Thoughts on 53% Divorce Rate?

[phil19034]

I think a better vow is to keep your family together if you choose to have children, at least until the children are grown.

But the problem is the culture (esp Hollywood) keeps telling people that you don’t have to stay together for the kids.

If someone marries the wrong person and has kids, the parents should always do what’s best for the kids.

If that means suck it up until the kids are adults before getting a divorce, then that’s what they should do.

Or if that means that it’s better to separate to protect the kids, then they should do that.

But the major issue I see with divorce today, is the number of parents who divorce for their own happiness with the notion that the kids will have to deal with it.

And truth be told, parents getting a divorce can also be very hard on adult children too.

 

[QwertyGirl]

I agree with everything you said.

 

[Xantippe]

But the problem is the culture (esp Hollywood) keeps telling people that you don’t have to stay together for the kids.

If someone marries the wrong person and has kids, the parents should always do what’s best for the kids.

If that means suck it up until the kids are adults before getting a divorce, then that’s what they should do.

Or if that means that it’s better to separate to protect the kids, then they should do that.

But the major issue I see with divorce today, is the number of parents who divorce for their own happiness with the notion that the kids will have to deal with it.

And truth be told, parents getting a divorce can also be very hard on adult children too.

I suspect that people who divorce and selfishly choose their own pleasure over their children’s welfare probably wouldn’t be that selfless within marriage.

 

[eann]

I agree. Most folks like the concept of stability. You can’t get more stable than a happy, healthy marriage. It is the brass ring most hope for.

Yes…and it is also a lot more work than anyone imagined it would be. To have a happy, healthy, stable marriage requires sacrifice. Sacrifice does not always make you happy, but if both man and wife do not make sacrifices for the other, the marriage disintegrates.

 

[Xantippe]

I appreciate you sharing these thoughts @Xantippe it’s good to read someone who can talk about marriage in a sensible and insightful way. God bless your family

P.S. I really waste too much money on needless luxuries…I need to focus on my savings.

That’s very sweet!

It is a balance to figure out how to have both a nice today and a nice tomorrow. You get that same conflict as a parent of expensive older children, too–on the one hand, having more savings to help with college/young adult expenses will smooth their way when they’re older–but on the other hand, if we don’t do fun things with them as a family now, when will we do them?

 

[BlackFriar]

I don’t think that’s correct on the level of couples. I fully believe that good individuals have had marriages founder due to factors they “were largely helpless to control” (their ex-spouse being a serial cheater, pedophile, homosexual, asexual, out of control spender, out of control bipolar, narcissist, high functioning autistic in denial, etc.) or that individuals have marriage-destroying personal flaws through little fault of their own, but I don’t really believe that there’s an epidemic of divorce among couples with no serious problems.

I understand your view but thus far you have nothing other than your own authority to back it up.
I on the otherhand at least have statistical evidence (regardless of whether we quibble of +/- percentage points) and the views of the Magisterium that we are in a field hospital situation re divorce and remarriage which is why there is such great pressure to change the rules so that otherwise good irregular Catholics are not lost from her ranks.

The “couples” I refer to are the irregular ones, each of whom may have come from a situation you describe. Nor do I rule out the plausible observation that fragile boats that would not have sunk in times past are regularly sinking now. Fragile does not mean “bad”, it just means “weak”. Many marriages of basically good couples in the past started off weakly but with Church and parental support they eventually rooted, strengthened and blossomed. That is much more difficult nowadays. I do not understand why you would deny this.

I don’t believe in divorces that happen for no particular reason any more than I believe in airline crashes happening for no particular reason.

I didn’t say there isn’t a reason. Like any failure the issue is how much is personal (the pilot) and how much is systemic (all the rest of the plane support infrastructure outside of the pilot’s control).

No, it’s not.

Well produce reputable, non-partisan mainline stats please sir. The allegedly Catholic favourable stats I see to date are highly questionable, incomplete and self-serving.

You’re talking as though divorce is something largely random like Zika or flu, but it’s not.

Again, produce your incontrovertible evidence sir.

Divorce doesn’t just happen out of the blue to helpless victims.

Well you are certainly entitled to your hypothesis that protects a certain type of aging Catholic world-view. But demonstrating that is actually the case is entirely another matter that requires more than personal assertions.

 

[pnewton]

Since when are insults considered justice? For all the complaints about one person, I have found more name-calling toward him than from him, much less the threat you gave above.

insinuations about the likelihood of failure are more than rude enough.

