Because it is a topic that cannot be ignored if we want to create happy, healthy marriages. Most of us are aware that the divorce rate stands around 40-50%. And most of us who are married or getting married, go into it with the idea that we will not be one of those statistics; that somehow our marriage will be different. But I would be willing to bet that the majority of those 40-50 percenters out there also went into their marriages with the notion that they would have lasting marriages. So divorce, as unpleasant as it may be to think about, does need to be recognized so that we can do our best to safeguard our marriages.
I was ten days shy of my 20th birthday when I married my husband. When my parents announced that they were getting divorced, I had been married for three whole months. Even though I was an adult and people repeatedly told me "at least you're older so it doesn't affect you", I was shattered. I knew they had been having issues. A year before I got married I had gone home for the summer and looking back, I still view that time as one of the most miserable summers of my entire life. My parents were fighting constantly and they were consumed by anger. My siblings and I looked for any opportunities we could find to escape that house and all of the contention. So I shouldn't have been surprised when I got the phone call telling me that they were splitting up. But I guess I just hoped that they would weather that particular storm and work things out.
Still in those early days of my new marriage, the news from my parents crushed my positive outlook for my own happy, eternal marriage. I wondered if my parent's, who had a romance and temple marriage right out of a fairy tale couldn't make it work, if it was inevitable that I would wind up in the same boat after 23 years of my own marriage. In one of my tearful conversations with my husband, he said something that sort of became our mantra: "We are not your parents. We decide what our marriage will be."
And we have. It has not been easy. There have been challenges along the way that could have broken other marriages--chronic depression in my husband, cranial surgery and a long recovery for me, two kids with sensory processing disorder, one kid with anaphylactic food allergies, another with a serious congenital heart defect, and financial strain caused by all of the above. Many of these trials could and have broken up marriages. President James E. Faust talked about "just cause" for ending a marriage and he said it does not include things like "'mental distress,' nor 'personality differences,' nor having 'grown apart,' or having 'fallen out of love'” (Father, Come Home,"Ensign, May 1993, 35). I'm pretty sure that most of those things have popped up at one time or another in my own marriage to some degree as they do in many marriages. But my husband and I made a commitment and a covenant to each other and we have put each other first, even when sometimes we may not have wanted to. We will celebrate our 25th anniversary this summer--making it past the 23 years my parents were married before they were divorced.
Speaking of my parents. They each remarried 9 years ago--to each other. I was so thrilled to see them recognize that they still love each other and are better together than apart. I love that they are active in church again and active in the lives of their children and grandchildren. In a talk by Dallin H. Oaks, he quoted a study that showed “no evidence that divorce or separation typically made adults happier than staying in an unhappy marriage. Two out of three unhappily married adults who avoided divorce reported being happily married five years later” ("Divorce", Ensign, May 2007). I can't help but wonder how different things might be now if my parents had worked through their issues instead of breaking up. My older siblings and I escaped some of the statistics that children of divorced parents are at higher risk for, but my younger siblings weren't so fortunate. Two of them experimented with drugs and alcohol; the same two cohabited before marriage, one had a baby out of wedlock, another is on her third marriage; five siblings have never been married and don't feel any inclination toward it, several siblings had issues in school with grades and one sibling dropped out of school altogether. Would they have made these same choices or had the same experiences if my parents had remained married? I don't know. But knowing that children in stable two parent families are more likely to thrive (State of Our Unions 2012, The National Marriage Project, p. xii), I can't help but think things may have been different for my siblings had my parents gotten help for their marriage and stayed together.
My husband and I have tried to instill in our children the importance of choosing wisely when it comes to marriage and then being willing to stick with their choice. I hope that someday when they are navigating their own successful marriages, they will look at the marriage of their parents as their inspiration for how to make a marriage work.
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