Love The One You're With?

Say the word divorce around certain people and you'll watch their face change. Over the last half century the rate has climbed sharply in the United States, partly because fewer people cling to the rules their grandparents lived by. Think about what those rules looked like. Women finished grade school, married around 18, and had no checking account of their own until the workforce opened up to them. You stayed married, period, whatever happened behind the door. That arrangement is mostly gone now.

One thing gets under my skin more than the rest, and maybe I'm being unfair to people who are already going through something awful. A lot of women slide into depression after a divorce. That's the part that bothers me. I've also listened to deeply conservative folks insist they weren't raised to divorce because scripture doesn't allow it, though the Bible actually names adultery as grounds. Meanwhile the Internet overflows with lists of why marriages end. The usual top three: money, cheating, and signing up for something you never really understood.

We'll get to the other causes, but there's a question I don't want to breeze past. Has it ever occurred to you that the person you married might not have been the person you were meant to marry? Most people never file that under reasons their marriage is struggling. Stay with the Bible example for a second. If God wants people to marry and have children, God also expects you to use your head. The same text that says marrying beats being alone also spells out what to look for in a partner, man or woman.

Early on, everything glows. The other person looks flawless, or you "fall in love" and simply don't register the flaws that could wreck things later. The smartest move you can make is learning to be alone and refusing to rush. Land in a destructive relationship, skip the recovery, and you'll repeat the same mistakes on a loop. The one constant in every relationship you've had is you. Slow down.

People marry too young, I think, usually in their twenties. If you did that and you're happy, skip this paragraph entirely. For everyone else, there's a case for living first and settling down after you've seen some of the world. Few things sting like looking back and regretting what you skipped because you got married. Waiting also hands you time to figure out who you are and build the maturity a steady relationship demands. You might find out you're nothing like the person you were at 20.

Divorce itself isn't evil. Now and then it's the best thing that could happen to you. Just make it the last door you try. Clashing communication styles, mismatched values, money trouble, all of it can batter a marriage, and yet working through the problems can show you the marriage wasn't as far gone as it felt. Often it takes an outside party to help you actually see what's broken.

When I searched for the top reasons people split, hundreds of articles came back, most of them circling lack of communication, money, and no intimacy. One stood out, a piece titled Reasons for Divorce, which walks through 18 common causes in real detail. It covers the ones people rarely blame, like boredom, loneliness, a traumatic event, plain stress. Money never shows up on its list at all.

If divorce really is your only path, weigh the pros and cons with care, and keep in mind that peace of mind has no price tag, whatever it costs to get there. Treating it as a last resort, get counseling once the divorce and the litigation are behind you. It's a traumatic life event like any other, and it can chip away at your self-esteem. Sitting down with a licensed professional, or your pastor, can make you a better partner for whoever comes next.

Heather Browning, MBA, BA. Source: Professional-counseling.com, "Reasons for Divorce," retrieved February 3, 2015.