Chapter 16: The Longcut of Divorce

Chapter 16: The Longcut of Divorce

            Three weeks into my friend’s second marriage, she called to tell me that she had made the second most terrible mistake of her life. Her first husband had been unfaithful to her throughout their fifteen years and three children of marriage. The second husband, of less than a month, was treating her like the maid, very stingy, mean, and only in love with his children. “At least,” she said, “I don’t have to worry about him having an affair.” “That’s a dismal measure of marriage,” I said. After we talked for a few more minutes, she asked me if I could find out if she qualified for an annulment. I went on the Internet and found the answer, and I was glad I’d looked it up. After all the legal language about how many people incorrectly think a marriage can be annulled within a short time after the marriage, the words became plain and poignant: “The state’s laws on annulment are strict and limited. The purpose of the state’s marriage laws are to support and validate marriage rather than to invalidate marriage through annulment.” Hurray for one state that comes down on the side of marriage. And that’s my purpose is here: to come down on the side of marriage, even though we’re discussing the longcut of divorce. Protection against divorce begins by preparing for marriage in childhood, which would be the parent’s job. If the parents renege, then grandparents, other family members, teachers, and friends can step in to teach and be the example of marriage.

            The best way to prepare children for successful marriage is the same way as teaching them to be safe drivers or to be honest or to help with the housework—by example. Every day, three-hundred and sixty-five days a year, children learn from their parents how to become. Unspoken priorities, unspoken choices, unspoken grimaces speak and teach and imprint. Good marriages portend good marriages. Divorce breeds divorce. I spoke to an eleven-year-old whose father had just moved out and her mother’s boyfriend had just moved in. “Life is all about being happy,” she said. “My mother wasn’t happy living with my dad,” and after a pause she said, “but her boyfriend isn’t nice to me.” Bottom line: “My mother cares more about her own happiness than mine.” In time she will recognize her mother’s selfishness.

            Besides all the subliminal messages that bombard children by the parent’s examples, parents should actively teach marriage. In our current cultural climate where the definition of marriage makes headlines, today’s children need to be taught about marriage in ways former generations never thought were necessary. A family from California was staying with another family in another state. At dinner one evening, the Californian five-year-old got the adults’ attention when he stated, “Did you know that marriage is between a man and a woman?” Congratulations to the parents for teaching truth! It’s not likely the child learned this definition of marriage in the public school system. The Biblical account of the first marriage on earth reads: “God created man in his own image… male and female created he them. And God blessed [married] them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. (Genesis 1:27–28). “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20).

            Divorce avoidance begins as we exemplify and teach our children that life is most successful when done in this order: develop your talents in your child and teen years, get all the education you can, don’t be in a hurry to date, date in groups during high school, get most of your preparation for a career completed, get married, start a family. As a simple formula, success in life is most likely when done in this order: education, marriage, baby. When life happens in this order, happiness and success are much more likely than when done in any other order. Statistics show that marrying while a teen is a great risk. Eleanor H. Ayer’s writes in her book, Everything You Need to Know about Teen Marriage: “A girl married at 17 is twice as likely to be divorced as a girl 18 or 19. If a girl waits until she is 25 the chances that her marriage will last are 4 times better” ([date of publication], page number). On the opposite end, waiting to marry until you’ve completed advanced degree after advanced degree, unnecessarily postpones marriage and starting a family.

            One of the most important reason education is vital is that while education is going on years pass, and the young adult gains maturity, as well as learning skills to prepare for a career and to provide for a future family. Education broadens the world and provides experience. Teaching children to do education first is insurance against doing baby first. Young women who get pregnant while in their teens join an army, more than 400,000 a year, marching toward poverty. Teens who have out-of-wedlock babies each year become the poorest group in the U.S. There are ten million single mothers in the U.S. “living with children under 18 years old, [which is] up from 3 million in 1970” (www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabFM).

            Education is critically important for young men and young women. There is no difference between who should be more educated because most women will be employed during their lives. Even though a young girl may dream of the day she will be married, have children, and stay-at-home, it’s a dream that alludes most. Educate a woman and you educate a generation. A young woman’s education should move in the direction of a career. Even if all young woman did marry, there would still be husbands would die, lose their jobs, become disabled, and the specter of divorce ends about fifty-percent of marriages. Financially speaking, one of the poorest financial choices anyone can make is to get divorced. Poor mommy, rich daddy is the all too common result. So preparing for employment is crucial, and if that employment pays well and if it is something the woman enjoys doing—all the better. Women who graduate from college earned about 76 percent more than women with only a high school diploma in 2004, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Just in case you still had some doubts, the U.S. Census Bureau has released data proving the substantial value of a college education in the United States. Workers 18 and over sporting bachelors degrees earn an average of $51,206 a year, while those with a high school diploma earn $27,915.”

