I like to read a certain blog about marriage and family. One recurring theme in this blog is the trivialization of divorce. One might not agree with everything the blog says about the effects of changes in the legal system or about feminism, but certainly the “social atmosphere” has changed greatly in the area of marriage.
When I was growing up, divorce was shameful. People didn’t talk about it. I remember how in the early 1960s there was a television show that actually discussed divorce and portrayed a divorcing couple. There were massive warnings to viewers as if they were showing an X-rated movie. This goes to show how much people’s views of divorce have changed; now it is considered more or less part of the human condition.
This is not to say that divorce did not happen in the ’60s — or the ’50s for that matter. But social pressure kept it in check. Instead of being just another life-choice, it usually indicated major underlying issues such as adultery.
Since that time divorce has been normalized. One of the interesting phenomena one notes is that divorce started out at the “top” — movie stars and celebrities of one sort or another got divorced publicly and sort of “paved the way” for general societal acceptance. The problem is that something that might be painful but not fatal (at least in terms of life status) for someone who is well off will be far more destructive for people who do not have the resources to deal with the consequences of the destruction of their family.
If you are a Christian you probably see divorce in a negative light. The Bible is pretty clear that God is not a fan of divorce. In fact, it comes right out and says, “God hates divorce” (Malachi 2:16). [Note that the ESV has decided to accept a contrary reading here that changed this; having looked into their justification I think they made a mistake. Check the NASB for what I think is the right translation. Regardless, it’s clear that the passage shows God’s strong disapproval of divorce.] The verse goes on to say, “So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
This gives us the first clue regarding avoiding divorce: get it off the table. That is, simply don’t entertain it as an option. Understand that when you get married you are making a lifetime commitment. Don’t talk about it; don’t threaten it; don’t contemplate it as a way out of your marital problems.
Clearly there may be pathological circumstances where separation may be appropriate. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 where he says that the Lord says that a married couple should not separate, but if they do they should remain unmarried or be reconciled.
Jesus says that divorce and remarriage is adultery. The “adultery exception” is simply Jesus’ way of saying that if the other person has already committed adultery, the betrayed spouse is not the initiator of the adultery. Nevertheless adultery is always an aspect of divorce.
These passages give us a clue as to another aspect of avoiding divorce: avoid adultery. It is the sworn enemy of marriage. “Guard yourselves in your spirit.” Keep watch! Your marriage is under attack; perhaps subtle, perhaps less subtle. The modern workplace is sexually integrated; often one can spend more time with others of the opposite sex than one’s own spouse. The modern family also mostly has both parents in the workplace; this means that both partners are under stress in this area.
But these give a somewhat negative perspective. The best way to avoid divorce is to cultivate love for your spouse. This involves a number of ideas.
First, your love for your spouse should take priority even over your love for your kids. John Eldredge, in his book Epic, mentions his surprise when he found out, as a counselor, that kids were happier when they knew that their parents loved each other than when they knew that their parents loved them. Loving parents create a foundation for a loving family, a kind of fortress of security for children who are learning to come to grips with life. A divorce pulls the rug out from them — sometimes literally.
Second, I am not so much a fan of “working” at a marriage as cultivating it. That is, you are trying to grow a garden, not plow a field. You are not involved in mass-production but in the creation of beauty one instance at a time.
Proverbs 5:18-19 gives the husband interesting advice in this area:
Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.
The key insight here is that marriage is the proper setting for romance and sex.
The blogger I mentioned at the beginning of this post mentions that we have made an idol out of romance. We see romance (falling in love) as the proper setting for physical intimacy and, perhaps, marriage. I am amazed, in watching television shows these days, that they take for granted that people will start sleeping together the minute they decide they’ve fallen in love. Yet years may go by before they decide to get married. Why? Because they might fall out of love, or fall in love with someone else. In other words, the key thing is the feeling of romance, and that dictates everything.
The Christian view is, as I said, that marriage is the proper setting for romance and sex. If you think about it, this makes sense. Sex — the act — has a strong binding effect (at least at first). It promotes the long-term attachment that constitutes the foundation of families. To the extent that one cultivates this attachment, recurring bouts of romance will be the normal consequence.
Of course it won’t be a “head over heels” feeling all the time. But from time to time it will be — if you allow it and don’t distract yourself with other things. The passage above suggests that it can be common enough to speak of it as being “always intoxicated in her love.”
Here we come to a point that I think often goes unnoticed. We tend to think of change as the norm. “We grew apart;” “She’s not the person I married;” “We don’t share interests any more.” This notion that change can interject itself into a marriage like this means that the marriage does not have a spiritual foundation. For the fact is that the spiritual is the realm of the eternal. The eternal is that which is not subject to corruption by time.
The main characteristic of life apart from God is that it gradually falls apart at various levels. Our relationships change; our lives become more and more circumscribed as we lose possibilities; finally our bodies fall apart and cease to function. But life with God is characterized by eternity. One aspect of eternity is “faithful love” — love that doesn’t fade or wear down over time. God emphasizes his own faithful love again and again in the Old Testament, and he speaks of “loving faithful love” as one of the things that are “required of us” in Micah 6:8.
In the New Testament this comes into greater focus. Jesus reveals and actualizes God’s faithful love in the midst of the human condition, even to the point of death. Paul talks of this kid of love as a love that “never fails;” that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
To commit yourself to another person on this level is to allow the eternal life that God has already given us to shine through. We are starting to become creatures of eternity as we embody faithful love in our relationships.
Marriage is a way to actually start living out now the kind of life that will be ours in heaven. Yes, we do so under “battlefield conditions” but the battle is part of the process. Just as our faith is purified by suffering, so is our love. A love that bears under pressure is a love that is like that of God himself.
To fail at marriage is not the “unforgivable sin.” There is life beyond divorce. And we are told that in the resurrection we neither marry nor are given in marriage. But in this life marriage allows us to reflect the love of Christ (see Ephesians 5:32). To see our marriages as an aspect of eternal life can, perhaps, help us wend our way through the minefield society has put before us in the area of marriage.