Divorce is wrong

E.C. · Mar 28, 2021

rusmeister said:
THIS IS A POST IN TAW FOR TAW MEMBERS (which includes honorary members).
I don’t want to forbid all other posts, but I have no interest in a CF-wide discussion between people who do not agree on what Christian authority to teach us is. PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT THIS IS THE ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONAL FORUM AND RESPECT THAT NON-ORTHODOX MAY NOT TEACH HERE.

Divorce between practicing Orthodox Christians who both declare repentance and a determination to follow Christ is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Orthodox people should stop doing it and stop justifying it. I’m not talking about non-Orthodox, I’m not talking about non-Christians, I’m not talking about unrepentant apostate adulterers. I’m talking about Mark ch 10, especially verse 9.

And one of the biggest lies is that it is a private affair between the two spouses. No, it is not. It is a communal act, and affects EVERYBODY around us. I learned that when friends got divorced and I was in an outer circle, just becoming friends with them. That “Orthodox” divorce shook me more than my sister’s divorce across the sea at the same time.

We are commanded to love our neighbor and love our enemies. Where in the heck do we think we can make our spouse an exception?

The rejection of this clear Orthodox teaching by people in the Church has driven me into a crisis of faith I’m still not quite out of, the idea that we can reject Christian teaching that we don’t like, think outdated, or “doesn’t apply to people any more”. I can’t even tell you how much that realization, that people in the Church actually do pick and choose which teachings they will keep, and which they will throw out, has crushed my naive belief that we share a common faith, that the Church really IS the Church, and not just another fake organization.

rusmeister said:
Agreed, and that case doesn’t fall under what I am talking about. There are bona fide victims in divorce, my sister being one, my mother another. But we tend to jump on the chance to be victims, that drive to ignore our own sins and blame everything on another is the opposite of what we are generally supposed to be doing, and I am talking about two Orthodox Christians who both say they want to continue to try to lead the life we are called to.

Divorce was the first attack on the sanctity of the family. It made all if the other attacks possible. If we admit divorce because people are merely unhappy with each other, then we can’t talk about the sanctity of marriage, period, as we do not hold it as holy. Admitting it in general, outside of the words of Christ, is an attack on MY marriage. It means MY marriage may be dissolved on exactly the same principle, and I myself am a forgiven sinner. I do not judge anyone’s status before God.

I say that the Church has become SO lax on the issue that we need to tighten up our attitude hard, and stop seeing marriage as the world sees it. Exceptions remain exceptions. The 2% is real. But 98% of us are not exceptions on any given form of brokenness, just wannabes. We all want exceptions, the “get out of jail free” card. And we are not supposed to want that.

I made it about this far into the thread before realizing the time, but I promise I'll get back to it tomorrow.

My parents divorced when I was six and my brother was eight. It was ugly, brutal, and vicious to the point that until my own brother got married nine years ago I honestly thought that staying single was the best course of action for me. Sure, I had a number of girlfriends, but didn't see a future with any of them. Once my older brother got married, I realized that as screwed up as we both are from the divorce wars that if he could be normal enough to marry another normal, stable person than maybe there's some hope for me yet. For a long time I wished that my parents had never divorced and often wondered what life would have been like if they hadn't. It wasn't until the last few years when I saw more of my mother's toxic personality (she objects to my engagement to a foreigner from a mostly brown people country despite her claiming to be a liberal, but that's a rant for another day) when I realized that as crummy as the divorced-kid life was, it would have been worse had they remained married. Objectively speaking, knowing both of my parents well enough, perhaps they shouldn't have gotten married in the first place. My dad was a devout Roman Catholic at the time (now an Orthodox subdeacon) and my mom became Catholic to marry my dad, but I have very few recollections of her actually going to mass with us.

I wish divorce didn't exist. I absolutely do. It tore apart my family, created a civil war out of the Catholic school we attended, and even caused a delay in me receiving emergency medical attention as a teenager because some idiot nurse had the gall to ask "where's his mother" when we hadn't lived with her for at least three years by that point.

Yeah, part of the problem is that nowadays we grant divorces too easily. Why? I'll give an example. My landlady has a friend who is in her 80s. She's been in an unhappy marriage most of her life and especially the last ten years as her husband's mind descends more and more into alzheimer's. Her marriage has been, in her words, horrible for decades. Is it better to live under an uneasy peace or a violent war? That's what divorces really come down to for all involved. And you're right, it isn't limited to the couple in question because then they start demanding that their friends, families, coworkers, neighbors, church friends, and every other acquaintance under the sun take sides. And most of those people don't want to take sides, they just want to remain friends with both and they just want their kids to remain friends with those kids too. It absolutely is a community affair, but since you've brought up the problem of divorce and how it effects the community, what is your solution? Do we ban divorces outright? Do that and you'll end up in the situation that Irish society had for decades when divorce was still illegal: men will abandon their families for women in America, Canada, or the UK while their wives are stuck raising kids unable to collect whatever meager welfare the state or Church provides because officially she's still a dependent of a working man. Do we now put whether a couple could divorce or not to a community vote? Maybe, but we'll just end up with corrupt politics and deals made just like during political elections albeit on a smaller scale.

