Single people in today’s culture seem obsessed with avoiding divorce. This goes for single men and single women of different age groups, different religious traditions, and different nationalities. They also seem obsessed with themselves and sex, but those are issues for another day.

I would suggest to you that an obsession with creating a happy, healthy marriage would be a far more useful and healthy obsession and that if people spent their time pursuing that the whole divorce thing would take care of itself. For more on that, I suggest you go back and read some of my past posts about marriage.

Avoiding Divorce The Wrong Way

I can think of at least two wrong ways people try to avoid divorce. One was more popular in times past. One is more popular today. Both are still in use – and that’s not good.

In Times Past: Toughing It Out

In “the olden days”, actually not that long ago, people avoided divorce by staying in bad marriages. When you think about it, to a degree, it’s understandable.

People stayed in awful marriages because of:

* the children* divorce being hard to get* financial considerations* societal expectations* not wanting to look or feel like a failure

Now, we understand that it’s debatable whether children are better off in the bad marriage or better off after the divorce. It largely depends on the degree of conflict between the parents and whether abuse is involved. If there is abuse the children are far better off without the abusive parent around. That change is a good thing.

Other changes are not so good.

Today, divorces can be “no-fault” and easy to obtain, societal expectations have shifted tremendously, and there is not near as much stigma of failure attached to divorcees. In fact, we’ve made it so easy to divorce that people give up on marriages for common, petty reasons. They give up way too easily – because they can. They have an easy out.

Today: Avoiding Marriage

Today, people avoid divorce by not getting married. They more and more opt to live together or just date and have sex with a minimal commitment or no commitment at all. That’s become not only an option but, unfortunately, all too often it’s the default option.

Popular, But a Terrible Idea

This may be a popular option, but it’s a terrible idea.

The problem is that people think they will somehow escape heartbreak by not getting married. The truth is they may avoid a divorce but the emotional fallout of breaking off a sexual relationship can be just as devastating – especially if they have been together long-term or if they lived together.

Plus, this often leads to a pattern over years or even decades of cycle after cycle of “falling in love”, loosely pair bonding, then painfully breaking up.

Sex was given to us by God as a strong bonding agent. It releases powerful chemicals that help us attach to each other. By sharing that with someone then breaking up then repeating that process over and over people become immune to that bonding and teach themselves to not tightly bond with their next partner.

As a result, people trade the possible heartbreak of divorce for a series of heartbreaks and a decreased ability to form a lifelong bond.

Avoiding Divorce The Right Way