A large number of people who have divorced, often say they would have made different choices if they had prior knowledge of the real cost of divorce to their lives. RIC BENSON looks at the issues when considering a divorce.

When Peter came to see me to discuss his marriage, it soon became clear that his marriage was in poor shape. Years of neglect of his wife and family (due to aggressively pursuing business interests and the material pleasures success would provide), several casual affairs (due to poor boundary-setting with female colleagues and staff), great doubt about his own self worth, future direction, and sexual virility, and an overwhelming need for intimacy, all created in Peter a false view that his only path to happiness and peace, was divorce!

After telling his tragic story and stating strongly he wanted my help to divorce, it stunned Peter when I suggested that other options should first be considered. -The cost of divorce is too high a price to pay for a failing marriage. Peter’s expression of disbelief and his desperate openness, allowed me the opportunity to explain the high cost of divorce and the alternatives that he should consider before heading down that path. The following is a brief summary of that explanation to Peter.

Divorce is painful for all involved whether it is the one who makes the decision to leave, their partner, the children caught in the middle, the extended family, or friends. Sadly, it is the children who are most often affected, and they have little or no say in the decision or the process that follows. A large number of people who have divorced, when looking back, often say they would have made different choices if they had prior knowledge of the cost of divorce to their lives. It is therefore essential to think very carefully about the full implications of divorce before such a serious step is taken. Even if divorce is still pursued, such deliberations will prepare those involved for what will happen, especially to the children.

When marriage becomes rocky, it is understandable that divorce may seem to be the solution to the current problems and the way to minimize the associated pain. Sadly, it is not well recognized that problems and pain can actually increase after divorce. Two common examples of this are:

• A new relationship formed by a divorced person to alleviate loneliness and provide intimacy can often founder, because the personal issues that led to the prior divorce remain unresolved. The divorced person then finds themselves in another rocky relationship. This is substantiated by the fact that first marriage failure rate is 42% and second marriage failure rate is over 70%.
• It is assumed that divorce will end the painful exchanges of the marriage, when often the exchanges are exacerbated due to unresolved matters of supervision of children, property settlement, relationships with family and friends, and the additional pain associated with the actual divorce proceedings. When young children are involved, the ongoing tensions of supervision and visitation rights can be difficult, frustrating and painful, and can last for years.

The material and personal costs of divorce to parents and children may be far greater than the perceived benefits, so it pays to look carefully at all the issues before making your decision. It should also be noted that the work required to amicably divorce is usually the same work required to restore a marriage. When such work is done in order to ensure that divorce actually solves problems and minimizes pain, the couple no longer need to divorce, but are then ready to resume their marriage on a whole new level, with the potential of having the relationship they actually wanted.

More often than not the problems faced in marriage are symptomatic of the unresolved personal issues and immaturity in the lives of the marriage partners. It has been wisely said that marriage was never intended for our happiness but rather to assist us to grow up and mature. When we grow up and mature we then will find happiness in our marriage relationship. The Bible tells us that a mature person will exhibit qualities such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It also tells us that love is patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not proud. Love is not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered, and does not keep a record of rights and wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth, it protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres. Love never fails. All of us would love to have a partner in marriage who exhibited these qualities in great measure. The questions we need to ask of ourselves are: “Have I exhibited such qualities in my marriage that would entitle me to receive them from my partner?” and “If I were to exhibit such qualities, what would my partner’s response be to me?”

Important issues for reflection that flow on from these considerations would include:

• Why is my marriage relationship unsatisfactory?
• What is the real problem I face and how does divorce solve the problem?
• Why do I really want to divorce?
• Is what I want, coming before my responsibility to support and nurture my partner and children?
• Is what I expect from my partner and children reasonable or idealistic?
• Whether my situation is better addressed by an injection of energy or change into the marriage that has been left to drift, or by divorcing to regain intimacy?
• Whether I have seriously tried all the remedies to make my failing or rocky marriage work, including serious counselling?
• Whether I can honestly say that I have given my marriage my “best shot”?

Children are often the last to be considered by parents situated in a painful and or failing marriage. This is due to the way in which personal pain so often causes self focus and preoccupation often to the exclusion of even the children’s needs. Children feel insecure and powerless when a marriage breaks up, even when they are older. Think about what divorce will mean for them.

• Their security will be undermined.
• Their confidence in marriage will be weakened.
• They will not have both parents involved in the daily responsibility for their care.
• They may have to live in different homes.
• They may have to move away from the area, their school and friends.
• They may have to make new friends.
• They may have to adjust to parents’ new partners or get used to being in a single-parent home.
• They may have to share a room with another sibling even from another family.
• They may have to live at a lower socio-economic level than before.
• They may have to struggle with the grief and loss of their family.
• They may have to be exposed to ongoing argument and manipulation by one or other of the parents as they are subject to supervision and visitation requirements laid down by the Family Court.

Too few people count the cost of divorce. Any life-changing decision has a price tag, and the one for divorce is high. Too often the focus is on removal or limiting pain associated with a failing relationship, without facing the fact that divorce will introduce even more pain in many cases. Have you thought about what it will mean for you as a parent. Consider the following issues:

• How much you will miss your children when they are not with you.
• How difficult it can be to share parenting responsibilities such as transport to and from school, and holiday arrangements.
• How awkward it will be for to help your children stay in touch with all their relatives, particularly grandparents.
• How sad and lost you may feel in not being able to be part of your child’s everyday life experiences.
• How hard it will be to see someone else taking your place in the home.