I think the best thing we can do to prevent divorce is to do a better job at not only preparing for marriage, but also making the expectations clear for it. I'll use the example of Hasidic Jews. In Hasidic Jewish communities, generally speaking, the father studies Torah while the mother runs the household. It is also expected to have a lot of kids because having kids, and lots of them, in that community is seen as a huge blessing from God and a commandment (thou shalt!). The Hasidic Jewish culture works in such a way that those who are raised in it, both men and women, know exactly what they're getting into when it comes to marriage which helps them have an extremely low, virtually non-existent divorce rate. I think that we as Orthodox Christians need to do a better job of preparing our society and communities for HEALTHY marriages. It doesn't mean that one spouse becomes the slave of the other one, but it does mean that they need to know what marriage is all about in the Orthodox Church. It also means that we have to fight a lot of flawed, unhealthy, Hollywood rom-com bull. It also means that the couple needs to know what the other person's expectations are. After all, the two leading causes of divorce in the USA usually come down to finances and unmet expectations.

TLDR: best way to prevent divorce is to better prepare for marriage.

ArmyMatt · Mar 29, 2021

rusmeister said:
We all want salvation for free, without paying for it by changing everything fallen in ourselves.

ain't that the truth.

gurneyhalleck1 · Mar 29, 2021

For all the blistering “By golly, nobody should get divorced” rhetoric, there are stories like my wife’s family. My wife’s mom was abandoned by her husband, my wife’s dad forced to take care of 5 kids in abject poverty. No ability to divorce because of this wonderful “We’re a proud traditional Catholic country!” nonsense. So....no alimony, and the women fend for themselves. The men go out and cheat with impunity. My wife’s two sisters BOTH had horribly adulterous husbands who abandoned them....and both had plenty of kids to struggle with.

It’s easy to be a man and tell women they have to put up with scumbag husbands and never remarry for a chance at happiness. It’s easy to pretend most divorces are frivolous. It’s easy to second guess economia that we don’t know the facts about. My experience is that misery often loves company with these arguments. There are a lot of moving parts to these stories and they’re a case by case situation for us to trust our priests to handle prayerfully. I trust my priest and bishop. But that’s just me.

Thanks for sharing your story, EC.

E.C. said:
I made it about this far into the thread before realizing the time, but I promise I'll get back to it tomorrow.

My parents divorced when I was six and my brother was eight. It was ugly, brutal, and vicious to the point that until my own brother got married nine years ago I honestly thought that staying single was the best course of action for me. Sure, I had a number of girlfriends, but didn't see a future with any of them. Once my older brother got married, I realized that as screwed up as we both are from the divorce wars that if he could be normal enough to marry another normal, stable person than maybe there's some hope for me yet. For a long time I wished that my parents had never divorced and often wondered what life would have been like if they hadn't. It wasn't until the last few years when I saw more of my mother's toxic personality (she objects to my engagement to a foreigner from a mostly brown people country despite her claiming to be a liberal, but that's a rant for another day) when I realized that as crummy as the divorced-kid life was, it would have been worse had they remained married. Objectively speaking, knowing both of my parents well enough, perhaps they shouldn't have gotten married in the first place. My dad was a devout Roman Catholic at the time (now an Orthodox subdeacon) and my mom became Catholic to marry my dad, but I have very few recollections of her actually going to mass with us.

I wish divorce didn't exist. I absolutely do. It tore apart my family, created a civil war out of the Catholic school we attended, and even caused a delay in me receiving emergency medical attention as a teenager because some idiot nurse had the gall to ask "where's his mother" when we hadn't lived with her for at least three years by that point.

Yeah, part of the problem is that nowadays we grant divorces too easily. Why? I'll give an example. My landlady has a friend who is in her 80s. She's been in an unhappy marriage most of her life and especially the last ten years as her husband's mind descends more and more into alzheimer's. Her marriage has been, in her words, horrible for decades. Is it better to live under an uneasy peace or a violent war? That's what divorces really come down to for all involved. And you're right, it isn't limited to the couple in question because then they start demanding that their friends, families, coworkers, neighbors, church friends, and every other acquaintance under the sun take sides. And most of those people don't want to take sides, they just want to remain friends with both and they just want their kids to remain friends with those kids too. It absolutely is a community affair, but since you've brought up the problem of divorce and how it effects the community, what is your solution? Do we ban divorces outright? Do that and you'll end up in the situation that Irish society had for decades when divorce was still illegal: men will abandon their families for women in America, Canada, or the UK while their wives are stuck raising kids unable to collect whatever meager welfare the state or Church provides because officially she's still a dependent of a working man. Do we now put whether a couple could divorce or not to a community vote? Maybe, but we'll just end up with corrupt politics and deals made just like during political elections albeit on a smaller scale.