The problem with insinuations is that they may are may not truly exist. As oft as not, they are in the eye of the beholder. It is no insult, but a statistic that the average marriage that ends in divorce lasts eight years.

 

[pnewton]

Divorce doesn’t just happen out of the blue to helpless victims.

I know it is not random, but I do think couples should take a hint from St. Paul. If anyone thing he is standing, let he take heed less he fall. It is a short step from confidence, to over-confidence, and then to complacency.

Divorce is not physical like a virus, but it can come from without and attack us like a virus. Satan like a roaring lion roams about seeking who to devour.

 

[Xantippe]

[Pierre Bourdieu is the foremost author on this.]

Oh, man!

I did not expect to see Bourdieu mentioned on CAF!

(I once had to read a book of his for a graduate seminar–I believe it was “Outline of a Theory of Practice”.)

 

[Xantippe]

I understand your view but thus far you have nothing other than your own authority to back it up.

I on the otherhand at least have statistical evidence (regardless of whether we quibble of +/- percentage points) and the views of the Magisterium that we are in a field hospital situation re divorce and remarriage which is why there is such great pressure to change the rules so that otherwise good irregular Catholics are not lost from her ranks.

I think you’re misunderstanding me. What I mean is that when there’s a trainwreck of a bad marriage, followed by a solid second marriage, I don’t think that the initial trainwreck is some sort of fluke.

The way you talk, it’s all very random. On the other hand, I’m a lot more interested in identifying obstacles to a happy married life and identifying patterns that correlate with either good or bad marriages.

Nor do I rule out the plausible observation that fragile boats that would not have sunk in times past are regularly sinking now. Fragile does not mean “bad”, it just means “weak”. Many marriages of basically good couples in the past started off weakly but with Church and parental support they eventually rooted, strengthened and blossomed. That is much more difficult nowadays. I do not understand why you would deny this.

I don’t deny it–but at the same time, it is also true that spouses used to be much freer to give each other hell or get away with behaving badly in a great variety of different ways.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my (now deceased) Protestant relatives was quite abusive. His wife wanted to leave with their five children back in the 1950s (or thereabouts) but her family would not take her and the children in, because her father feared that the children would be stigmatized if they were fatherless. It later turned out that my abusive deceased relative had been molesting his two daughters and he eventually molested at least three granddaughters.

It would be much harder to get away with that today, or at least not for that long.

One of my aunties by marriage on that side of the family had a similar story from the late 1960s or early 1970s. She told everybody (mom, teachers, Protestant church) that she was being molested by her father–but nobody would help her.

Theoretically, both marriages in these two stories “rooted, strengthened and blossomed”–but in actuality, they were profoundly diseased, given that the husband in both cases was a sexual predator.

Well you are certainly entitled to your hypothesis that protects a certain type of aging Catholic world-view. But demonstrating that is actually the case is entirely another matter that requires more than personal assertions.

Lawdamercy–I am not advancing some sort of “aging Catholic world-view.”

 

[Xantippe]

I know it is not random, but I do think couples should take a hint from St. Paul. If anyone thing he is standing, let he take heed less he fall. It is a short step from confidence, to over-confidence, and then to complacency.

Divorce is not physical like a virus, but it can come from without and attack us like a virus. Satan like a roaring lion roams about seeking who to devour.

I just don’t buy that–although I do realize that it takes two people to make a happy marriage, and only one to make an unhappy marriage.

I also don’t buy the idea that affairs “just happen.”

 

[brian_custer]

this thread has gone completely off the rails

i may’ve been responsible for it

for that i am sorry…

humble-bragging

outright bragging

meaningless personal anecdotes

class warfare

moderation threats

this thread is CAF at its worst…

 

[AlNg]

Jesus said, to believers, DON’T marry - a person who’s been divorced. Period

True. But Catholics in the USA who seek an annulment have to get a divorce first before the tribunal will consider the annulment. And for Catholics, the marriage annulment rate has shot up drastically among Catholics since Vatican II.

 

[pnewton]

I also don’t buy the idea that affairs “just happen.”

Neither do I, but then that is not what I said. Our ancient foe is very devious and has been working at destroying marriages from the first.

 

[Edmundus1581]

QwertyGirl:

I think a better vow is to keep your family together if you choose to have children, at least until the children are grown.

But the problem is the culture (esp Hollywood) keeps telling people that you don’t have to stay together for the kids.

If someone marries the wrong person and has kids, the parents should always do what’s best for the kids.

If that means suck it up until the kids are adults before getting a divorce, then that’s what they should do.

