Divorce​—Its Bitter Harvest

IT IS neither the lawyers nor the friends nor the media nor the “experts” who have to pay the price of divorce. It is the divorcing couples​—and their children—​who pay the final bill.a Far from being a liberating experience, divorce may come at a staggeringly high price.

In The Case Against Divorce, Diane Medved admits that she originally intended to write a book that would be “morally neutral” toward divorce. She felt compelled, though, to change her mind. Why? She writes: “Quite simply, I discovered in my research that the process and aftermath of divorce is so pervasively disastrous​—to body, mind, and spirit—​that in an overwhelming number of cases, the ‘cure’ that it brings is surely worse than the marriage’s ‘disease.’”

Ann, mentioned in the previous article, concurs: “I thought divorce would be a release. I thought if I could just get out of this marriage, then I’d be OK. But before the divorce, at least my pain made me feel I was alive. After I got divorced, I didn’t even feel alive. There was such a void that I felt nonexistent. It was just terrible. I can’t describe how empty I felt.” After divorce, vague promises of freedom and excitement evaporate into the grim realities of day-​to-​day living and survival.

The hard truth is, even when there are legitimate grounds for divorce, its consequences can be painful and long lasting. So anyone contemplating such a drastic move would be wise to heed Jesus’ counsel first: ‘Count the cost.’ (Luke 14:28) Specifically, what are some of the costs, some of the painful aftereffects of divorce?

Emotional and Moral Effects

A recent study published in the Journal of Marriage and the Family indicated that divorce is linked to unhappiness and depression. The divorced were more likely to be depressed, and those who had divorced more than once were likely to be depressed more frequently. Sociologist Lenore Weitzman, in her book The Divorce Revolution, notes that divorced and separated people have the highest rates of admission to psychiatric facilities; they also suffer higher rates of illness, premature death, and suicide.

In her study of some 200 people, Medved found that divorce left men and women emotionally distraught for an average of seven years, others for decades. The one thing that divorce did not affect, she found, was the unhealthy pattern of behavior that led the couple to divorce in the first place. Little wonder, then, that second marriages are even more likely to fail than first marriages!

Far from improving behavior, divorce often has a drastically negative effect on morality. Researchers have found that after divorce, most men and women briefly enter a sort of second adolescence. They taste their newfound freedom by pursuing a succession of new romantic attachments in order to boost sagging self-​esteem or to alleviate loneliness. But dating for such self-​serving reasons can lead to sexual immorality, which carries its own litany of tragic consequences. And it can be particularly traumatic and harmful for children to see their parents act this way.

All too often, though, divorcing couples have already subscribed to the world’s propaganda that their own needs and concerns come first. Thus, they harden themselves to the pain they will be causing in the lives around them​—their children’s, their parents’, their friends’. Some forget that God too can feel hurt in his heart when we ignore his standards. (Compare Psalm 78:40, 41; Malachi 2:16.) Divorce can also be a very mean business, especially when it degenerates into legal battles over custody and property.

Financial Catastrophe

Lenore Weitzman further concluded that divorce is also a “financial catastrophe” for women in the United States. On an average, it cuts in half their funds for such essentials as food, housing, and heat. Their standard of living, she found, dropped by an appalling 73 percent after divorce!

She had expected to find that modern, “enlightened” divorce laws would serve as a protection for women. Instead, she found that women reported feeling desperate and destitute after divorce. They spoke of suddenly having to resort to welfare programs, food stamps, shelters, and soup kitchens. Fully 70 percent of the women she interviewed reported that they were perpetually worried about making ends meet. Some felt terror, frustration, and even locked in with their children, with no time for themselves.

A young man we’ll call Tom, whose parents divorced when he was eight years old, recalls: “After Dad left, well, we always had food, but all of a sudden, a can of soda was a luxury. We couldn’t afford new clothes. Mom had to make all our shirts for us. When I look at pictures of us kids at that time, it’s a sad picture of sick-​looking people.”

Since most women get custody of the children and many fathers fail to pay the court-​ordered child support​—which is often less than minimal anyway—​divorce is more likely to impoverish women than men. Still, divorce may not exactly enrich men either. The book Divorced Fathers notes that the legal expenses alone can absorb half a man’s yearly net income. Divorce is also emotionally devastating for husbands and fathers. Many agonize over being reduced to mere visitors in their children’s lives.

Guard Your Marriage!

It is hardly surprising, then, to learn that in a study of people who had been divorced for one year, 81 percent of the husbands/​fathers and 97 percent of the wives/​mothers conceded that divorce may have been a mistake and that they should have tried harder to make their marriage work. More and more “experts” too are frantically backpedaling from the cavalier attitudes toward marriage that they once espoused. The Los Angeles Times noted recently: “With more than 25 years to observe the outcomes, many therapists . . . are working harder to save marriages.”

Backpedaling, of course, is fairly easy for the “experts.” All they have to do, in effect, is say, “Oops! Sorry!” and start singing a different tune. It is not so easy for the thousands of people who followed their advice. Still, victims of divorce can learn crucial lessons from their bitter experience, such as the one epitomized at Psalm 146:3, 4: “Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs. His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish.”

Friends, therapists, lawyers, or media personalities are nothing more than imperfect humans. So when we need advice on marriage, why rely solely on them? Wouldn’t it make more sense to turn first to Jehovah God, the Designer of marriage? His principles don’t change with the shifting winds of “expert” opinions. They have held true for millenniums, and they work today.

Andrew and Ann began to realize this some time after they were divorced. They saw that their divorce had been a dreadful mistake. Remarkably, though, it was not too late for them. They found each other and remarried. And they began to change their thinking. “I realized,” recalls Andrew, “that I was morally bankrupt, and I needed help. For the first time in years, I prayed about it. I wanted to do what was right; so I had to stop what I was doing and reject all the values I had picked up in the world. I didn’t want them anymore.”

Ann echoes: “The reason we can be together now, with that horrible past behind us, is that both of us really wanted to be right with Jehovah. And we really wanted it to work.” That doesn’t mean it has been easy ever since. “We constantly watch our relationship now, like a guard dog. And if one of us feels that it is drifting, we’ll talk about it.”

Andrew and Ann are now raising two delightful children. He serves as a ministerial servant in a congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Of course, things are not entirely perfect. No marriage is ever perfect in this old world. How could it be, when it unites two imperfect people? That is why the Bible cautions us that from the time sin entered the world, marriage has brought a degree of ‘tribulation in the flesh.’ (1 Corinthians 7:28) Thus, marriage is not to be entered into lightly; anyone contemplating marriage would do well to spend ample time getting to know the prospective mate. And once entered into, marriage is usually only as good as the effort that goes into it.

Clearly, though, divorce is not to be taken lightly either. When divorce is deemed necessary or unavoidable, certainly God can give us the help we need to endure the hard times that may follow. But if we follow the world’s trend in adopting a cheapened view of the sacred institution of marriage, who will shield us from the consequences of such folly? So guard your marriage. Instead of being ready to throw it all away when things aren’t going well, be solution oriented. Try to repair bridges rather than burn them. Look to God’s Word for practical answers to marital problems.b Solutions are there. And they work.

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Guard your marriage by taking time to do things together as a family