Greetings to you as well! Perhaps there are some people who don’t get divorced for selfish reasons (those involving abuse of themselves or their children are the obvious cases), but in my experience, that’s often not the case. More likely people don’t want to work out the problems, or don’t believe the other person will work out their problems, and decide that the effort is not worth the possible goal.

Is it possible for people to change and grow, and for that to be the reason why people get a divorce? Sure it is, but part of the problem I have is that some people don’t take marriage very seriously to begin with.

I’ll give you an example: Let’s say I get involved with someone for whatever reason. We stay together, and I think she’s worthy of marriage. So we send out invitations to all our friends and family. We ask people to be in our wedding party, which means they have to buy the tux or dress. They make travel arrangements, spend money, buy gifts and do all the stuff people do when someone they know gets married. We want them to support our decision, and be happy for us that day. We pledge our love and say our vows, and make a promise to everyone there that this is a good idea, and their expense was worth it.

Then after all that’s over, we get into reality, and suddenly its not what we thought. So now, all those friends supporting us doesn’t matter anymore. The expense, the gifts, the support…doesn’t really matter, because now we made a bad choice and we have to get out because it doesn’t feel good anymore, or it wasn’t what we envisioned it would be.

Then we find a new relationship, start all over, and invite the same people, hoping that they won’t call us out on being a fraud.

My point is that marriage is something that should be taken seriously, even before the vows are taken (this would probably affect the divorce rate dramatically). My main issue is that people are far too quick to get a divorce when things don’t “feel good” anymore. Even after long consideration and reflection, many people will find reasons to support their feelings for leaving, and not vice versa.

Love is a state of being, but that state can be influenced by our Thoughts and Emotions, and that makes a big difference.

Sorry about the long response, but I wanted to make sure I gave it some thought and consideration. Thank you for the very thoughtful comment, and giving your point of view. Best Regards!

Excact ! Love is not an emotion but then tell also the WHOLE truth: Love is a state of being.
People are not selfish or avoiding responsability when they want to divorce. Of course it can be but why would you directly think of something negative and shut down the other possibilities? It’s not the quantity of years of a marriage that will tell us if it was a succes. If you want to divorce and change and grow and this is decided with great awareness and respect then this act could be more ‘loving’ then staying together (even for the children). I did’t read this nuance on your web-site. Greetings

“Each person has to decide that they’re going to make it work no matter what.” That means that both you and your husband have to be willing to work on the stuff that’s driving you nuts. Additionally, you have to be willing to believe that the person can or will change, and vice versa. If you have two rigid people that refuse to listen or change, then you have two people that will either leave or stick it out miserably.

It doesn’t have to be miserable, but as a client of mine once said, “he who is flexible shall not be bent out of shape.”

Feelings are important too and those should be communicated with a plan for change. To quote Pastor Will Bard, “If you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”

OK, I’ll stop with the quotes now. Thanks for weighing in, as I’m sure there are others who feel this way.

It really does astound me how selfish people can be. Maybe that’s not a PC thing to say, but at this point, I really don’t care. I think the infatuation blinds us from the responsibility that comes with relationships and creating human beings.