Divorce.
It’s everywhere. You hear people talk about their first, second, even third marriage all the time.
Please raise your hand if when you were a small child you fantasized about growing up, falling in love, getting married, maybe having kids, and then getting a divorce and repeating the cycle one or two times.
No-one? Didn’t think so.
So; WHY is it such a problem?
Sometimes I think it’s because people rush into marriage before they are ready or grown up enough (it should be noted I don’t necessarily associate “growing up” with age. I think people can grow up at different ages.) Although, statistics show that marrying young often results in divorce.
Other times I think it might just be the changing times. 50-60 years ago, divorce was a much nastier word, and even though there may have been abuse, infidelity and more; couples just didn’t get divorced then. They say divorce is on the rise, but could it be because our world is becoming more modern and it’s becoming more acceptable? Not just because couples are less compatible?
I was a child of divorce; but my parents did it differently. Not only did they not legally divorce, they continued being civil to each other (most of the time) and we even celebrated holidays together. That’s right folks, me, my brother and my split-up parents would head off on family vacays on a regular basis. Me and my mom would have one hotel room/bed and my dad and brother would have the other one.
Now that I’m more “grown-up”; looking back, I can imagine it probably wasn’t the most ideal or easiest situation for them. But it was an ideal situation for my brother and I, and we got to grow-up with two parents fully in our lives and in each others lives, which was a hell-of-a-lot better than being shipped off to different houses in different cities every holiday and having to merge our lives with possible step-siblings and half-siblings. In my humble opinion, anyhow.
So what’s your take on the D-word? Were you a child of divorce? Have you ever been divorced? And WHY do YOU think Divorce is on the rise?
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
My parents are still together- which is pretty uncommon among my friends. I can’t imagine growing up with parents that didn’t love each other- I think it would be awful or maybe the concept is just so foreign to me! I am only 14, so I have no desire to get married (now or ever), but if I do choose to get married, I want to be really careful about it. You are choosing someone to spend the rest of your life with- don’t rush into it.
And is it really fair to the children of divorced parents? I don’t think so.
I too am a child of divorce. My parents split when I was 7, my sister was 5. I’ve always thought it was the best thing to do for our family. And like you, my family has stayed pretty close. It took a couple years, but my parents get along very well now and after my mom re-married and my brother was born, my father became his god-father. We now spend all holidays together, my dad will still go to my maternal grandparent’s house or aunts/uncles to celebrate family occasions because his family is all in Ontario. Although I believe it may start to get a little harder to keep these traditions going – I haven’t lived at home since I left for university 7 years ago and my sister is now done as well, I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. I’ve never had to choose or take sides and I have 3 parents …. I consider myself very lucky. The only caveat of my parents staying friends is that I couldn’t play them off each other and get 20$ from both when I wanted shopping money or $$ to go out with …. Lol. Small price to pay.
a few things —
my parents have been married for 31 going on 32 years this november. While they got married when my mom was 21 and she had 3 kids by the age of 25. She was pregnant before she got married. while they have had rocky times, i remember them fighting a lot when i was younger. but they are each other’s rock! I’m amazed at how their relationship has sustained all these years.
my older sister got married at 21 too.. she had 2 kids by the age of 25. And since they’ve had the 2nd kid, everything went downhill. they still lived together for 5 years for the sake of the kids. But she had the upstairs bedroom, he had the basement bedroom. It was a decent situation. however, he’s incredibly verbally abusive. Even towards me.. i lived with them for about 6 months before i had to move out since he was so verbally abusive. my sister finally moved out with the 2 kids, sadly to california (cross country). She is now finally filing divorce papers.
now i’ve been in a relationship for 4 years now, ideally i wanted us to at least be engaged before we bought our place together, but money didn’t let that happen, so we just bought the place together. now he’s somewhat hestiant in getting married — i don’t blame him, but AGH! he sees what my sister’s going through. a couple friends of ours got engaged 1 year into their relationship, and they broke it off 6 months after moving in together. another friend of mine, we attended the wedding, and now they’re getting separated. He’s incredibly frustrated at this whole thing. Admittedly it scares me, but i feel like we’re the kind of people that don’t take the easy way out, we’ve had UPs and Downs but we work through them.
i also joke that these failed relationships make for us to have better odds. Bad i know!
I think divorce is on the rise because of reasons you stated (it’s more acceptable) and that people are realizing there is not just ONE soul mate out there for you. We aren’t made to be monogamous but that’s what many people do when they get married. I honestly think there is more than one suitable person out there to marry and people realize that and end the marriage there in. Not beause they didn’t once love that person, but because there is more out there.
