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these anecdotal reports, I am often able to select a few that I can explore in greater detail so that, should the need arise, I can quickly and effectively encapsulate the truth about the marriage to an impatient judge.

It is rare that I read a history of a marriage that does not include an acknowledgment that there were signs of trouble beforehand. Again and again I hear clients whose spouse can't or won't hold a job say, I should have known he was out of work when we met. Wives of abusers tell me how shocked they were the first time they heard their husbands disrespect their mother-in-laws-to-be. I hear about unfaithful wives who flirted with their husband's college roommates. Often there were serious flare-ups over wedding planning. Alcoholic spouses rarely started overindulging only after marriage.

I don't believe in kismet or the one perfect soul mate, and, after so many years of practicing divorce law and hearing stories so sad and terrible that one could not make them up, I still believe in marriage. I also believe that just as we give our children careful guidance in choosing their colleges and jobs; in being good citizens, and in respecting their bodies and their health as they come of age, we should also school them carefully in how to take responsibility for their own happiness. They need to learn, in an easier way than most of us, which signs of small problems inevitably signal big problems down the road. They need to be coached to feel comfortable moving on without regret or remorse, when such signs are there.

The signs are almost always there. As parents, we might be better able than our children to know when someone is the wrong one' and even why that is so. But we are not, nor should we be, relationship police for our children, screening each new girlfriend or beau as she or he walks through the door. By then, infatuation has taken over and our warnings will fall on deaf ears. The only bond we are likely to break at that late date is the one between our child and ourselves.

It is far better that we prepare our teenagers by talking to them earlier and with more honesty about the kinds of issues that typically end marriages. The process by which marriage breaks down and ultimately fails is rarely short and never painless. Far better, too, that we let go of the fairy tale we so love to tell and instead alert them to the warning signs that happiness may not be everlasting.

Learn more about this author, Lois Lawrence.
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