I agree. In the the cases you mentioned separation is acceptable. If all the threads I read where because of dangerous situations, I wouldn’t be asking these questions. People are told to leave because of big problems. For example alcoholism. The last thread I read the persons spouse started to drink heavily. The person never mentioned abuse and it was a long thread. They were told to leave buy there priest. I can’t say I agree there. My father drank heavily. My mother or I were never in any danger. She never left and eventually after 40 years of heavy drinking he quit.
Each situation is different. Some spouses can stay in a situation in which the other spouse is drinking and not be adversely affected spiritually and mentally. Most, however, cannot, and to live with alcoholism is to live with abuse even if it isn’t physical.
Living with alcoholism means you have to see the person you love become an entirely different person every time they drink. It means that that person will ignore what is best for the family in pursuit of the next buzz. It means that the wishes, hopes and prayers of the other person in the relationship are totally disregarded on a daily basis.
I have a family member (not a spouse) with a serious substance abuse problem. This person would get so drunk every. single. night. that she could not remember the names of her family members, couldn’t walk up the stairs, sometimes couldn’t walk at all. This person would expect minor children to commit felonies by going out and purchasing controlled substances for her, lest they incur her wrath. This same person refused to live up to her responsibilities in her family role at ALL, and was verbally and emotionally abusive of anyone who suggested that she stop with the substance abuse.
Perhaps you can live in such a situation. Most of us cannot. It is heartbreaking, terrifying, and horrifically lonely because you cannot ever count on the other spouse to be an adult, much less a husband or wife. And if there are children in the home and the children perceive substance abuse to be “normal” behavior, statistics show that such children are likely to repeat either or both the substance abuse or the toleration of bad behavior in their own lives, perpetuating these horrors into future generations. The responsible spouse has a duty to ensure to the best of his or her ability that children grow up in a safe and calm environment where they can learn about normal relationships, expectations, family dynamics, and boundaries.
There are two factors at work in your initial question. First, many people, especially women, in previous generations were told to never divorce no matter what, including, as others have pointed out, in cases of gross physical abuse. Second, there was a heavier emphasis on what other people might think–i.e., “Yes, he’s an alcoholic who drinks to the point of passing out every evening, but what will the neighbors say if I tell him to sober up or leave?” Many such problems were not talked about at all.
Another important point to remember is that while there were serious problems which affected the previous generations as they have every generation, these problems are grossly exacerbated now and far more widespread because of a lack of self-control and personal responsibility in our society. Our kids have been told for the last thirty years that they have to think of themselves first, and that if something feels good to them, they should do it and disregard the consequences to everyone else. It’s hardly surprising that affairs and substance abuse are at an all-time high.
One last point: in previous generations, certain diseases either didn’t exist or weren’t nearly so common. If a man had an affair (and I say man, but of course women had affairs too) he could be reasonably certain that unless he was with a prostitute or a woman who slept around a LOT, he wouldn’t bring home a VD to his wife. Syphilis and gonorrhea and, I think, chlamydia did exist, but they weren’t very common. Genital warts were fairly rare. I’m not sure about HPV, but HIV didn’t exist. Now, if a spouse has reasonable suspicion that the other spouse is sleeping around or engaging in certain types of drug use, they have a responsibility to themselves to at a bare minimum not sleep with the other spouse again until the erring spouse is tested and has repented. No one can reasonably expect an innocent spouse to risk contracting HIV, much less the myriad of other, less deadly diseases. Throw in the fact that a lot more spouses ARE sleeping around, and you have yet another layer to this problem. Finally, if the erring spouse is bringing drugs into the home, the home can be seized and auctioned by the police as part of a drug raid. The innocent spouse has every right to protect family assets by separating from a spouse who is bringing that kind of thing into the home.
Is this an ideal situation? Certainly not. Ignoring it, however, will not make it go away.
