Part 1 (1/2)

THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT MARRIAGE.

Debunking discouraging myths about marriage and divorce.

Shaunti Feldhahn, with Tally Whitehead.

From Shaunti.

For Jeff:.

The fact that I get to live with you over the course of my lifetime is definitely the biggest scam I've pulled off.

From Tally.

For Eric:.

You had me at h.e.l.lo.

When Shaunti first briefed me on what she was finding, I was staggered. As a pastor of a large church and someone who is pa.s.sionate about strong marriages and families, I feel a responsibility to stay informed. Many of us do. And we think we are. We think our discouragement about the state of marriage in our culture is based on years of solid evidence.

If half of marriages today end in divorce, if most couples feel the fire go out after a few years, if the rate of divorce is the same in the church as it is out, then the inst.i.tution of marriage is in trouble. We subconsciously revert to crisis mode. We talk widely about the need to work harder, to always be on the lookout for potential problems, to stick to our promises, and to endure hard marriages for the long haul-even when we want to quit.

And all those actions are important-absolutely. But when we act and speak in crisis mode, we become a small part of a very large problem: discouraging people about marriage instead of encouraging them.

In order for people to work harder, to want to prevent potential problems, and to stick to their promises, they need to believe they can make it. They need to believe they cannot just survive their marriages but they can enjoy them. They need to believe that their marriages can thrive.

And it turns out that hope is out there. We just didn't realize it. It turns out that we have been accepting the discouraging beliefs about the state of marriage without questioning. In these pages, Shaunti makes a good case that at least some of our conventional wisdom is based on false beliefs. She makes a good case that there are actually many good, solid, evidence-based reasons to be encouraged about the state of marriage and reasons to encourage others as well.

That being the case, we shouldn't talk about marriage and divorce as we have in the past. It is good news that there is good news out there! And I look forward to telling people that good news about marriage.

-Andy Stanley.

Senior Pastor.

North Point Ministries.

1.

What Most People Don't Know ... but Need To.

In 2006 I was writing one of my newspaper opinion columns and referencing the high prevalence of divorce. I wanted to correctly cite the most recent divorce rate but was confused by conflicting sources and articles. After trying to figure it out for two or three hours (a lifetime in the newspaper business), I tossed it to my then research a.s.sistant (now senior researcher) Tally Whitehead, so I could keep working on the column. But after several more hours, Tally came back even more perplexed than when we started.

It can't be this difficult, I thought. We quickly called a respected expert on marriage and divorce and asked, ”What's the exact divorce rate?”

Her unexpected answer: ”No one knows.”

Huh? Before I could say anything, she continued, ”And it depends on what you mean by the 'divorce rate.' There are many different types of divorce rates. There are also many different surveys, of different groups of people; there are different ways of tracking the rate of divorce today and projecting it in the future. They all say different things. There's no way to know one 'exact' rate.”

”Well ...” I tried to gather my fl.u.s.tered thoughts. ”Just an estimate, then. Roughly what percentage of marriages will end in divorce? Like, what does the Census Bureau say?”

”The Census Bureau stopped projecting divorce rates in 1996. And even those projections were based on divorce increasing, and it's decreased instead. That won't help you.”

”The divorce rate has decreased? Really? But it is still around 50 percent, right?” After all, I'd heard for years that half of all marriages end in divorce.

”Actually, the divorce rate has never hit 50 percent. It has never even gotten close. Again, it depends on what you mean by the divorce rate, but no matter what definition you use, we're significantly below 50 percent right now. It is maybe closer to 30 to 40 percent, but again, no one knows.”

My first thought was Nuts! I'm going to have to edit my column.

My second thought was But wait a minute. What? The divorce rate has never gotten close to 50 percent? Why haven't we heard this before? That's a really big deal!

That was eight years ago. And only gradually over the next few years did I begin to realize what a big deal the truth actually was-not only about that, but about several other marriage and divorce myths. Myths that are very discouraging ... and very common.

Why It Matters That We Get to the Truth.

As part of the relations.h.i.+p research that my husband, Jeff, and I have done over the past twelve years, we have interviewed and surveyed thousands of people about their innermost thoughts, needs, and fears. Early on, we began to get a clear window not only into their needs as men and women, which was what we were primarily trying to study, but also into how their relations.h.i.+ps worked, what inspired and discouraged them, what they believed about marriage, parenting, the workplace, and culture.

Eventually it was clear that there was one common denominator among marriages that survived versus those that failed: hope. There were many different factors that led to either outcome, of course. But underneath it all was this bottom line: Did the couple have a sense of hope ... or a sense of futility?

A couple could go through a terrible period, but if they felt certain they would make it, they usually did. Even if a couple lacked that certainty, the hope that things could get better was often enough to keep them going. With a feeling of We can get through this, they would do what was needed to right the s.h.i.+p, patch the holes, and keep sailing.

But if a couple instead thought This is never going to get better or We're not going to make it, they usually seemed to have a different outcome. A sneaking feeling of futility took over and with it a sense of inevitability. They a.s.sumed things would never change, even if they wanted them to. Instead of motivating the couple to fight harder for their marriage, their belief in approaching doom had the opposite effect. After all, if the s.h.i.+p is going to sink anyway, why bother working so hard to bail it out? Far better, they think, to work on escaping the wreck intact.

In other words, a couple's futile feeling We aren't going to make it ends up being one of the main reasons they don't make it.

A couple's futile feeling that We aren't going to make it ends up being one of the main reasons they don't make it.

Those who work directly with troubled couples-counselors, therapists, clergy, and marriage mentors-told me they generally agree. If even one spouse has a sense of hope that things can change, or simply a vision to keep going no matter what, it is amazing how often that one-sided commitment keeps the marriage afloat long enough to get it sailing again. But it is tough to overcome both spouses having a sense of futility.