When it comes to the end of a marriage, there seems to be two different types of thinking in people. It’s either: (1) a loss or (2) a choice.
For some reason, not many people have a lot of sympathy when a marriage ends by divorce. While it’s true that some relationships and marriages end as the result of those well-known “irreconcilable differences”, it’s really not that simple. The dissolution of a marriage or a relationship cannot be simplified and described by those two simple words that characterize the act of being unable to live together in harmony. It’s often far more complicated than that.
Every couple who failed to make it work did not start out expecting it to end. They walked up the aisle full of high hopes and big dreams for that happily ever after. There are all kinds of reasons why things don’t work out. It isn’t for a lack of love or a desire to try. People do the best they can with what they know at the time. With age, time and experience comes wisdom but as we all know, hindsight is 20/20.
It’s offensive the way those whose marriages stayed intact or those whose marriages ended due to the death of a spouse have a tendency to trivialize divorce as a “choice” that somebody decided to make. What about the hard-working wife and mother whose husband left her for a younger, more exciting woman? What about the nice guy whose wife had multiple affairs? What about those who were married to substance abusers? What about the people and their children who are victims of physical, mental, emotional and/or sexual abuse? What about those who were married to somebody who became incarcerated? What about the person married to a narcissist? None of these people WANTED their marriages to end but they were forced to do so for the sake of their sanity or to protect themselves and/or their children. So I ask, how are any of these divorces a “choice”? Nobody in their right mind would make such a choice unless they could not see any other way out. They also did not choose to have their spouse walk out on them. More often than not, a divorce is either an unwanted life change or an absolute necessity. Those whose marriages are a success or the ones that ended due to the death of a spouse need to drop their air of superiority and respect that not everybody lucks out and yes, it IS luck. Marriage is a roll of the dice without any guarantees of “happily ever after”.
It’s absolutely infuriating that there is a faction out there that demonizes those who get divorced. Perhaps these smug, self-righteous individuals would have us believe THEY would have stuck it out and figured out a way to make it work if they were in your shoes. Seems that they’d rather play the part of the martyr rather than (God forbid!) be labeled as a marital casualty. While they are polishing their perfect images and straightening their halos, perhaps they could step outside of their narrow-minded thinking and self-absorbed fog long enough to concede that a divorce is not always a “choice” and that it’s just as painful as being widowed.