LA, OK),
920,060 marriages were dissolved. Over 1.8 million men and women will
have to GOWYL.
Richard Cohen,
Washington Post critic-at-large, speaks for the frustrated
majority. Conceding the damage divorce does to children, he demands
that those who preach family values finally come clean and admit there
are no solutions. GOWYL.
As Cohen, and so
many see it, we are stuck. There is no way out. Without divorce, we
are asking people to choose between their own happiness and the
happiness and well-being of their children.
”[As] much as we hate the fallout, we've become convinced that divorce
is inevitable -- one of life's necessary evils,” says Sollee. “This
is due to our attitudes about marriage. And, we want to preserve this
right for our fellow citizens. No one, we have come to believe, should
have to live in an unhappy marriage.”
Stuck
in the negative, and pushed to accept the inevitable, America has
developed an extensive support system designed to make divorce easier
and happier. Divorces are no-fault. Property is divided. Child
support payments are calculated, if not paid. And life goes on. Make
the best of it. GOWYL
But
wait. Yes, wait!
We
have been encouraged to accept failure as a way of life. And we have
created several divorce industries…lawyers and counselors…generating
millions of dollars for people who profit from the failure of others.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Failure is not inevitable.
As it
turns out, we don’t have to choose to be miserable in marriage to make
our children happy. The real data on happy and unhappy marriages
tells a very different story.
When you look at
a nationally representative sample of married people who say they are
"very unhappy" in their marriages, and follow them over time, 60
percent of those who stick it out (about 15 percent do not) say they
are "quite happy" or "very happy" in their marriages five years later.
Another 25 percent of couples report improvement in their marital
happiness.
These couples
did GOWYL. But they did it by staying married. They were once
unhappy. And, without the help and assistance of divorce attorneys
and counselors paving the way, sticking with their marriages, they
were able to create a happy marriage once again…not just for the sake
of their kids, but for the sake of themselves.
That’s right.
Unhappy couples aren't doomed to a life of personal misery in their
stoic, chin-up choice to stay together for the kids' sake. They can
actually recover, restore and reconnect.
If these couples
can do it, why can’t other couples do it? And if they can do it, then
how?
As sociologists
and politicians since the 60s worked to normalize and even elevate the
deconstruction of the traditional family, these questions were
considered regressive. Divorce was the solution. Marriage was the
problem.
Today, as we
measure the pain and cost of divorce, these questions offer a
long-overdue hope to people everywhere. They create a new focus for
GOWYL. Marriage is the solution. Divorce is the problem.
Life is more
than just matter of getting on with it. It’s a matter of where we are
getting on to and what life will be when we get there. If you’re
headed toward a solution, a happy marriage is still a wonderful
destination.
____________________
For information on restoring
healthy marriages visit:
www.smartmarriages.com
Check out their
upcoming conference June 22-26 in Atlanta, GA.
September 24, 2004
End of Life as a Fairly Normal Person
See Archives
for more past editorials.
_____________________ |
