Part 1 (1/2)
Stop Your Divorce and Save Your Marriage!
Introduction.
If you saw the emotional turmoil portrayed in the movies War of the Roses and Kramer vs. Kramer, you'd probably think twice about divorce. Unhappy individuals who believe that ending their marriage would make them happier are often living a myth.
Chances are that they've attributed the failure of the marriage to their spouse, dispensing with self-examination.
Blaming the other instead of oneself becomes the favorite pastime, the most convenient means to walk away.
By failing to accept their own frailties, and not realizing that they've entered the marriage with unreasonable demands and unrealistic expectations, they unconsciously released the forces leading to a potential separation.
There's also the phenomenon of short memories. For some reason, the same individuals who vowed to support each other during their time of wedded bliss have forgotten their commitment and vows to love each other through thick and thin.
Our modern society has indeed become a disposable society.
4.This is what Alvin Toffler had predicted almost two decades ago. This state of ”disposableness” is reflected in our ability to DELETE and PURGE and SHRED what we no longer need.
And when our once beloved partner is no longer of use to us, we call our lawyer and instruct him/her to initiate divorce proceedings.
Funny, but despite its harrowing and complex web, divorce has also become just a phone call away, a ”to go” solution that we can pick up on the way to cleaner's.
Truth is, is that divorce has an ugly side to it ugly side to it. It's the easy way out for people who have not an ounce of courage to salvage what deserves to be salvaged.
Divorce un-builds un-builds and and undoes undoes what took years to nurture, and sadly, often the only people who benefit from it are greedy lawyers who will use every trick in the book to divest the other of a.s.sets, until no remnant of the person's investment physical, monetary and emotional remains. what took years to nurture, and sadly, often the only people who benefit from it are greedy lawyers who will use every trick in the book to divest the other of a.s.sets, until no remnant of the person's investment physical, monetary and emotional remains.
While divorcing couples spend their mental energies accusing the other of causing hurt and disharmony in the union, they forget that the children suffer in double triple 5 dosages. Couples forget that the sentiments of children are more fragile and harder to mend. This is when the concept of human selfishness and self-centredness become transparent. It's odd how the true character of people comes out when they're the actors in a divorce.
The determination not to be swayed by the lows and downs of a relations.h.i.+p mirrors strength and integrity, not to mention the ability to see beyond one's personal unhappiness. And by saving the marriage, more than one human being is saved.
This is the essence of this ebook in your hands right now; perhaps the most important that you'll ever read.
The Unpleasant Side of Divorce Getting married is entering into a contract - but it's probably the one contract that is the easiest to break because divorce has made it easy for husband and wife to walk out when they go through an unhappy period in their life, albeit 6 temporary.
John Crouch, Executive Director of Americans for Divorce Reform, says that the most important economic contract of our lives marriage is no longer legally protected.
Just think lawyers will fight tooth and nail tooth and nail to protect corporations in their contract relations or between you and your landlord, your mechanic and your doctor, but can't prevent you from breaking up with your spouse. In fact, they would even counsel you to break up your marriage and then discuss division of property as the next logical step. to protect corporations in their contract relations or between you and your landlord, your mechanic and your doctor, but can't prevent you from breaking up with your spouse. In fact, they would even counsel you to break up your marriage and then discuss division of property as the next logical step.
Crouch says that marriage is the only contract that anyone can break, at any time, and not be held responsible for it.
”So getting married in America is like doing business in Russia. Everything is up for grabs, everything is constantly renegotiated, and n.o.body has to keep their word. I think that makes for a lot of unhappy marriages. ”1 ”1 1 John Crouch, Executive Director. Americans for Divorce Reform, Arlington, Virginia.
7.The Dollar Costs of Divorce From a cost perspective, divorce can be economically damaging not only for the state but also for couples.
Consider these figures: - US divorces cost the country $33 billion annually or $312.00 per household; - The average divorce in America costs state and federal governments $30,000 in direct and indirect costs. Direct costs to the state include child support enforcement, Medicaid payments, temporary a.s.sistance to needy families fund (TANF), food stamps and public housing a.s.sistance.2 - To the couple, divorce costs about $18,000 and this would include lost work productivity, relocation costs and legal fees that vary immensely, depending on the nature of the divorce and the situation of the couple.3 2 David G. Schramm, Utah State University, USA.
3 David G. Schramm 8.The Emotional Costs of Divorce And what about the argument that divorce makes people happier after they leave a sad marriage?
