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Post by semperstarla on Oct 20, 2010 9:51:33 GMT -5
When my husband and I used to read marriage books, and attend marriage retreats, on how to have a better (read, "godlier") marriage, (not that ours was bad, but we wanted to prevent it from going bad) a common phrase was, "dont even allow the "D" word into your thoughts". D, for divorce. "we dont believe in divorce" we'd say, we wouldnt even begin to consider it, because we dont even allow that word into our home. In practice, that principle is not quite as sweet as it may sound. For me, when my husband began really struggling with mental illness, it turned my relationship into another cross to bear for Jesus. Oh what a martyr I was, sticking it out in dire financial and emotional circumstances. Surely, God was weeping with me about my state of affairs. Yuck. How self righteous, how masochistic is that?! Now my feelings are decidedly different. My husband and I got married when I was 18, and he was 21. We are high school sweethearts, and I met him at the tender age of 14. These are facts. I know, based on statistics, and common sense, that many, if not most people who marry in their teens eventually divorce. I assume that rate is higher when you factor in low income and mental illness. So now I wake up, not assuming I'll have the next 50 years with this man. I hope to God I do, but I know that all I really have is today. When I accepted that love is often finite between married persons, it made me appreciate each moment that I do have my husband. I wake up and snuggle into my husband's arms, grateful for this morning, that I have. Maybe it is the knowledge of death that makes our lives precious. And as for the "D word"? I hope that if we need to go there, we can do so with kindness and respect.
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Post by humbletigger on Oct 20, 2010 10:23:17 GMT -5
I always hated being told to avoid the word "divorce". Because you know, I did not intend to stay in an emotionally abusive relationship forever. How else are you going to get that point across if you can't say, "I want this relationship to work, but if things don't improve, I can not stay in this relationship"? The very next question will be, "Are you threatening to divorce?" Uh, no, not threatening, just pointing the very real consequences of not fixing the problems we have. My husband did get help once he was convinced I was serious. It took me signing up for counseling. I had told him previously that I had hesitated to seek help for myself because I knew I might wind up divorcing him if I did. When I was willing to take that chance, if that's what it took to have a good life, he sought his own help. Great news for us! Thanks to anti-depressants, EMDR counseling for each of us as individuals, and his willingness to rethink his life/religion (he's an mk/pk), we are as happy now as when we first married. The good life has returned! As long as he thought I would stay no matter what, due to my own religious convictions, he wouldn't seek help. The stigma for him was too great (admitting he was depressed, or in any way at fault, much less abusive!) but the stigma of DIVORCE was worse. Once it was clear divorce was an option, it gave him the impetus to get the help he needed. I am so glad.
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Post by liltwinstar on Oct 20, 2010 11:00:25 GMT -5
It's funny, but realizing that I *could* get divorced if I needed to gave me the courage to get married in the first place. Growing up in the fundamentalist world, I saw lots of women stuck in truly awful marriages - marriages where men were abusive or neglectful (two sides of the same coin, in my opinion) and women were told over and over not to leave, not to even think about divorce, etc. Seeing that made me never want to get married, because it seemed that you were stuck for life, and it was such a gamble.
One woman did, finally, have the courage to leave and she was blasted for "destryoing her marriage" which I didn't understand. She, herself, was being destroyed *by* her marriage, so why was an institution more important than a person? It made no sense.
Both my husband and I have "deal breakers" that are things we know we would end our marriage over - abuse, cruelty, addiction, things like that. This isn't to say we don't take our relationship seriously, but we also respect ourselves as individuals, so we won't stay in a situation that is harmful. That said, we're also big fans of counseling, so we would of course do that if we felt that we needed it - and hopefully sooner, when/if the problems were smaller, rather than later, when they're big and huge and scary.
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Post by rosa on Oct 20, 2010 12:49:12 GMT -5
The thing about "don't even let the D word into your mind" is that it gives no independent ground for either person to stand on. How can you even negotiate or work things out, if you don't have any power to work with?
And in marriages where one person has more physical power, more willingness to use violence, more financial power, more emotional independence, or more social power from support from others - then it's a unilateral disarmament. The person with less power is being told to give up what might be the only thing they have.
