Marriage and Divorce Response

One of the blogs I follow had a posting about divorce. The blog quoted a book that gave the six main reasons for divorce.
One, "Our problems have lasted so long, it is too late to change."
Two, "My husband can’t communicate."
Three, "My wife nags all the time."
Four, "We’ve grown apart."
Five, "My spouse had an affair, the marriage can’t work."
Six, "I don’t love him/her anymore."

I wrote a comment in answer to this. My comment was "It takes two to make a marriage work." Others sent in comments that physical and substance abuse are reasons for divorce.

I don't know the person who wrote the book but I do know people don't need to be making judgments on why people divorce unless they have intimate knowledge of marriages that have failed. It's hard for a person who has had a long, happy marriage to imagine not being able to work out problems. As I said earlier: It takes two.

I won't go into all the reasons my first 20 year marriage ended in divorce, but I'll say this. We saw a marriage counselor whose only suggestion was that we should have sex more often. She went into great detail on what I should do to make this happen. Believe me, sex wasn't the only problem we had. Without love, affection, loyalty and respect sex is pretty meaningless.

Breaking up a marriage covenant is hard enough, but having to sit under the judgment of Christians is even more difficult. Some women came to see me and "in love" told me God wanted them to tell me I was under Satan's spell. If I hadn't been certain of my decision, their words could have knocked me off my feet. In the fundamental church we now attend there are many divorced and remarried couples. I don't think the stigma is as great as it used to be.

I'm all for keeping marriages together but when a man and woman are toxic together health can be destroyed, the children suffer and a person's faith can falter. I thought I had to be married all my life to this man. That belief took the hope out of me and I came very close to suicide.

God always has the answer. He saw my pain and he saw the future. With all my heart I believe he was all right with the divorce. If divorce is a sin, then that sin is under Jesus' blood just like all the rest of them. And the Church shouldn't try to take God's place and judge what they don't know.