Or if that means that it’s better to separate to protect the kids, then they should do that.

But the major issue I see with divorce today, is the number of parents who divorce for their own happiness with the notion that the kids will have to deal with it.

Most divorces are initiated by women, and society, particularly feminism, tells a woman that she should think only about what she wants. Not about her marriage vows, not about the children, and especially not about her husband.

She will even be told that it would be wrong to stay together for the sake of the children.

She will be told that if she’s happier then she will be a better mother.

I’ve heard this word for word from my ex-wife, from her supporters (family and psycholgists) when she left me, and from numerous friends and people in the media over the years.

I’ve also seen the effect on children of divorce and it would be hard to see how staying together could be worse.

In the time of my marriage (80’s and 90’s) women were being told to expect more from their husbands; that husbands should be sensitive, loving, romantic, equally involved with the housework and children, etc. They were told to “keep the romance alive”, while working themselves into the ground to provide, often for her expensive tastes. So, when eventually she became bored the wife was able to list all the ways her husband was failing her, and say it with a straight face because society said that all this was required of him.

These days we’ve added the message that all men are violent and abusive, and, once again, men are apologising and letting themselves be blamed, and women, where previously they saw a “lack of attention to my needs”, are now seeing “domestic violence” and the ideal reason to leave, with the whole world cheering them on.

The only thing that hasn’t changed is that women still marry men with promising careers and reliable character and expect them to provide for her and their (“her”) children.

Yes, I have seen men do it too - leave when they are bored or find someone more exciting, but when they do they pay the cost of losing their children and most of their assets. Women don’t face that hard choice.

One of the great deceptions in discussions of family “breakdown” is the assumption that the relationship is the problem and that both parties are sincere in working to preserve it and to care for the children. The reality is that all too frequently it is simply a matter of one partner choosing to leave. The commandment is “Thou shalt not commit adultery” not “Make each other happy”.

 

[BlackFriar]

The commandment is “Thou shalt not commit adultery” not “Make each other happy”.

I think a good Scriptural case could be made for reversing your priorities - at least for those under the New Covenant.

Not breaking one’s marriage vows is still well removed from actually fulfilling them.
Women tend to understand this, men perhaps not so much.

 

[BlackFriar]

I must have missed the moderation threats .
Couldn’t find any here.

 

[AlNg]

I’ve also seen the effect on children of divorce and it would be hard to see how staying together could be worse.

Very true. This is why I don’t understand why the Catholic Church allows so many annulments currently, whereas in the past, previous Vatican II era, very few annulments were allowed. And in order to get an annulment, the couple first has to get a civil divorce. So although many Catholics (except for Cardinal Kasper) say that an annulment is not a divorce, it still is required to get a civil divorce before your annulment petition will be heard.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

The problem with insinuations is that they may are may not truly exist. As oft as not, they are in the eye of the beholder. It is no insult, but a statistic that the average marriage that ends in divorce lasts eight years.

Statistical analysis is very different form the misguided applicaiton of statistics, which is what BlackFriar was doing.

 

[Elizabeth3]

This is why I don’t understand why the Catholic Church allows so many annulments currently, whereas in the past, previous Vatican II era, very few annulments were allowed. And in order to get an annulment, the couple first has to get a civil divorce. So although many Catholics (except for Cardinal Kasper) say that an annulment is not a divorce, it still is required to get a civil divorce before your annulment petition will be heard.

The Church has broadened it’s understanding of what constitutes marriage. Before, under the old Code of Canon law consent involved a contract to “consent to sexual intercourse.” If that never happened after marriage, which was rare, annulment was granted. Under the new Code, marriage is seen as a covenant rather than a contract and consent is understood as both partners having full understanding that marriage is both for the procreation of children and a partnership of their whole life. Things like mental capacity to consent, ability to judge matrimonial rights and obligations, not being under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time, etc are all considered now as part of consent.

A full explanation can be found here

Marriage and Annulment - Canon Law Made EasyCanon Law Made Easy

As far as requiring divorce before annulment, it’s because people aren’t just canonically married but also civilly married. If the Church would annul the marriage of a couple who has not been civilly divorced, she is telling the couple they are free to marry, but civilly this is not true because there are laws against bigamy and they are not free to marry someone else so there would be a dispute between Church and State.

Fuller explanation here

Why is the Marriage Tribunal Insisting I First Need a Divorce?

Q: My sister wants an annulment so she can remarry in the Church. But when she began asking questions about how to go about it, she was immediately told that she can’t get an annulment unless she …

canonlawmadeeasy.com