It seems like these patriarchal churches work on making that so - they give more willingness to use violence to the husbands, and more financial power, and more social support, and also more spiritual power. And then a wife who is already weaker, poorer, and less emotionally supported is told to give up the last bargaining chip.
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Post by semperstarla on Oct 20, 2010 13:09:36 GMT -5
yes, humbletigger, I have seen first hand that in some situations it is helpful to be able to say, "I cannot continue our marriage under these conditions."
I know that while my husband was first pursuing treatment, he had to move out for a few months (at my insistance) for our safety. The world can see that however they want, but for us it was crucial to seperate in order to move forward.
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Post by semperstarla on Oct 20, 2010 13:12:56 GMT -5
rosa, that is a good point about giving up the last bargaining chip. Why is it it holier, and godlier, to have no power, no control of our own lives? Well, godlier for women, anyways.
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Post by madame on Oct 20, 2010 15:55:59 GMT -5
I know people who say that the "D word" doesn't exist for them. They are also people who have felt free to pursue their own thing, while remaining married. In one of these marriages, the husband always believes to hear something from God that he must do. His wife has gone along with many of these ideas, but at the same time she held on to her career and made sure their responsibilities were clearly divided. And guess what? He respects her for standing her ground.
I think it's possible to say "till death do us part" and really mean it, and stick to it, but only if you are free to protect yourself and be your own self. What makes these statements dangerous is not the belief that marriage is for life, but that you can't do whatever it takes to protect your personhood.
Some couples may have given up on intimacy and don't even share a bed any more, but they believe they would sin if they divorced, so they just get on with life like two strangers living in the same house. Who's to say they can't do this?
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Post by humbletigger on Oct 20, 2010 16:45:16 GMT -5
That sounds like my grandparents. I think it's very sad. But, of course people can live any way they choose to live. *I* just would rather honestly divorce than live estranged emotionally and physically.
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Post by whiteclover on Oct 20, 2010 16:45:38 GMT -5
It was pounded into us, too, that divorce "is not an option" and "divorce is a sin."
The intact marriage was the ultimate goal, no outs, no excuses, nothing would validate getting a divorce, except for the "biblical" reason of adultery, and that could be disqualified IF the woman would forgive and not create the cause for the man's infidelity. The "marriage," as a legal institution, was more important than a safe and healthy relationship within that marriage, and never considered that one or both could be living in hell or danger.
When the SHTF, it was my fault for "not caring about the marriage." He had tried to take my life twice, and had been arrested, yet it was still me that took the blame. Why, because "I" had called the police? Instead of calling the church, which for thirty years had listened to his lies and supported him, simply by virtue of the fact that he was the man?
Divorce became an option when I got the positive result (for the administered toxin) on the blood test.
I've said this elsewhere, but he still came up smelling like a rose because I did all the paperwork and paid for the divorce. Which was a case in point. He avoided anything that might get his hands dirty, especially when he could shift blame and hide under the "mantle" of the church.
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Post by rosa on Oct 20, 2010 18:59:04 GMT -5
Madam, that's a really good point - it's not just the absolute unwillingness to divorce, but the whole package - the being pressured to not have a job, not speak up for yourself, not get mental health support, etc.
But really, to me, the making divorce out to be this really dreadful sin, worse than beating or berating your spouse, worse than teaching bad doctrine, worse than everything, that undergirds the whole thing. Because the most basic *nonviolent* source of power anyone has is the ability to "vote with your feet". Look at the Israelites fleeing Egypt - God didn't say to them, stay and suffer until I move the hearts of these evil masters.
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Post by krwordgazer on Oct 20, 2010 19:09:50 GMT -5
Some of these fundie groups love to blast women as a whole because in their circles it's usually the woman who seeks divorce.
It makes a lot of sense in light of what Rosa said. If a woman has no power in the relationship, no voice, no way to change anything-- escape is her only option. When the man is the ruler, he feels no need to seek divorce. He can do anything he pleases and have anything he wants. He has no incentive to change, to try to be a better spouse. And yet he'd rather fault the woman for seeking escape through divorce, when neither he nor their church has given her any other way.
In the days before divorce was allowed, some women simply lost their will to live, slowly declined, and died. And then the husband was given all kinds of sympathy and was free to find another victim to marry. Brrr.
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