The biggest lie about marriage and divorce?
“It’s just about me and my spouse. No one else.”
Sadly, many have bought this lie hook, line, and sinker and have left a huge massive pile of victims in the wake of their divorce.
The reality is, your marriage is not only about you and your spouse. It never was and it never will be only about you and your spouse. When you got married, you brought two families together that were otherwise strangers to one another. When you got married, you suddenly came into more siblings, more aunts, more uncles, 2 sets of parents now, and a host of nieces and nephews as well. Suddenly you have more birthdays to celebrate, more homes to visit at holidays, and more funerals to attend.
You didn’t just marry a man or a woman…you married into a family and they married into yours. Thus if you ever come to the tragic moment where you get a divorce (which, if you want to know what my thoughts are on divorce exactly, check out “Divorce: The Death of a Marriage” to find out), that too is not only about you.
And this tragedy takes on an exponentially larger impact when you factor in children and grandchildren into the picture.
So when you get to a place where the D word comes up, you have a lot more to consider. The cost becomes much greater.
How many lives are you truly wrecking?
How many homes are you truly breaking up?
How many relationships are you truly rendering irreparable?
How many vows and promises are you ripping up and turning to ash?
My answer?
More than you can ever imagine.
I realize there are biblical reasons for divorce. Jesus himself aligned himself with one reason alone, and that was adultery. I also know the Old Testament also allows for divorce in the cases of abuse and abandonment as well.
But in today’s world, what are the major reasons for getting a divorce?
“We fell out of ‘love’ with one another.” (what does that even mean anyways?? anyone???)
“We can’t agree on finances.”
“We can’t agree on anything.”
“She doesn’t meet my needs anymore.”
“He doesn’t meet my needs anymore.”
“I’m putting more in than I’m getting back out.”
“It’s too hard.”
And sadly, the common denominator here is self. ALL of these reasons (and when you get down to it, abuse, adultery, and abandonment) are ALL rooted in selfishness.
But here’s the thing…when we married, we (most of us anyways) made vows to one another to support one another and care for one another, and love one another until when? In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for better or worse…until death do us part.
Our vows were to one another…about the other…not about ourselves. We didn’t say that we promise to love each other “unless sickness and health become too expense”, or “unless my spouse refuses to get a job”, or “unless my spouse becomes unattractive to me”, or “unless we fall out of love with one another”, or “unless the flames of romance die”, or any other selfish thing you can think of that the majority of divorces are about.
All we have demonstrated in recent days is that marriage and vows mean very little and that we don’t care who it impacts so long as I get what I want and I’m “happy”. It doesn’t matter that you literally drag both of your families through the mud in the process, or that you destroy not only your children’s views of each of you but also how they view and approach marriage themselves.
So no…it’s not just about you and your spouse. It’s about a whole lot of others as well.
You’re just too selfish to realize that. The only thing that matters to you is YOUR happiness. YOUR needs being met. YOUR desires being fulfilled. How sad.
But….let me also say, I realize that while it takes two to get where people get in a marriage where divorce is a thing, it can be said that some are more responsible than others…especially when one is seeking to repair the issue and the other refuses. It is at that point that the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the one who refuses.
Let me add one more thing; many in the Church want to talk about how the LGBT crowd has destroyed the sanctity of marriage, while flatly ignoring their own contribution to its destruction.
Wake up!
The Church destroyed the sanctity of marriage when we allowed divorce to become common place and for just about any reason amongst ourselves. All the LGBT folks did is add to the already huge mess we created with their own perversion of marriage.
Want to start rebuilding how our nation values marriage?
How about we in the church start valuing marriage ourselves by keeping our vows!
By being faithful to our spouses!
And by being humble enough to admit that we contributed to the problem!
Perhaps this could also be a doorway or spark for revival?
When we, as 2 Chronicles 7:14 states, the people of God…begin to humble ourselves and pray and turn from our wicked way (like divorce, abortion, corruption, offense, anger, etc.)…THEN God will hear us…THEN God will forgive us…and THEN God will heal our land.
But it begins with the people of God.
And it begins in a place of humility.
I tried to keep my marriage vows. Sadly adultery destroyed mine.
Man brother – I’m sorry to hear that. It’s so painful to think about the families destroyed by divorce and adultery.
Fortunately, God is a redeemer who can restore broken lives and piece them back together. It may not look like it was before, but God restores none the less.
Praying for you man.
Thankfully, it has been 4 years at this point. It is still trust that I struggle with, but in the end I sought God through the whole thing and became ever so much closer to him because of it.
His Grace, and provision through the entire ordeal was amazing. I won’t comment it all here, it’d take too long.
That’s awesome! So glad to hear that!!