Faith in Marriage, Part I

My wife has a friend (we'll call her Jen). I have known Jen for about 18 months.

Jen's boyfriend, who lived in another state, recently got a new job and is moving to the same city Jen lives. They have a serious relationship, and when you remove the barrier of distance, it is likely a marriage proposal will take place in the near future.

Coincidentally (or not), Jen and I have had some deep conversations on this topic. I have a negative opinion of marriage, even though the most honest and open relationship of anyone I know is between myself and my wife.

We have been married for 13 years this month. Neither of us has committed an act of infidelity, we have a happy and healthy son, we vacation together several times a year, we go out and do things together, and we have an open communication on the topics that tend to result in marriages falling apart (finances, sex, religion, in-laws, parenting, employment, etc.).

Despite this background, I think marriage is a broken concept that needs to be fixed.

(ground rules for this discussion: I am not saying that people who are unhappy should not get divorced, as it is unhealthy to be unhappy until you reach your breaking point and shoot your spuse, your co-workers, then put the gun on yourself. If a father is sexually molesting a child, then you obviously have to divorce the bastard. My comments are not for extreme corner cases that are not preventable but directed at the relationsips that most of us experience every day.)

It is pretty much accepted by all sides that about half of all marriages end in divorce (and the divorce rate is higher for second and third marriages). So, if we have 100 married couples, 50 are getting divorced.

Of the remaining 50, I think it is safe to say not all are happy. I estimate about 20 of these couples are on their way to getting divorced but taking a bit longer to get there. That leaves us with 30 couples.

Of that 30, it is likely not all of them are perfectly happy, so let's assume 10 of them are not really considering divorce as an option and will never be a statistic, but at the same time aren't happy with the relationship (in counseling, cheating on their spouse, avoiding each other, hiding financial issues, etc.). That leaves us with 20 couples.

I could probably argue that a significant amount of those 20 are on thin ice themselves, just an unexpected pregnancy, layoff, bad financial decision, in-law moving in, etc. away from becoming an unhappy marriage because the relationship is only as strong as their success, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and state they are happily married.

That means I estimate about 20% of marriages are successful and happy. I could go into more detail with my thoughts on the reasons for believing this and the explanation of why marriage is falling apart, but that is another blog entry. For now, understand that I have explained these thoughts in detail to Jen.

I have asked her, if you had a 50% chance that the car you buy will blow up when you start to brake, would you buy that model? Of course not, she replied.

If you had a 50% chance of getting food poisoning at a restaurant, would you eat somewhere else? Yes.

If a toy had a 50% chance of breaking, would you buy it for a child? No.

Yet, even though everyone knows there is a 50% chance of a marriage ending in divorce, marriage is still valued by society and encouraged as the only option for at-risk individuals who clearly don't have the resources, capabilities, and maturity to handle the complexity of marriage.

I told Jen most people shouldn't get married. The risk is too great, and the impact financially, socially, and mentally on people is too devastating and long-lasting. And while some may say that it is a personal choice and not my concern, I disagree. It does impact me, because most people cannot contain the problems of their personal life to just their personal time.

I have to deal with your transference when you commit acts of aggression on the road, blow off your responsibilities at work, or act ignore the rules of civility in society, all because you are fighting constantly with your wife and you've had enough with everyone and everything.

And the impact is even greater when children are involved; the majority of prisons in the US are filled with males who did not have a father influence in their lives due to failed relationships/marriages, and the father was no longer a daily influence (research shows the greatest influence on a child's life is the same gender parent). This doesn't include the millions of kids who are not felons but are disruptive in classrooms, bullies outside of school, and destructive to themselves and society, who also grew up raised in the home of a failed marriage.

Why should our kids get beat up walking home because your son is acting out his aggressions from watching years of mom and dad yell at each other? Why should we have to pay for the vandalism your kid caused because he watched mom throw things at dad when he was six and thinks that is how you behave when you don't get your way? Not only should you not have had kids; you never should have been married to begin with.

After listening patiently to this rant and waiting for me to pause for air, Jen asked me (and I am paraphrasing here): "What am I supposed to do when there is only person who makes me feel that way? Am I supposed to avoid it? I want to experience that feeling."

That, of course, is the crux of the problem: Every engaged couple feels their love is eternally strong. Even if one concedes my argument on the number of failed marriages, no one thinks that they will be the ones getting divorced.

So how do we know a marriage will be one of the successful ones?

After all, in every wedding I have been to or heard about, everyone celebrated the bride and groom without reservation, hugged and cried, gave gifts, said congratulations, commented on how great they look together, and by doing this explicitly supported the union.

I have never heard of anyone ever actually speaking up when asked to by the preacher and saying: "Walk away! He's a bum! In seven years she will tire of your looks and start to fool around with your neighbor!"

Clearly you can't trust friends or family to tell you if this is the right person for you to marry, because they are either incapable of considering the possibility the marriage might fail, too emotionally attached to see things clearly, or maybe they have doubts but don't have the guts to tell the truth; either way, we celebrate and buy presents for thousands of couples each year who will hate each other before the warranty runs out on the applianace you gave them.

I told Jen that although it may be awkward and certainly unusual, the best thing one could do before marrying is to find someone who is neither a family member nor close personal friend of the bride or groom, someone who has no agenda, someone who is open-minded and an intuitive thinker who bases decisions on fact and not emotion, and ask that person if the marriage should take place, based on honest evidence and arguments presented by the person getting married, supporting the case for marriage.

While a religious person is often the most common third-party advisor in pre-marriage counseling (as was the case with mine), they are not a good resource for this task, as their religious agenda makes them no better than family and friends.

I know many people who have been "counseled" by a religious person from a church prior to marriage; I know of none whom have been told not to marry. The goal of the church is not to honestly counsel these people but to have them do some surveys, hear scripture about God, and get them into the Church machine.

Only a true impartial person would have the best opinion on the possible success of the marriage. It may not be perfect, but it certainly would result in a success rate above 50%. It may be a whole new profession- the Wedding Approver. Sure, it would raise the cost of a wedding, but it would be money well spent if it avoided years of screaming, crying, and heartbreak- "The best $200 I ever spent!" people would tell their friends years later, after emotion passed and they realized what a big mistake they almost made.

I joked with Jen that I am available for this consultation when she is ready.

(see part II for conclusion)