The D Word

Divorce is a pretty casual word these days.  To many it’s just something that is expected.  It’s viewed much like winter time…it’s inevitable that it will come.

The sayings go something like, “people change”, or “people fall out of love”.

Now before I go further, I want to say that I believe divorce is okay…in certain circumstances.  If abuse is going on either verbal or physical, you need to get out of that relationship.

If your spouse is cheating on you, you can get a divorce, you don’t have to live with that.

Outside of those two things, I am pretty against divorce and let me explain why.

When people get married there are a lot of expectations.  Let’s face it, most of us get married at a time in our lives when we don’t even really know who we are.  We grow up with all kinds of hurts and scars and we get married thinking the other person is going to fix and heal all our wounds, and we will ride off into the sunset together every night.

Then reality hits.  You get to know someone in marriage in a way that nothing else on earth compares to.  There are no more walls, no more pretenses, no more faking. It’s raw, real, and not always pretty.

After being married things often get very hard, because the structure of marriage causes all kinds of junk that we never even knew we had in our lives to come spewing out of us.  We chock this up to “people changing”.  But in reality it has nothing to do with that, that person didn’t suddenly morph into something else after you got married, it was there all along.

Here’s an argument that really gets me going. “We just fell out of love”.  I don’t believe you “fall out of love”.  I think it’s a cop-out.

Falling out of love is simply you not trying anymore, you give up.  Not just on the other person, but you give up on yourself.  “Falling out of love” is not a reflection of your relationship with your significant other, it’s a reflection on yourself.  There is some deep lack in your own life that have not addressed, and so you project that lack onto another person, thinking that you are just not with the right person.

Then you go and get with someone else, and shockingly…the same thing happens. Because guess what?  You still have the same issues in your own life that you are failing to deal with.

Staying in love with someone isn’t some sappy feeling…feelings come and go, they are extremely finicky.  Love is a decision that you deliberately make on a daily basis.  It’s a commitment you make, for better or for worse.

It’s a laying down of your self and saying, whether they deserve it or not, I am going to serve them to the best I can so help me God. And often times we need God’s help desperately to get us through dark times.  But if we are willing, He does, and He will.

So don’t give up on love.  Fight for it.  Fight hard.  Serve for it.  Give everything you’ve got. Examine yourself, realize you are messed up.  Stop focusing on the negative about your spouse, and start realizing the negative things in your own life, and just wait and see what will happen in your relationship.