Divorce

I know you don’t expect a blog whose title is shidduchim to have one of the first posts dealing with divorce. I am not going to talk about the scary rate of people who get a divorce a few months after they get married and how awful is that, and how it could have been prevented given that they were aware of the challenges, and nowadays and blablabla.

I am talking about parents. And shidduchim.

Let me put it this way: Are divorced parents a good enough reason to reject a SUGGESTION?

There are two theories on the subject.

Some say that children who came from divorced parents are more likely to emulate them, make the same mistakes and therefore, will probably end up divorced themselves, considering divorce as an option to a marriage that is falling apart. They also have commitment issues, or on the other end of the spectrum, will do anything to get married to escape their family.

Some say that children who have suffered a divorce in their home, are more likely to invest all they can to make their marriage work, are willing to make more compromises and so on.

And which one is true?

To my humble opinion, things are a little more complicated.

I find it true that those children who came from a broken home have as a role-model a broken couple. True, they are missing out on a lot. And even truer, they might want to get married in order to escape from their house. But if we look at it the other way, they are also kind of gifted. They are aware that marriage is something fragile, something that needs to be handled carefully, dealt with care and devotion; selflessness and altruism. And it’s not an emergency exit they are looking for, rather looking forward to build, instead of watching something destroyed. And yes, they are willing to compromise much more, they are able to identify attitudes that might be destructive whereas children who grew up in regular homes, might not be able to know what could be the consequences of some of their attitudes. And yes, they might consider divorce an option. But I find that this is intrinsically connected to the commitment issue.

In fact, I find that they are reluctant to commit, not because they are scared to get married, but because they are scared that the other person might leave them, just like one of the parents did to the other. They know the risk as a reality, not just as statistics. And in that way, that’s how divorce becomes an option. Because they are scared that if things don’t work out, it’ll end just like their parents’ marriage did. And it will hurt just like it hurt when the parents split up. They know they will do anything to make the marriage work, to avoid anymore suffering, but what if he/she doesn’t feel that way?

And then, technical issues, who comes to visit when, how to tell the kids, who will pay for the wedding expenses…

I get it, marrying someone who comes from a broken home can be off-putting, scary.

And what about marrying an orphan? Ah, it’s not his fault at all? Well, it’s not his fault his parents divorced either. And if things were done the right way, he might have less suffering buried inside than the orphan.

Who are we? How can we decide that a person isn’t good enough for you because his parents were wise enough to split up to save them from witnessing fights, conflicts and tears?

I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences on the subject.

You, whoever you are, if anyone is reading me…