            Mid-way through my high school senior year, my father sat down with me to give counsel about my future. By using illustrations of women with whom we were acquainted, he let me know those negative aspects of life—disability, death, and divorce—actually happen. He told me I must be prepared to support myself (and any children) as an insurance policy for the future. He asked me where I wanted to go to college. I told him. He said, “No, you will go to the University of Utah.” Then while I was digesting that fact, he said “And what do you want to be a nurse or a teacher. “A nurse,” I said. “No,” he said, “You should be a teacher.” The conversation was about that long because my father, a school principal, was not a man of many words. But I trusted he understood my strengths and weaknesses and knew where I would succeed, besides, it was 1962. His concern for my education didn’t stop when I fell in love. When Richard asked him for my hand in marriage, I still had two quarters before graduation from the University of Utah. He asked Richard to set my graduation as a top priority. Richard followed my father’s example and gave the same counsel to our sons-in-law. As events have unfolded, how grateful I am for a father who insisted I prepare myself for whatever lay before me. I’m grateful I have a degree and a marketable skill, which has enabled me to bring in extra income, satisfaction, and the ability to serve in ways I otherwise could not have had.    

            As my parents continually stressed, well, more like insisted that I prepare myself for the future by getting an education, they were also teaching me to do life in the right order. My preparation for the future DID NOT include having sex before marriage (which precluded having a baby out of wedlock), getting married too young, thinking high school was about social life at the expense of scholastic achievement and career preparation, or thinking post high school education really wouldn’t make much difference. If young women are taught to prepare for a good career and never marry, they will still have a fulfilling career. If they prepare for a good career, marry, and never are employed a day in their lives, they still have a good education, and they’ve had the best insurance policy possible that pays dividends as she educates her children in the importance of education and doing life in the right order. And this counsel continues to apply to all women, no matter the age or stage of life. There is always wisdom in preparing for the future. 

            Teach your children the importance of marrying the right person. The number-one suggestion in H. Jackson Brown, Jr.’s “21 Suggestions for Success” reads, “Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery” (www.21suggestions.com).  Parents provide insurance against divorce when they teach their children in word and deed that marriage requires effort. Marriage is work and takes work. If parents work together, children will see one of the great advantages in marriage is that you have someone to help you work. Marriage is much harder than anything else I can think of except parenting. Few marriages—mostly just those in fairy tales—are happily-ever-after experiences. Marriage includes learning to adapt to family members to whom you are related by law not by birth. Marriage includes coping with different personalities and using conflict resolution techniques. A necessity for a healthy marriage is empathy, how to understand another’s feelings, and how to accommodate and work through differences. Healthy marriages are built as each spouse learns to verbalize feelings and understand how the spouse thinks others feel. Marriage requires charity, longsuffering, and patience in adversity. Marriage unites a couple when they become parents in the goal of raising healthy children. Marriage is a course in learning to nurture: your spouse, your children, and yourself. Marriage is where two equal partners unify their efforts in a common cause--family. Marriage is when you get in the same boat and row in the same direction, not that you see eye-to-eye in everything, but that you work through differences and problems together, not by running away from them or trying to solve them alone. The best marriages create a mutual benefit society, a culture of appreciation, where kindness is the language spoken in the home. Marriage is the foundation for healthy families, and families are the foundation for healthy nations.

            I spent several hours online watching Youtube videos taught by Dr. John Gottman on marriage. I recommend them. I took notes. Perhaps my notes will whet your appetite to watch them. Dr. Gottman tells how he set up an experiment wherein he would videotape couples having a conversation about an on-going irritant in their marriage. He told how he analyzed their facial expressions and then followed the couple for years. He said he learned to predict, based on what he saw in the conversation with about ninety-percent accuracy, which couples would divorce. The predictor? Contempt. If he saw contempt, no matter how fleeting on the face of either the husband or wife, he knew the marriage was in trouble. Dr. Gottman presented the cure for contempt. He said the opposite or antidote to contempt is appreciation. As I heard how important appreciation is in marriage, I wondered how long some husbands or wives go without hearing, “I love you.” I asked a friend who I think has a good marriage how often her husband tells her that he loves her. She got teary and said, “Not often.” I asked another. She got a little angry and said the last time she heard those words, eight letters and two spaces, was when her husband thought she was dying. His actual words were, “I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you,” which to me, that doesn’t translate into “I love you.” As you use verbal expressions of love and contentment in your marriage, your marriage will improve. Saying “I love you” once a day is not too often. Appreciation repairs contempt.