My parents are seriously considering divorce right now…it sucks even though I’m grown up! I think society TOTALLY encourages it. It doesn’t help that God isn’t part of their relationship either. There are so many things they could do…books they could read or counseling they could do, but they are both hard-hearted at this point. *Sigh*
Anyway, it’s good that your folks spent time with you both together – that’s so neat!
I am very lucky to have parents that are still married – they will celebrate 40 years in December and were married at 21, so I guess age doesn’t always have alot to do w/ your chances of making it…
I think Divorce is higher because it’s more acceptable these days & people don’t want to really work through the problems they might be having. My heart goes out to anyone who is going through difficult times in a marriage, and I know sometimes you just can’t make it work, but I think some people just don’t try enough.
I wouldn’t say I am paranoid about getting divorced, but I think I am very cautious about relationships and have seen what it is like for my friends to be married and how it is not easy always. It is so hard to be honest with yourself, but I thikn that is something I am good at. I think alot of people get married because they are afraid to be alone, and then months or years later, they realize that they made the wrong decision and never should have married this person.
Good post topic – something I’ve been thinking about lately as one of my friends is having marital problems.
people are getting married too quickly and too young. i think those are definitely the 2 biggest problems. after all, the #1 cause of divorce is marriage, so why rush into it?
my best friend married his high school sweetheart, they’re 28 now and have been together since they were 16. they’ve never been with anyone else, and their marriage and relationship is so stale it’s like they’re just roommates with a kid together. he’s really starting to rethink and reconsider what he wants for the future, and i don’t blame him one bit. people need to see the world and date around to learn about relationships as well as themselves. they teach us very important lessons, make us stronger, and build our character.
My parents stayed together, although they didn’t appear particularly happy.
I think the social acceptability of divorce has increased it. I also think people’s standards for their lives are higher — and that’s not necessarily a good thing. I’ve been married nearly 15 years, and there’s a definite undulation in the level of passion and excitement to our marriage — even though neither or us abuse each other in any way.
I also cannot imagine doing it to my kids. It sounds as though your parents handled things wonderfully, though.
my parents have been married for 42 years, can’t say that kelley and i will make it that far but i have high hopes. having kids changes everything.
wow sounds like your parents did a great job of trying to make things as easy as possible for you as a kid! My parents are still together but my older brother (who always lived with us) was from my dads first marriage and I know it was hard on him sometimes especially around the holidays and such.
My parents have been divorced 3 times longer than they were married. They worked together after the divorce, supported each other personally and professionally and are best friends.
We celebrated holidays, birthdays, successes and rallied around defeats – all together as a family. And that’s really what we are – a family. Mom and Dad just don’t live together…and Mom’s married to someone else.
Fortunately my parents are still together. I don’t think they ever had a moment where they wanted to divorce one another; I could be wrong, but they are incredibly happy, romantic, giddy and I’m so glad that they are, more for their sake than mine. I have many friends who have divorced families and some loved it, others not so much and I can see why. I can’t imagine not having both of my families in my life.
If I were to ever find myself in a divorce situation, I’d probably be like your parents and do everything I could to make it okay for the children. That’s very strong of you parents!
Divorce on the rise reasons: money. Infeldity. Immaturity. Military service (I admire all those who serve, but it’s hard on both the men/wives to grow apart from each other in situations like that. I’ve seen happen it to one of my family members.). The 20-something age group has the highest divorce rate of 60%! I have several friends/acquaitances who got married only to find themselves getting a divorce a few months or years later. It’s heartbreaking, quite frankly. Most of the time it was because they weren’t as in love as they thought, there was cheating as a result and that was that.
My parents are thankfully still happily together.
Divorce happens for all sorts of reasons, but it seems to me more popular than ever these days. I’m certainly no expert, but I’d certainly blame a lot of this on living in such a different time from ‘way back when’. We live in a land of opportunity. Women are more prevelant in the workforce than ever before. We can be whoever we want to be, and do whatever we want to do. We are more independent than ever, and if your spouse isn’t fitting in the picture anymore, we are more likely to up and leave, than fight it out. It’s sad, but true. There is just too much jumping in too fast, and at the same time, getting up and leaving without putting up a solid fight for the relationship.
Your parents sound like they handled everything extremely well, big props to them. They definitely sound like a case I didn’t describe here – the one where.. Things just change.
