What does marriage mean after divorce?

With 75 percent of all divorced people remarrying, and half of them within three years of their divorce, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the divorce experience doesn’t stop people from getting hitched again.  That probably reflects our fundamental (biological?) need as humans to be social but what these statistics don’t tell us, is how people’s expectations of marriage change having experienced divorce.

In my last post, Storm clouds over the future after divorce, Carolyn mentioned that she and her boyfriend were talking about marriage. She also told me her view on marriage had changed. Here’s how.

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I am certain that it’s better I left my marriage and yet I used to be so “pro-marriage.”  I don’t think that’s quite the right description but I’m not sure how else to say it. I used to say that you shouldn’t break up the home, you should stay together for the kids, you always have to work it out and, that even if my husband cheated, I wouldn’t leave.

Marriage is for life.

That was before my husband cheated on me. Those were the words of a very scared person. I wouldn’t give that advice anymore.

I still take marriage very seriously and if I were to marry again, it would be with the intention of it being for life. However, now I think that marriage should make your life better and if it’s something that making your life consistently worse and more miserable, there’s no value in ‘sticking it out’ sacrificing your happiness. I don’t think that benefits anyone, including the kids.

When a friend says they’re thinking about divorce, my first instinct is to tell them to,

“Really, really work on it.”

While you shouldn’t stay if you are truly miserable, life as a single parent is hard and it’s not something to do if you have a better option. I think some people don’t try enough and we have a bit of a ‘disposable culture’ where people think they can be single for a while and maybe marry someone better. But barring some extreme cases, I believe blood is always thicker than water. Nobody’s  going to be better at raising your children than their own father, if you can keep it together and both manage to be happy again.

But if you can’t be happy, marriage shouldn’t be a death sentence.

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Amen – marriage shouldn’t be a death sentence and I think many of us would agree on that. Sometimes though, we are blind to what is obvious to our friends – we stay in relationships that aren’t working, too long. Sometimes we stay because we remember our vows and we keep thinking maybe it’ll get better when x happens or y happens. Sometimes, it’s just hard to know when to say enough is enough.

And I didn’t understand how that could be until I went through my divorce.

This is the last post in this Leap and the Net Will Appear series. Thank you, Carolyn for your courage and bravery to share your story. I think you are an amazing woman! Please keep your blog going … I want to read about when you get married, when you move, the day you become a registered nurse and …

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting about the Blissdom conference … might even try to do a McLinky so you can read some other write ups. Haven’t done a McLinky before so it’ll be a good chance to try something new but I’m not making any promises.

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