Good Or Bad, Most Couples Don’t Take Divorce Lightly

Here’s a couple of random thoughts to get us in the mood for today’s topic: marriage and divorce.

According to George Bernard Shaw, marriage is “an institution which is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.”

Which leads, of course, to the flip side of the relationship.

In terms of a modern definition of divorce, consider the traditionally clever saying that it is “what happens when the the marriage you thought was a merger turns out to be a conglomerate.”

Divorce is good: In a two-part article about divorce in the May issue of Esquire magazine, John Taylor wrote in favor of the proposition.

“Divorce Is Good For You,” runs the title.

One of Taylor’s points is to counter the arguments put forth by divorce foes who decry divorce as proof of the “pernicious spread” of “moral relativism.”

“But no one I know who has decided on divorce undertakes it lightly,” Taylor wrote. “It is a wrenching decision, fraught with remorse and heartache, imperiled by moments of genuine terror, and it has almost invariably been postponed for years. Who has the right to moralize about these choices, to add the weight of public censure to the private anguish they already entail?”

Divorce is bad: Also in the May issue of Esquire, John Taylor’s wife, Maureen Sherwood, wrote about her side of their divorce under the heading “An Emptiness I Didn’t Know Existed.”

“‘We have to separate.’ One should hesitate before giving voice to those words,” Sherwood wrote. “When I’m being rational and positive, I think we made the right decision, or at least the honest one.”

But when she isn’t rational or positive, reality hits Sherwood with a sense of stark finality. Such as the time she wore a string of pearls and her daughter asked who had given the necklace to her.

“‘Daddy,’ I said. A forlorn expression swept across her face, perhaps at the reminder that we were not a whole family that day. I didn’t know what to say. There are no painless solutions.”

Marriage is good: It seems fitting here to remind anyone interested in doing some marital maintenance that Worldwide Marriage Encounter has scheduled a weekend workshop June 27-29 at Spokane’s Immaculate Heart Retreat.

For further information, you can leave a message at 325-3263 or 484-5683.

, DataTimes