Today is “Divorce Day”? No, Please–Keep Trying!

I was driving in the car when I heard this from a newscaster:  Today, January 2, is known in  the legal profession and among relationship counselors as “Divorce Day.”

This day, according to some, is the perfect time to end a marriage that’s gone sour.  That’s because it’s the day when couples in a troubled relationship are most likely to call it quits.  One news source reports:

According to experts, after months, or even years, of thinking about it, the tension of a fraught Christmas is often the catalyst for relationship breakdowns and the start of the New Year brings these underlying problems to the surface and couples make their final decision to part.

The divorce attorney who I heard discussing about the event on radio station WWJ-FM noted that there’s another big reason:  Money.  Unhappy couples still want that one last chance to file their taxes jointly and take advantage of the tax breaks accorded to married couples; and in order to do this, they must remain married through December 31.  With professional offices closed on the New Years holiday, “Divorce Day” marks the first time they can go ahead and get the paperwork filed to start their happy new, single lives.

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So why not just throw in the towel after the first of the year, leaving that cranky husband or spendthrift wife in the dust, never looking back?

Well, here are a few good reasons:

God’s will.  Need I remind you about Jesus’ admonition, “What God has joined together, let no man cast asunder”?  Marriage is for life.

Your children’s welfare.  Children who grow up in a stable home with both a mother and a father have a head start in terms of hope for their future, academic achievement, and financial success.  Children who are raised by their mother and father are more likely to enter society with a level of confidence that they may not have had, coming from a separated household.  And The Longevity Project, a longitudinal study by Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman, found that individuals who had experienced the dissolution of their parents’ marriage were much more likely to later have their own marriages end in divorce — and this significantly increased their mortality risk.

The Husband’s Health and Wellbeing.  A paper published in the Journal of Men’s Health titled “The Influence of Divorce on Men’s Health,” concluded that divorced and unmarried men have mortality rates up to 250 percent higher than married men. The causes of premature death for divorced men include cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke. Divorced men are also more prone to various diseases, ranging from common colds to life-threatening health problems like cancer and heart attacks.

The Wife’s Economic and Emotional Wellbeing.  Divorced women face financial struggles more than their male counterparts, and they usually bear the greater responsibility for meeting their children’s needs.  There are also psychological and emotional problems, such as feelings of guilt for not trying harder to keep the marriage.

The Sexual Satisfaction of Both Partners.  You’d think people would know this instinctively, but society tries to tell you the opposite:  Magazines and television give the impression that one-night stands, bar pick-ups and short-term trysts are the way to have Really Sexy Sex.  In reality, though, people who feel loved, cared for and respected are free to full enjoy the sexual relationship.  It’s not true, as the magazines in the checkout line report, that relationships with virtual strangers afford the same satisfaction.

The Benefit to Society.  The family remains the linchpin of society.  A strong marriage contributes to the fiscal wellbeing of the country, because married couples are more likely to be financially stable, have more money to spend (thus strengthening the economy), and are more likely to enter the housing market more frequently and at higher levels.  Crime rates are lower among children of stable two-parent families, as are academic problems.

So if there are all these good reasons to stay married, then who, exactly, benefits from the divorce culture which says that it’s no big deal to strike out for new territory at the first sign of trouble?

Well, attorneys benefit.  The guy who was talking up divorce on the radio today–he and his firm stand to rake in substantial attorney fees from couples untying the knot.

And since divorces jam up the court systems, I suppose divorce is a boon to court employees, administrators, even judges.

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Now here’s the thing:  Studies show that most couples do not part ways on a whim.  A couple who initiates a divorce on January 2 has most likely been thinking about it for months, even years.

With all that time and effort going into planning for the single life, why not instead devote some time to protecting and preserving your marriage?

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has developed a website, For Your Marriage, designed especially to help couples who want to protect their marriage and to fall ever more deeply in love.

If you can’t work through the problems on your own, there are counselors and clergy ready to help you.  Check out a marriage-friendly counselor in your own community, or explore the telephone counseling service available from my fellow Patheos blogger, Dr. Gregory Popcak, through his Pastoral Solutions Institute.