by Piper Wilson

Created on: August 28, 2007   Last Updated: November 29, 2010

The decision to marry should be based in emotion and intellect.  Love can feel overwhelming sometimes, but love cannot be the only thing a couple shares.  A common admonition at traditional marriage ceremonies is "marriage should not be entered into lightly."  Christian marriage vows hint at future trials and tribulations.  Young lovers want to demonstrate the depth of their devotion to the world and simply cannot grasp the scope and magnitude of those difficulties.

These trials and tribulations of life can make deciding to stay married challenging. However, just like marriage, the decision to stay married or not needs to be based in emotion and intellect.  Deciding that a marriage is untenable, and divorce is the only solution, is excruciatingly painful.  Especially when children are involved.  Couples need to consider future hopes, dreams and potential regrets.

It is difficult to fully convey the experience of parenting or being in the military to someone that hasn't lived through it.  In the same way, marriage is hard in a way that is unfathomable to someone that hasn't been married.

In the book Ending Marriage, Keeping Faith, Nicholas Randall talks about the incredible pressure that society places on divorced couples. Many times, they are expected to be friends, if not best friends with each other. He argues that expecting people who were not able to maintain a stable, loving relationship to maintain a fond friendship is untenable at best, cruel at the worst.

Unless an issue of abuse or other harmful situation exists, couples are required to maintain a civil and open relationship with each other when children are involved. This is more necessary than manners or "it would be nice if..." Thank you notes are an example of good manners; it would be nice if everyone wrote them.

Divorce should be considered only when all other options have been exhausted. Sometimes that means that a dream will be sacrificed. In those instances, try to look at it like running a marathon. The training is wearying and tedious, but the results are worth it. Religious people will pray to God for things and then rail against Him when they don't get what they want. Sometimes the answer is no. It has been observed that a door is never closed where a window is not made available. The movie "Peggy Sue Got Married" shows a good example of that. Both Peggy Sue, played by Kathleen Turner, and her boyfriend, played by Nicholas Cage ended up living lives that turned out nothing like what they thought they wanted. By the end of the movie though, they both realized that what they had was better than what they thought they wanted.

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