Marriage Crisis

The marriage crisis in your life is more than just the crisis in your own marriage. If you were on a cruise and the ship began to sink so that everyone had to jump off, part of the survival rate would be determined by how quickly people are being rescued and finding safety. The people still in the water would be encouraged by seeing their fellow passengers being pulled to safety and they would hang in there beyond their normal endurance. On the other hand, if everyone saw a bunch of sharks chewing people up and the rescue boats lingering in the distance many people would simply give up and drown even though they had the physical capability to hang in there longer.

I think the analogy is pretty obvious isn't it? The divorce rate in our society is so high that everyone gives up long before they should without fully considering what they could do to save their marriage. And it is completely understandable. Part of the crisis in our country is that when people are having difficulty with their marriage they look for marriage counseling. Why should that be a problem you ask? Because the sad but true reality is that marriage counselors usually don't save marriages. The most commonly accepted statistic is that 70 to 80% of all couples who go to marriage counselors end up divorced within a year.

When I went to mediation school we were told to get our leads from psychologists because mediation was usually the next step for those who sought help. The other group that gets leads from psychologists who specialize in family counseling is divorce lawyers.

It is the Children Who Suffer the Most

For me a crisis is always exacerbated when there are children involved and as far as I am concerned it is the suffering children that make divorce a crisis. I honestly have sympathy for those who get married and discover incompatibilities that make marriage a challenge. But if there are no children they can dissolve their marriage without too much destruction. However, once there are children involved divorce should not even be considered unless there are real dangers in maintaining the intact family. But those circumstances are very rare. I met with many couples who were initially advised by psychologists to get a divorce. After just a few hours of practicing my Lessons For A Happy Marriage principles they were very happy that they didn't give up. They discovered the truth of how simple and fast a marriage that looks like it is over can be turned into the happiest marriage in the world. A horrible part of our marriage crisis is that so few people are currently aware of what is needed.