I am a child of divorce and it wasn’t a pleasant one. However, I do think its what was best for our family and I would have been a completely different person had my parents remainded married to each other, I’m not sure I would like the person that I could have been very much. In fact, I know I wouldn’t. I think its amazing that your parents remained close and handled it as they did.
I have two close friends who married young (21, 22) and now they are both divorced. I think young people are in love with the idea of having a wedding, a house, etc but don’t have realistic visions of lifetime commitment, the struggles, etc that go into creating a life together. Also, its very easy to walk away these days.
Pretty impressive that your parents were that committed to keeping your family together even though it wasn’t the same any more. And sounds like it was a really positive experience for you and you can appreciate the maturity they handled the situation with.
Divorce is a scary thing, I agree. I don’t want one. I don’t plan to have one. But then again, you can’t always predict everything. Divorces seem to happen for so many reasons: married too early and had fantasies about what the future would be like, one person isn’t able to be in a committed relationship and therefore cheats, two people fall out of love, etc.
I feel lucky my parents are still together. They just celebrated 31 years. I can’t say they’ve always been happy. I remember fights as a child, but now I Think their relationship has grown and is stronger than ever, which makes me happy and gives me hope that even when things get tough, if people love each other, they’ll stick with it.
I am not a child of divorce. But I AM in the midst of a divorce.
I’m thinking that acceptance of divorce has a lot to do with why it’s on the rise. And sometimes it’s the easy way out.
Because I do have a child, this man will be in my life forever. Luckily, he’s a good dad. So although I doubt we’ll go on vacations together, we are talking about sharing Christmas mornings and birthdays… both being there.
My parents divorced even before I have memories; I grew up with a single mom until she remarried when I was around 9.
I agree that divorce is easier to do, much more accepted…but maybe also that women before didn’t have options. They weren’t as educated, there weren’t as many employment opportunties (not the kind that could support a family) so maybe some stayed because they felt they had no choice.
Whatever the reason, it is heartbreaking. I’ve seen so many friends split up – many not after years of unrest, but left by a spouse just out of the blue.
At a recent bridal shower, married women were giving advice. One woman, married 40 years said this, “It won’t always be fun or easy. Sometimes not for months, or even years. Raising a family is hard. You have to continually make a CHOICE to love each other.” Interesting.
Even if I grew up in a country where divorce is not an option, I am still open to the concept. I think that it should be the last choice for married couples whose relationship isn’t working anymore. The reason why it’s more prevalent these days might be because people are more open minded and that there are just more options these days. It would still be messier when kids are involved but glad to hear that your sitch was still great.
My parents are still together and very happy. They will actually have their 28th wedding anniversary at the end of the month! I know it wasn’t always easy though, sometimes as I kid I wished they would get divorced because they were fighting so much and they didn’t hide it from us. Looking back, I feel bad for wishing that but it taught me that things aren’t always easy and to have what they have today will be bumpy road for just about anybody.
I agree, I think divorce is on the rise because we marry so young and it’s so acceptable. I think there are a lot of silly, silly girls that just want the ring, the flowers, the dress … and will manipulate men into it. It’s dumb. It’s not a marriage. It’s an extravagant (and expensive) party.
My parents got divorced when I was just graduating college (and my youngest sister was graduating high school). I think it was more difficult for me and my siblings this way because (at least for me), it left me feeling like the “picture perfect” live we’d lived all those years was a lie. It’s like they counted down until my youngest sister graduated so they could finally get divorced.
Now that there’s been some time to heal, it’s been better for all of us.
I think the reason that divorce is on the rise is because women have become more independent. This sounds bad but I think a long time ago women just went along with what the men thought so there were less disagreements. And, like others have said, if there were disagreements it wasn’t as acceptable to get divorced. I’m getting married next year and I hope we can beat the odds
My parents got divorced a year ago. My mother was very quiet about her unhappiness and it was shock to all of us. Then she acted like nothing was wrong and didn’t understand why anyone was mad at her. She caused huge problems.
I’m determined not to rush things. I want my family to be stable and I’ve learned what NOT to do from her.
Both the fiance and I are children of divorce, and it has had a major impact on how we live. Our parents divorced when we were fairly young, so we never really knew much else – we both basically have absent dads. While the fiance and I are engaged, and have been for 3 years, we still have no plans for getting married soon. There’s absolutely no reason to rush into anything when we are happy where we are now
This one’s something I could go on and on about, haha.