I’m doing something that I haven’t ever done before – reposting something I have previously put up.
I’m doing it for a few reasons:
Firstly, it was a fairly well received post, secondly it makes more sense to have it here at the father blog than my other blog.
But the main reason I’m doing it now is – Earlier this week I commented (with a link to the previous post) over at Stuff Christians Like and lots of people have come from that post. Several of them have written out their divorce and almost divorce stories. They are quite interesting. I recommend you go over and look at it.
Here is the post. But please know that it is not my intention to judge people who have divorces in their history.
===
I’ve got a few years before I put this in play, but I am thinking about something I’m going to start telling my kids in their teen-age years (i.e. before they start Dating/Courting).
It would go something like this:
Asking someone to marry you, or saying ‘Yes’ to a proposal is a pretty big step, and a pretty strong commitment, but during your engagement period, even if it’s the day before your wedding, we will support you if you really want to break off marriage plans.
We might encourage you to rethink your decision, and suggest that maybe you are just getting cold feet, but if in the end you don’t want to get married to this person, for whatever reason, we will support this decision.
But (and here is the main point), once you get married, if things go bad, we will not support your decision to divorce your spouse, except for extremely extreme reasons*. We will encourage you in a hard marriage, we will protect you in a dangerous marriage, we might encourage temporary separation, we will pray for your marriage and we will hold you and cry with you. But we will not say that it is okay for you to end the marriage.
So it will not be grounds for divorce (from the perspective of our family) if you feel like your spouse doesn’t love you anymore, or isn’t really a Christian, or is abusive, or is a workaholic, or really bad with finances or lazy or mean or whatever.
(Again, I would tell them this before they find The One, so they don’t think it’s about that person.)
What do you think? Too harsh?
I feel like I want to get them to agree in writing that we are reasonable in saying this. But that may be a little over the top.
*The big question is, what would be the extremely extreme reasons. Severe Physical abuse? Only unfaithfulness? Pastor John wouldn’t even agree to that as a reason for divorce.
Responsible Father 
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 9, 2010 at 9:51 am
Susan Taylor
Interesting post. We just celebrated our 25th anniversary, and are planning to stay married for the duration. Having been privy to a sibling who made a bad marriage decision and the total snafu that occurred when said sibling was planning to marry, it occurs to me that the lack of support from the parents was not helpful at all.
I like the idea you are putting forth — make the decision to break it off BEFORE the wedding, not after. But if I imagine having a child in a situation where they have made a bad decision, I’m not sure that it’s nearly as important what I think about the situation, as it is what the child thinks about it. Once the child is old enough to make the decision to get married, I would think I need to become hands-off.
What are you saying? That if a child called and said they need a place to stay because they are leaving hubby, you would say no? In theory, I think I love your idea — once you say “I do,” then you do. I don’t think it’s too harsh, but I just don’t think that an adult making the decision to divorce needs their parent’s permission or approval to divorce. And, from watching the same sibling get divorced 18 years after the unfortunate decision to marry the man, she made the decision without the blessing of her parents.
I love it that you will support your child through every situation. That is as it should be. Very interesting post. Thanks for posting.
February 9, 2010 at 11:48 am
jamsco
Thanks for your comments, Susan.
No, we would certainly not turn them down if they needed a place to stay. I should have been more over, but that’s what I meant with “we might encourage temporary separation, we will pray for your marriage and we will hold you and cry with you”.
I am in full agreement that it is the person’s decision. What I’m trying to avoid is surprise on the part of the adult child’s part when you let them know that you don’t think divorce is the right choice.
February 9, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Susan Taylor
I think I think that when parents live out the value of staying together through thick and thin, the kid wanting to divorce would not be surprised his/her parents don’t think it is the right choice. But it certainly would not hurt to state it explicitly. Good thought-provoking post.