It is easy to take your present family income for granted. It is often not until after your divorce and “property settlement” that you discover just what this means to you financially.  So often property and facilities have to be duplicated when separation and divorce take place. Consider these:

• Where you will live and where your children will live.
• How much money will be left after the property settlement, legal costs and child maintenance payments are made.
• Whether you will be able to buy another home if you leave the current one.
• The cost of another set of household goods or car.
• How to get used to a different income, especially if you have gone from a two income to a single income household.

It is not always possible to predict how friends will respond to a marriage breakup.  It can be difficult for them to stay friends with both partners.  Often friends refuse to take sides and so they in reality divorce the couple and friendships can die. Here are some issues to consider:

• You may lose many friendships.
• Some of your friends may not approve or will not be able to handle the breakup.
• Your social circle may break up so that you might have to begin making a new set of friends.
• Often single people don’t get invited out with couples.
• It may be difficult to find a new partner.
• It can be lonely without your regular partner.
• It can be difficult for friends to accept your new partner.

Difficulties with a new relationship

Forming a new partnership can be exciting and wonderful, but it can also have difficulties. Many people do not properly consider these difficulties. Have you considered these:

• Your partner may not accept your children.
• You children may not like your new partner.
• Your new partner may resent the time and money you spend on your children.
• You may not like your new partner’s children.
• Your ex-partner may damage your new relationship and the relationship you have with your children.
• How will you feel when your ex-partner forms a new relationship and another person becomes involved in parenting your children?
• You may find it difficult getting used to another person’s way of doing the everyday things in life that you, your ex-partner and children got so used to.
• The same old problems will reappear if you haven’t sorted out what went wrong in your first marriage?

If you have thought carefully about what divorce is likely to do to you, your partner and especially your children and you still decide this is the best way to go, try to remember the following:

• Your children still need you, often more so.
• Your responsibilities to them will continue.
• Looking after yourself is important and you will need lots of support as you adjust to the new lifestyle.
• It can take a long time (sometimes years) to truly get over the breakup of your marriage … some people never do, and some carry the scars with them into their new relationships.
• Everyone has the right not to be abused and to leave a situation where abuse is happening.
• The grass isn’t always greener.
• Remember you are still your child’s mum or dad after you get divorced.
• Divorce can be at a great cost to all, both emotionally and financially.
• Have you given your marriage your “best shot”?
• If divorce is the right answer for you, think through all the issues so that you will be prepared and better able to cope.
• Children cope best if their parents can work together to avoid conflict and make the best decisions in the interests of their children.
• No-one is expected to put up with abuse. 

When the couple want to give it another go? 

Many people, after having weighed up the cost of divorce through asking and answering some or all of the questions posed above, decide that they will not divorce, but will attempt to rebuild their marriage. The following should be kept in mind.

• It is possible to rebuild a marriage if the past hurts are overcome through forgiveness, reconciliation, learning new skills, and demonstrating over time that the marriage is trustworthy and can provide an increasing level of satisfaction, security and happiness
• The previous marriage did not work, so new methods, approaches and new skills must be adopted. To expect to improve a marriage without significant change is only a dream that will ultimately turn into another nightmare.
• You build a marriage again by not making any assumptions, taking any liberties, demanding any rights, forcing a time-frame for resumption of living together if separated, too quickly resuming sexual relations, or hanging onto dysfunctional behaviours of the past. Assume personal responsibility for yourself and offer to your partner the best you can give. Allow some time for adjustment and change to be demonstrated.
• Seek competent counselling from a person you both can trust and respect. Do not allow inexperienced people, albeit well meaning, to play with your life and marriage.
• The greatest danger is, once having decided to resume the marriage, one or other of the partners assumes that all they need to do is to resume where they left off, rather than go through the tedious process of re-courting each other and deeply discussing in a non-argumentative or avoiding way, the issues that led to the marriage failure. A great deal of effort needs to be put into both partners resetting appropriate boundaries for their lives, and their partner accepting these boundaries as a mark of respect.
• There is a great need to have a spiritual centre to life, which is external to one-self, and so not subject to the foibles and the failings associated with that life. That centre will become their God. There is no greater asset available to any couple than the power and presence of the Living God as revealed in Jesus Christ, for He is our Creator, and He is the author of marriage.

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges that this article draws material in part from Thinking Divorce? Published by Child and Youth Health and the Office of Families and Children, Government of South Australia, (1996).

Think about the costs before considering divorce:

1. It can lead to increased pain as divorce often does not solve one’s problems.  This is because personal issues that lead to the divorce can remain unresolved and taken into a new relationship.
2. Failure rate of first marriages is 42% and second marriages over 70%.
3. The pain of a marriage can be exacerbated by the pain of divorce proceedings, property settlement, financial pressures and ongoing tensions of child custody, visitations and relationships with family and friends.
4. Think about how divorce will affect your children, your roles as parents, your finances and your friendships.
5. Consider the difficulties with new relationships, particularly when children are involved.

Give your marriage its best shot:

1. The work required to amicably divorce is usually the same required to restore a marriage.
2. The situation may be better addressed by an injection of energy and change into the marriage.  Try all remedies including serious counselling and ensure that your marriage is given its best shot.
3. Marriages can be rebuilt through facing up to the issues that led to the failure, forgiveness, competent counselling, adopting new approaches and learning new skills.

When divorce is the only way:

1. Recognise that you need to look after yourself more than ever and that if you have children, they will need you more than ever.

Ric Benson – Senior Pastor, KBC

Edward Gifford – Editor, Men Today Magazine