Because I've been married for seven years now, I found today's service at Church of the Suncoast to be very interesting & it gave me a lot to think about. The current series is called The Vow which discusses the fact that wedding vows are more than just the declaration of love. It was said that marriage should not be thought of as a contract which is based on mutual DIStrust, rather it should be a covenant which is a mutual commitment. When we say our vows, we use the words, "for better or worse, till death do us part," yet 50% of marriages end in divorce. Much focus was placed on the fact that marriage should be about WE vs. me & not always putting yourself before your spouse.
I've always known that devout Christians do not believe in divorce & today I learned more about why this is the case. It was discussed that when you see your marriage as a covenant rather than a contract, you will choose to hold up your "end of the bargain" whether or not your partner is doing the same. This is where I get confused... if you legitimately fall in love with someone & get married & as the years go by, your spouse turns into a different person, someone that you didn't make that vow to, what are you to do? Stay in the marriage because you said your vows in the presence of God? How does one "hold up their end of the bargain" day in & day out when mutual respect is just not there anymore? What if your spouse becomes abusive, turns to drugs or alcohol? This is where it gets fuzzy for me.
I truly believe that marriage should be taken seriously; one should never go into marriage thinking, "well, if it doesn't work out, there's always divorce." Marriage should be based on respect for one another; without respect, you have nothing. As it was said in church today, when you are two people who come together & become united or "tied together" & you both start going in opposite directions, you will begin to play tug of war & become untied. This is where we began to talk about complete vs. compete & not living in rebellion or fighting for dominance over your spouse & about Godly mutual submission. In most relationships, you'll find that one does have a more dominant personality, but as long as balance is involved, it works.
Marriage can be wonderful, sacred & full of happiness or it can be extremely sad & lonely. It requires constant TLC; things can fall apart very quickly. I feel it's so incredibly important to LIKE your spouse as well as love them. Obviously it's not always going to be a bed of roses, but when you take a step back & look at your relationship in the big picture, you want to have more happy thoughts than sad or angry.
My question is, if you are a Christian who fully believes that you do not leave your marriage come hell or high water, what do you do when things have truly fallen apart? You're waking up each day, looking at the person laying next to you & feeling pure disdain? Trying your hardest to make things right & failing? Do you stay in that life? Or do you leave & potentially have the ability to fine true happiness?
It is my personal opinion that life is too short to be miserable. Not saying that I think marriage is just a piece of paper that should be taken lightly, but that sometimes you have to know when to say when.
It's terrible that the divorce rate is so high. I agree that too many couples bail when the going gets tough but for some divorce is the answer. Take my parents for example. They had a miserable marriage. They split when I was 5. Even at that young age I remember my Mom crying and crying and them both fighting and fighting! I would do everything I could to misbehave just so they would yell at me instead of each other. For years after they split I wanted nothing more than for them to get back together. Now that I'm an adult, a wife and parent I know that divorce was the best and only decision.
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