WEEK 2 - MARRIAGE TRENDS AND DIVORCE

For one of my classes we had to create a marriage blog. Since I already have a family blog, which I haven't posted to in over five years, I decided to just use it. The topic we are blogging about this week is divorce. I found this week's reading about divorce, and the effects it has on children and society as a whole, very interesting. While all the statistics rang true for me, I couldn't help thinking about how different those stats look from the inside. My parents married young when they found out they were pregnant with me. The marriage didn't last long, being something right out of 'The Dysfunctional Home Show' (any In Living Color fans out there??). After the divorce, my mother remarried an alcoholic abuser. They were married for nine years, and as such, Mom's second husband raised me from age 3-12. He was the only father I really knew, having had virtually no contact with my biological father until the courts forced me to. My stepfather, who I called 'Dad', drank and smoked. Pornography was more like bathroom reading in my house - Friday night movie rentals were the ones you had to ask the counter attendant for. Drunken rages often ended in physical abuse and calls to the police. Obviously, my home life was anything but healthy or stable. And still, when my mom and dad sat me down to inform me of their divorce, it felt as though the trailer we lived in had been nudged off its foundation. My entire world shifted. If I had to compare this sensation to anything, I would say it resembles thinking you are on an island. When the island suddenly begins to pitch to and fro, take on water, and eventually sink, you realize you have been on a boat all along. It is beyond terrifying, and causes you to question everything you thought you knew. And yet, there is no contesting the fact that some marriage relationships, with their contagious, toxic environments, are far more damaging to children than divorce. Reading all of these statistics makes me think that marriage prep classes should be required for a marriage license - just like blood tests. Think of the classes, practice hours, and certification test that are required for a driver's license. People going into marriage should be told before hand that it's not always a picnic. That loving a person doesn't mean you will always like them. That the commitment they are making needs to be valued above physical attraction, fun, or any other reason they are so crazy about each other. They need to know that there will be hard times, that everyone has them, and that successful marriage are not 50/50; they are 100/100.