DIVORCE

Posted August 15th, 2007 by livingbyintent

Dear Miriam,
I am 28 years old, married 6 years and considering separation. I am out of love and miserable and many of my girlfriends share the same misery... I am so discouraged. Why do we marry?
Yours,
Lena

Dear Lena,
Given current divorce statistics and the personal suffering involved, it is really a good question: Why do we marry? How many of us have heard (or said, ourselves), "It was love at first sight. He looked like my father... and something about him reminded me of my mother." This summarizes the unconscious recognition we often experience when we meet a potential significant other. With some exceptions, this is the reason for the beginning (and often the end) of most relationships. The subconscious cause for getting married is to recapture the unconditional acceptance of early childhood. This is a fantasy!

It will never happen again... however, we know through instinct and internalization of social order (which says we can not stay with our mothers forever), that the possibility to be loved comes from our love partner. Marriage is the pot of gold at the end of childhood's rainbow - it is a social reward for letting go of our mother. In a thousand different ways, society sends messages that we must find another love object. With each new birthday, mother does less and less for us. At each new withdrawal of mother's overwhelming power, we resist. If grown up means being alone, who needs it?

We all do. Growing and realizing our potential is an undeniable urge. But, growth can be quite painful. When we resist growth within a marriage, it usually comes to fights over who will take care of whom, who will give in, and other baby stuff. At first, it happens to practically everyone, but many of us are just unable to pass this stage (one of the reasons for this is our unresolved and repressed childhood traumas). The conscious people who are consciously able to choose marriage as the path of growth (personal and as a couple) are the ones who get past the tough spots and grow together. Each spouse becomes a stronger individual and learns that life is love. But love is not romance. Love is a feeling (of course!) and a decision, and a commitment. And while feelings can ebb and flow, we may (consciously) choose to be true to our decisions and commitments, if and when we choose marriage as our journey together.

Love,
Miriam

Posted August 15th, 2007 by livingbyintent

"She married and then divorced, and then she married and divorced, and then she married and lived happily ever after." - The New Yorker Magazine, 1993

Does that sound like a fairy tail to you? Or maybe the near future? Do you know that half of our marriages each year are remarriages? Divorce and remarriage are as much a part of our reality today as the first-marriages and single life. Maybe it is time to realize that marriage and family are no longer synonymous: remarriage data* shows that within five years of divorce, about 90% of men and 80% of women marry again. Maybe it is time for all of us to accept the reality: If divorce cannot be avoided, it is wiser to accept it as one way to end unhappiness in marriage and then put our effort into keeping "divorced" parts of a family functional for the children involved; because the real consequences of any divorce affect them the most.

In this decade [1990's], well over 50% of our children are, or will be a part of a divorce family. If we, as a society, are able to accept the reality and stop to see it as something pathological, these children would not be stigmatized, which in turn, would not negatively impact their sense of worth and security; their self-esteem, the foundation of all human activity, would not turn into self-doubt. In any divorce counseling, the question that should be addressed among the first is: "How can we, as parents, get through this process (from the decision to divorce, through the separation stage to the legal finalization of divorce to, hopefully, a new, bi-nuclear family structure) without destroying the present and future lives of our children?

In relationship counseling, it is often said that everyone we know would prefer to resolve things in a functional love relationship, than to dissolve them. It is often assumed that if a relationship crisis may be resolved without a divorce, that everyone will benefit. How can relationship counseling help to resolve the crisis? Let me list several ways which may be quite helpful for relationship problem resolution:

To formulate the current problem(s) clearly so that they may be deliberated upon - by voicing all the relevant concerns and contributing issues, and then presenting them in such a way as to pose the matter in the clearest possible terms.

To help clients (both individually, and as a couple) to see to it that due consideration is given to the points of view of everyone involved in this conflict - spouse, children, and any other significant persons. Even intelligent and sensitive people with the best intentions may suffer from "blind spots" that allow them to make excessive and unfair demands. Then, they are honestly surprised when their expectations provoke hostile reactions.

To direct attention to the consequences of their possible choices. It pays to emphasize not only the consequences of a particular action, but also equally real consequences of a particular inner, psychological action. We often forget that psychological decisions have definite effects on the conscious lives we live.

To encourage the dialogue between couples in counseling (versus two "unrelated" monologues that keep the couple stuck in an unproductive exchange). This dialogue is a form of exchange that involves formulating and maintaining one's point of view, while being able to understand another.

All of the above can help establish communication and create a possibility of working through differences. If and when relationship counseling can not solve a crisis, usually the healthy, reality-conscious divorce decision follows: Spouses make a decision to end the marriage, but preserve the functional aspects of family, especially aspects concerning children.

We're looking at obvious and alternative solutions, recognizing the reality of different and common grounds with the goal to create a mutually acceptable agreement of understanding in which life position of everyone involved is spelled clearly and honored in its own rights; mutually exclusive interests are acknowledged and possible solutions listed; children’s right to mother and father acknowledged and preserved to the fullest. We all understand that when that difficult decision is made, it is not the end of the process. It is the beginning of integrating a divorce into a new chapter of life. Hopefully, with a few lessons learned and a little less hostility, acceptance of the inevitable can come smoothly, so that we may forgive ourselves and each other. What do you think?

Love and blessings,
Miriam

Posted August 15th, 2007 by livingbyintent

Dear Miriam,
Don't you think that any institution with a 51% failure rate on the first attempt and a 64%(!) failure rate on the second try needs a radical change? These are the statistics of divorce rates! Is marriage going out of style? If not marriage, then what?
Gail, 28

Dear Gail,

I am not sure that I (or anybody else) can solve this problem: marry, don't marry, remarry. I am not even sure if marriage is going out of style or obsolete. But, I am sure that our quest for happiness has changed substantially. It is about experiencing fulfillment and meaning in our lives NOW, not when we'll find the right partner. Actually, for the very first time in our cultural history, simplicity is not considered to be a preferred life-style, and it is not difficult to see why: for too many of us, the dream of being happily married has turned into nightmares of our relationships deteriorating.

For every happily married client I can think of, I can name at least ten who complain about their husbands - or worse yet, bear the scars (physical and/or emotional) of a bad marriage and don't open their mouths at all. In my counseling office, I see women who have become fearful of driving, afraid to be home alone, don't know how to balance a checkbook (or even write a check!), women who seemed perfectly sensible before marriage, and who were branded as "incapable" by their husbands, and then by themselves. Many of us "nice ladies", for whom singledom was the only way to marriage, have never been "conscious singles". We lived for "happily ever after"... or did we live at all?

We all have heard from that divorced friend: "I was dying to marry and have children." Is it only a figure of speech? Or maybe it is a testimony of an "unlived life"? We all have what we are capable of having right now, given who we are. Paradoxically, what we are is the reason we do not have what we want. Stubbornly, we want what we want without having to change who we are... but that is impossible! What we need is ourselves, our lost wholeness. We need to regain our missing self. And this is always a journey, and it is much easier to start when we are single. And because we are not being our 'Whole Self', whether we marry or not, we're not living "happily every after".

I invite you to think about your life. Are your days (and nights) spent doing things that are meaningful and make you smile? Are you happy? If not, what would you like to change?

Love,
Miriam

The statistics in this article reflect the separation rate at the time of original publication.