Divorce

I have seen conflicting reports listing financial problems as high as the number one cause for divorce to as low as the number five cause of divorce. No matter how many divorces are caused by financial problems, I am certain that every divorce causes financial problems, a lot of financial problems.

It isn’t unusual for one partner in a divorce to misuse money as a weapon to damage the more responsible partner. Of course there are the cost of lawyers and the court system. If a couple had money problems before a divorce, operating two households instead of one household will certainly not make things any better.

Then there are the residual entanglements. Alimony is less common than a generation ago, but it is still awarded by the courts. If there are children involved, there will most likely be child support payments, a source for a great deal of bitterness and recriminations. In the case of joint custody, pretty common these days, each child needs two rooms and two sets of furniture instead of one room.

Even retirement becomes problematic. Pensions are divided according to some formula involving the overlap between time of service and the years of the marriage. In some cases this burden is not triggered until retirement, giving the partner earning the pension incentive to work until death, if not to have enough unencumbered pension, at least to deny their ex any of “their” money.

This is not an article about when divorce is appropriate or inappropriate. It just gives one more reason to try and save a marriage. It is frequently said that it takes two people to make a marriage work. Ultimately that is true. However, in the short run (which can be years) one partner who is willing to suck it up and carry the load, no matter how unfair, can singlehandedly support a marriage until the problem partner gets back on track. One of my heroes is a woman who did just that. She carried her marriage through some pretty bad times. Now her husband tells anyone who will listen his wife is the only reason their marriage survived. He praises her publicly whenever the subject arises. She just smiles. I believe she not only has her reward in this world, but a greater reward in the world to come.

Matthew 19

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”