Studies appear to suggest that this is a myth, because evidence points to the contrary. According to the Inst.i.tute of American Values, when divorced couples were rated with couples who stayed married on 12 parameters of psychological well-being, it was discovered that on average, couples who divorced were no happier five years after the divorce than were equally unhappily married couples who stayed together.4 There are other reasons why divorced individuals don't end up happier: *
Depression symptoms do not necessarily diminish with divorce, nor did divorce raise people's self-esteem; *
Unhappy marriages were less common than unhappy spouses; 4 Katherine Heine, c.o.x News Service, Nov. 2005 (e up with arguments to justify getting into World War III, and they drag out the paper work.
For divorcing couples who become emotionally and financially spent, is the courtroom drama really all that worth it? Couldn't couples just talk about their differences without third parties who are in it to line their pockets?
Painless Divorce?
Many lawyers, and those who care to admit it, agree: a painless divorce, like painless dentistry, is non-existent.
And the trauma legal or emotional continues to be felt long after divorcing couples have left the courts.
5 Katherine Heine.
10.Explaining why divorce costs time, energy and money, a lawyer from the law offices of E. Carroll Strauss had this to say: ”And whether we notice it or not... marriage is way more like ”Joe and Wilma, Inc.” than ”happily ever after.” When we say ”I do” we then enter into an economic partners.h.i.+p. We buy cars, houses, books, big-screen TVs. We make babies.
We make plans. We make a.s.sumptions. We get disappointed...Like shareholders, we have invested in the partners.h.i.+p. We invest time, we invest money and we invest emotions. We invest all of these in hopes, and we invest all these things in dreams, and we invest all of these in security. Rare is the man or woman who can walk away from these investments... so de-investing is painful.”
Divorce and Children 11.A specialist in human development and family studies from the University of Missouri discussed the impact of divorce on children, mentioning that how they react strongly and differently to their divorcing parents depends on their age.
- I nfants : higher degree of irritability, more crying and fussing, changes in sleeping and eating habits.
- T oddlers : they recognize the fact that one parent is no longer living at home, they have a difficult time physically separating from a parent, may express anger, may lose some skills previously acquired like toilet training, going back to thumb-sucking, experience changes in sleeping patterns, may have nightmares.
- P re-schoolers and early elementary age : may blame themselves for the divorce, may over-worry about changes in their lives, may exhibit sadness and grieving because of the absence of one parent, may be aggressive and violent to the parent they blame for the divorce, may fantasize about their parents getting back together.
- P re-teens: may feel abandoned by the departing 12 parent, may withdraw from friends and favourite activities, may exhibit strange behaviour and use foul language, may feel angry and uncertain about their concepts of love, marriage and family, may feel that they are growing up too soon, and may find themselves preoccupied about their parents' finances.
Some Eye-Opening Statistics - Although divorced people may have successful subsequent marriages, the divorce rate of remarriages is actually higher than that of first marriages, - Those who get into a live-in arrangement before marrying have a considerably higher chance of divorcing. Reasons are not that clear. This can probably be explained by the fact that the type of people who tend to co-habit may also be those who are more willing to divorce. There is proof that supports the notion that cohabitation itself generates att.i.tudes in people that are more conducive to divorce, one 13 example of which is the thinking that living together is temporary, and hence an arrangement that can easily be terminated.
- Qualitative studies and long term empirical studies have demonstrated that children develop interpersonal problems that become worse in adulthood, thus affecting their own chances at a happy marriage.
- As inferred from the previous statement, children of divorce have a much higher rate of divorce than children whose parents stayed together. The old adage that parents set the example is true in this case.
Children learn about commitment and permanence from parents. For children of divorced parents, these concepts have already been undermined or shaken.
14.- No marriage is perfect. Using a large sample for research purposes, researchers learned that 86 percent of people who were unhappily married in the late 1980s, but stayed with the marriage, indicated that, when interviewed five years later, they were happier.
In fact 3/5 of those who were previously unhappy considered their marriages as either ”very happy” or ”quite happy. ”6 ”6 - A marriage counsellor, after counselling hundreds of couples who were on the path to divorce, raised the idea of ”self-talk” as one potential cause of divorce.
This pattern of negative self talk, he contends, is a barrier to a couple's happiness, much more than a lack of open communication is.
Self talk is the equivalent of an individual's thoughts. He said: 6 David Popenoe, the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J, 2002.
15.”Most people do not control their thoughts (self-talk), but they allow their thoughts to control them...for instance, if a man speaks negatively to himself about his wife and he permits this self-talk, he will attract a host of other negative thoughts. As a result of these negative thoughts, he will experience negative feelings anger, jealousy, fear, even hatred, and these negative thoughts and feelings will lead to actions that tend to break up the relations.h.i.+p. ”7 ”7 The previous statement above clues us into one of the deep-seated causes of divorce, and how this can be easily solved, if couples were honest with themselves and with each other.