            Dr. Gottman warned that “mental” divorce happens long before the couple starts talking divorce. If either the husband or wife starts mentally divorcing, thought time and energy begins to focus on reasons to divorce. He said every marriage has periods of alienation. I noticed a similar phenomenon when my children were dating seriously and contemplating marriage. The couples who ended up getting married were those who had times when she would get nervous and put the brakes on the relationship for several weeks or a while later he would not be sure he was ready to make the most important decision of his life and call a halt to the relationship for a time, but they didn’t have their doubts and want to break up at the same time. I think the same is true with divorce. During those periods of alienation, if the husband and wife don’t have thoughts of divorce at the same time, if they are not scanning the environment for the spouse’s mistakes, if they will look at what is going right, the divorce doesn’t happen. I like the solution Dr. Gottman suggested. He used the phrase “share and repair.” He advised couples to create a culture of appreciation, respect, and affection, to turn towards each not away from each other. Friends look for the good in each other; adversaries look for weaknesses to assess blame and fault. He said in an adversarial relationship, reality is distorted and the negative will loom so large that fifty-percent of the good in the spouse will be missed. So, when you are feeling out of sync in your marriage, share your feelings in a way that shows your spouse you want to repair the relationship not end it. “Share to repair” is a beautiful idea, a marriage-saving idea. Dr. Gottman said couples who don’t share and repair may not divorce but their “marriage” is not happy. The result is they will begin to live parallel lives, missing the intimacy of friendship and love that happily married couples enjoy. Couples who live parallel lives are lonely individuals.

            Dr. Gottman coined a new use for the word “bid.” A bid is an emotional connection. A bid is any attempt to keep the relationship moving forward in a positive direction. Bids can be verbal, nonverbal, physical, or non-physical. A bid needs to be received and acknowledged for it to count as a bid. It can be a gesture, touch, a look, or response. A bid is perhaps saying “Good Morning” to your spouse and your spouse say “Good Morning, how did you sleep?”  A bid is touching your partner’s cheek or leg or giving a quick hug and having your spouse respond with a smile. Asking your wife a question which she answers can be a bid. A bid send a message or makes a connection and the spouse acknowledges and accepts. I recall hearing the story of a husband who calls his wife’s name. She doesn’t answer. He calls out her name with a little more volume and a little upset in his voice. She doesn’t answer. He calls again with agitation obvious in his tone of voice. Finally his wife comes into the room and says, “I’ve answered you three times, what do you want?” The happily married couple engages one another as many as 100 times during a dinner conversation. The couple headed for divorce engages only 65 times.

            A few years back I was the Relief Society president in my LDS ward. A sister, let’s call her, Bonnie, who had numerous “issues,” moved into the ward. She soon came to the bishop’s attention because she was so critical of everyone and everything. She seemed emotionally unbalanced and carried a Linus dark cloud about her. The bishop told Bonnie there were many people in the ward who were concerned about her and would like to help. He asked her if she would come to a meeting with a few members of the ward who could, perhaps, give her some ideas about how to improve her situation. She agreed. At the appointed time, six members of the ward came together: the bishop, me, a female neighbor, a woman who the bishop thought could be a friend to Bonnie because of their similar age and both were single, and a retired therapist, a grandfather-type man, and Bonnie. We sat in a circle in the bishop’s office. The bishop had each of us express our desire to be helpful. When it was the therapist’s turn, he stood up and moved his chair in front of Bonnie’s chair and said: “I hope you know we are here because of our honest concern for you, but we want to help you in ways you want to be helped. What are your dreams and how can we help you realize them?” What a learning experience this was for me. I learned to really help someone in life, you don’t try to help them in a way you think would be best, but rather, you find out what their dreams are and help make those dreams a reality.

            Dr. Gottman tells the story of the marketing director at Random House who said to him: “In thirty seconds, what should I do to make my marriage better?” Dr. Gottman said, “The most important thing you can do in marriage is to know and honor your wife’s dreams.” Without saying anything, the man got up and left the room. He went home to Brooklyn on the subway. When he appeared in the middle of the day, his wife thought he had been fired. He said, “No, I haven’t been fired. I just want to know what your dreams are. What do you hope for?” She answered, “I thought you’d never ask.” Bonnie said a similar phrase. “Do you really want to know?” she said pleadingly. When the therapist assured her that he did want to know, she began to share her dreams. After a few minutes she said, “No one ever asked me that before.”

            Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “The Birthmark” is the story of a chemist who thinks his wife is nature’s perfection. She is stunningly beautiful except for a small birthmark on her cheek. As the years pass he becomes obsessed with the birthmark. He must have perfection; the birthmark must go. He tells his wife he has discovered a way to make the birthmark disappear. She asks him what he will do if he finds the birthmark is connected to her heart. Even though she feels foreboding, he finally convinces her to let him try. He gives her a potion. As the days pass she becomes weak, and the birthmark remains. He increases the dosage. In the end the birthmark is gone but so is her life. His obsession with her only flaw took all of her from him permanently. How he cheated himself.

            Many husbands and wives do the same thing. I know a man who keeps track in his journal of everything his wife does wrong. He’s been keeping the list for twenty-five years. Can you imagine what it must feel like to be his wife and live with a person who delights in adding another of your flaws and missteps to his list? You have to wonder how his and her life would be different if the list was of her kindnesses and good deeds. Gordon B. Hinckley said, “I have long felt that the greatest factor in a happy marriage is an anxious concern for the comfort and well-being of one’s companion. In most cases selfishness is the leading factor that causes argument, separation, divorce, and broken hearts” (“Loyalty,” Liahona, May 2003, 58–60). On another occasion he said women have divine qualities which they use to reach out to others in love and kindness. "We can encourage that outreach if we will give them opportunity to give expression to the talents and impulses that lie within them. In our old age my beloved companion said to me quietly one evening, 'You have always given me wings to fly and I have loved you for it' “The Women in Our Lives,” Liahona, Nov 2004, 82–85).

            Mark Twain’s “The Diaries of Adam and Eve” reveal progressive stages in marriage and love.

            “MONDAY: This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don't like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals.... Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain.... WE? Where did I get that word—the new creature uses it.

            “TUESDAY: Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls-- why, I am sure I do not know. Says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered--it LOOKS like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.

            “WEDNESDAY: Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to sounds that are more or less distant from me.

            FRIDAY: The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty-- GARDEN OF EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it LOOKS like a park, and does not look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a sign up: KEEP OFF THE GRASS. My life is not as happy as it was.

            “SATURDAY: The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run short, most likely. "We" again--that is ITS word; mine, too, now, from hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in the fog myself. This new creature does. It goes out in all weathers, and stumps right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so pleasant and quiet here.

            “SUNDAY.--Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying. It was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I had already six of them per week before. This morning found the new creature trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.

            “MONDAY.--The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I have no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I want it to come. I said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its respect; and indeed it is a large, good word and will bear repetition. It says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one to me; what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by herself and not talk.

            “TEN YEARS LATER: They are BOYS; we found it out long ago. It was their coming in that small immature shape that puzzled us; we were not used to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain had stayed a bear it would have improved him. After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit!

            FROM EVE’S DIARY

            “FORTY YEARS LATER: It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together—a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time…. But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me—life without him would not be life; how could I endure it?

            FROM ADAM’S DIARY

            AT EVE’S GRAVE: Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.”

Agency-Preserving Principles

Never believe you will be the exception to the laws of nature.	God ordained that man and woman should be bound together in marriage. He didn’t sanction living with someone without benefit of marriage or same-sex unions. He delights in the chastity of men and women. If you violate His laws, you cannot escape His punishments.
Know you will harvest what you sow.	Good marriages portend good marriages. Divorce breeds divorce.
Learn the lessons of history so you won’t repeat the mistakes.	If you were a child of divorce, make sure that doesn’t happen to your children.
Find the power in resisting impulse, persisting, and delaying gratification.	The power of two is the blessing of a healthy marriage. Marriage is a man and a woman in the same boat, rowing the same direction.
Develop personal integrity and make moral decisions.	“Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.” Barnett R. Brickner
Know that others see things you don’t and welcome their perspectives.	“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”  Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Work, Work, Work.	Robert Anderson in Solitaire & Double Solitaire said: “In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce.  The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage.”  Good marriages take work.
Make goals, write them down, use failure avoidance, prioritize, avoid procrastination.	“Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths.  No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.”  Mark Twain
Value yourself. Know you can make a difference. Do good to feel good.	“The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation.  It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through eternity.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Develop a happy inner core.	“Never go to bed mad.  Stay up and fight.” Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints, 1966 “English Law prohibits a man from marrying his mother-in-law.  This is our idea of useless legislation.”  Author Unknown
Develop the backbone to say “NO!”	Say no to divorce. Adela Rogers St. Johns said: “There is so little difference between husbands you might as well keep the first.”