Look at these gorgeous faces! These are my four kids with their cousin Braydon (He's the only dark-haired kid in the whole picture, which is pretty ironic because, although I have dark hair, I have all blonde children). These beauties are my future. I feel a great sense of responsibility toward them and their well-being. So I decided to take a marriage class. You might ask, If you want to be a better mother, why are you taking a marriage class?
According to the University of Virginia,
“Marriage is not merely a private arrangement; it is also a complex social institution. Marriage fosters small cooperative unions—also known as stable families—that enable children to thrive, shore up communities, and help family members to succeed during good times and to weather the bad times.”
This week we are learning about the effects of divorce on children and on society as a whole. Over all, the most heart-breaking video I was required to watch for my class was called, "Divorce School for Kids." It was heart-breaking because I watched innocent young children pour out their broken hearts, in a state of total confusion, about their parents' marriages ending. Most of them felt it was largely their fault; that somehow they had caused their parents' divorce. They felt torn apart between the two parents who used to live together under one roof as a family.
So, why should you care, and how does this affect you?
Let's put some dollar signs on the social costs of having broken families. It just so happens that the University of Virginia has done extensive studies on the societal impact of broken families. The fiscal cost alone to our nation is billions of dollars annually! To be exact (and modest in their view): $112 billion annually.
While most of us married folks only consider the effects of marital relationships on ourselves, have we ever stopped to consider the emotionally scarring and life-long consequences divorce has on our nation’s children? Religious leaders see the devastating effects of divorce on children every day. Concerning children and divorce, Elder Dallin H. Oaks says,
“Think first of the children. Because divorce separates the interests of children from the interests of their parents, children are its first victims. Scholars of family life tell us that the most important cause of the current decline in the well-being of children is the current weakening of marriage, because family instability decreases parental investment in children. We know that children raised in a single-parent home after divorce have a much higher risk for drug and alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity, poor school performance, and various kinds of victimization.”
All of us want to give our children every advantage in the world. We want the best for them; happiness, success, and the ability to progress and move forward into mature, well-educated adults. If we truly consider our children’s happiness, we will strengthen our marriages.
If you do not have children, or if you feel that your needs in a struggling marriage are too difficult to bare, then consider your own happiness in this way. According to Elder Dallin H. Oaks and a bishop he worked with who had years of experience in counseling couples considering divorce, the following was stated:
“The couples who...stayed together emerged with their marriages even stronger. That prospect began with their mutual commitment to keep the commandments, stay active in their Church attendance, scripture reading, and prayer, and to work on their own shortcomings. They “recognized the importance and power of the Atonement for their spouse and for themselves,” and “they were patient and would try again and again.” When the couples he counseled did these things, repenting and working to save their marriages, this bishop reported that “healing was achieved 100 percent of the time.
Even those who think their spouse is entirely to blame should not act hastily. One study found “no evidence that divorce or separation typically made adults happier than staying in an unhappy marriage. Two out of three unhappily married adults who avoided divorce reported being happily married five years later.”
Elder Dallin H. Oaks reported that it was easier for a spouse to recover from the death of their spouse than it was for them to recover from a divorce, and stated that divorce, in most instances, did not solve the couples' problems, it merely introduced new problems to their situation.
What is just cause for divorce? James E. Faust says that he does not know all the definitive just causes, but that surely cause for divorce is not just some mental distress, falling out of love, or simply that the couple doesn't get along. So, my plea to all of us is that we do what we can to strengthen our marriages that ourselves, our children, and our nation might be stronger.
