7 Reasons Not To Divorce

There has been a steady stream of two groups of clients calling Christian Counseling Services lately. The first group is made up of people beset by worry and wrestling with anxiety. The second group is made up of married couples ready to call it quits. It is as though something is in the water in my town that has led to an outbreak of the misguided notion among head-butting husbands and wives that divorce is the only answer.

The impact of divorce on the husband and wife is significant in itself, but when there are kids involved the damage is compounded. Last year 38,727 Michigan kids woke up one morning to find their family fractured. Closer to home, in 2007 Charlevoix County recorded 215 marriages but 109 divorces, and most of those dissolutions involved children.

Those cold statistics don’t begin to tell the full story of the effect of divorce on children. I worked two years as an Americorp member at my local elementary school mentoring and counseling children who were struggling in different ways, and my caseload was made up almost entirely of kids from broken homes. These were kids whose homes were split in two by parents who gave up, not just on one another but on the family that had been the source of their children’s stability and security. Those kids came to school reflecting the underlying fear of every child of divorce: who’s going to take care of me? And they came to school each day dragging the big bag of guilt known to every child of divorce: was the divorce, and the ruination of my family home, my fault?

There are some myths husbands and wives drag out when they are considering breaking up the family, myths about the impact of divorce on their children. I’ve had parents insist that children of divorce do just as well in school as children from stable homes, and that many of their kid’s friends are from divorced families and those kids seemed to be adjusting just fine. Those views seem to help them rationalize the damage they are about to do, but they just aren’t true. Kids experiencing divorce come to school anxious and stressed, and they act out in class and on the playground. These kids are more likely to experiment with drugs and sex, and more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. Do they adjust? Sure, just not very well, not too quickly and not without a lot of pain.

Divorce may look like the easy way out of a marriage under stress, but if you are married with children there are seven good reasons not to divorce.

No. 1: God hates divorce. The Bible says it just like that in Malachi 2:16. When man and woman are joined in matrimony the new union that is created has standing with God, and His directive is that what God has joined together man shall not separate. (Mark 10:19)

No. 2: Divorce permanently damages your kids. The emotional scars will shape their outlook, behaviors, and choices for their entire lives. And if you’re the one who moves out of the home, in the mind of your child you will always be the one who abandoned them, never to be fully trusted.

No. 3: Divorce leaves you damaged in body, soul, and spirit. Your nerves and emotions will be stressed to their limit, and that stress will overflow into your physical well being. Your relationship with God will suffer as you insist on having what you want while ignoring what He wants.

No. 4: Divorce damages your reputation. Social circles thrive on gossip, and you will forever be defined by this event. Whether victim or villain, you will always be maligned, particularly if the divorce grew out of an affair.

No. 5: If you are a Christian, you damage your credibility as a person of faith trying to live a godly life. Your witness for Christ will be forever suspect.

No. 6: Divorce doesn’t actually solve anything, it only complicates the logistics of your day. If you have children, the person you divorce will still be very much in your life, just not in your bed.

No. 7: For nearly everyone except the very wealthy, divorce is financially devastating. You will forfeit all the wealth and assets you’ve accumulated in the years you’ve been working together, and you will be years rebuilding. Moreover, if you are among the millions of couples who require the pay checks of two working adults to barely operate one household, how will you stretch that income to operate two?

All things considered, divorce is not the easy way out. Don’t be so quick to throw away your wealth, reputation, health, and children just to get away from the spouse you once loved and could love again. I promise you, you’ll spend a lot less on a counselor to save your marriage than you will on lawyer fees to end it. And your kids will thank you for it.