I think the best thing we can do to prevent divorce is to do a better job at not only preparing for marriage, but also making the expectations clear for it. I'll use the example of Hasidic Jews. In Hasidic Jewish communities, generally speaking, the father studies Torah while the mother runs the household. It is also expected to have a lot of kids because having kids, and lots of them, in that community is seen as a huge blessing from God and a commandment (thou shalt!). The Hasidic Jewish culture works in such a way that those who are raised in it, both men and women, know exactly what they're getting into when it comes to marriage which helps them have an extremely low, virtually non-existent divorce rate. I think that we as Orthodox Christians need to do a better job of preparing our society and communities for HEALTHY marriages. It doesn't mean that one spouse becomes the slave of the other one, but it does mean that they need to know what marriage is all about in the Orthodox Church. It also means that we have to fight a lot of flawed, unhealthy, Hollywood rom-com bull. It also means that the couple needs to know what the other person's expectations are. After all, the two leading causes of divorce in the USA usually come down to finances and unmet expectations.

TLDR: best way to prevent divorce is to better prepare for marriage.

ArmyMatt · Mar 29, 2021

I don't think that kind if situation is what this thread is about, gurney. in the OP, rus said:

rusmeister said:
I’m not talking about non-Orthodox, I’m not talking about non-Christians, I’m not talking about unrepentant apostate adulterers.

rusmeister · Mar 29, 2021

I don't have time now, the school week has begun.
But I understand why so many think divorce is a good idea that we ought to keep. I understand about the horrible situations that give rise to that sentiment. What I would try to say, if anyone can hear me, is that the thinking is backwards. It starts from the horrible situations and works in reverse, rather than from thinking about how we ought to see marriage in the Fallen world and working forward, seeing how the brokenness falls away from the ideal, and understanding the causes, not the least of which is the bad modern idea that marriage is supposed to make us happy. I want to remove the bad attitudes. The defenders of divorce want to remove/dismiss the idea of faithful marriage (except for the minority of happy cases where conflict does not become severe).

Gurney, you haven't begun to understand anything in what I'm saying if you think I am merely saying, "Everybody stay and suffer in your unhappy marriages!"

I see something different. I think love has real power to change things - but that is through Christian agape and sacrifice - "it's gonna cost ya". But in most cases, barring the insane, it is really, really hard to hate someone who insists on loving you in a Christian manner - without resentment, without looking for any payback or appreciation. Try to hate such a person - a person who apologizes to you, humbles him/herself, does things for you just because you need them, even if he/she gets nothing out of it. I believe that has the power to transform most marriages. I said "most". The Christian ideal can call for even harder things - I think of "Jane Eyre" and Mr Rochester's insane wife as an extreme type, someone here might really have lived with such a type with no exaggeration, an axe-murderer or whatever. I know what the Christian ideal calls for, and I know that the defenders of divorce say that it is impossible, as being holy is impossible, though we have saints to deny that theory.

But I think most cases are NOT "Bertha Mason". I think the ordinary painful squabbling, quarreling, hateful words, plates thrown, etc, is between people who could be touched by agape, Christian love on our part, and it is our failure or refusal to love that drags things down into a dark hole. I have been on the edge of divorce before, as well as on the edge of suicide. I do not speak from a comfy armchair, knowing nothing of such things. I know where despair goes. But I also know that love can drag a relationship gone ugly out of the dark hole, and with repentance, into light. Not perfection, but at least restoration of love, a more mature love that doesn't look for the marriage to give you, but for you to give to the marriage. Most divorces don't need to happen, flat-out. EC is right- we HAVE made it far too easy.

My solution, EC, is not to "ban anything", but for Orthodox Christians who say they want to follow Christ. Do you, really? Does anyone? Who is willing to take up a cross when it becomes really heavy? I agree with you completely, we need to prepare our people better for it. But it has to start with what Church teaching is on divorce, and that is that by and large, we are not supposed to do it. We are supposed to love our enemies. Answer me as to how we may make our wives an exception to that imperative. We need to rightly understand, or learn, since our catechisms evidently failed us, that marriage really is for life, not for just as long as is comfortable for us. We need to understand what we married people are already committed to, and commit to it, daily.

Man, I wish more people would read the book I so painstakingly translated into Russian, "The Superstition of Divorce" - the practical (not mystical) reasons why the Church teaching has always been right, and why the defenders of divorce, however well-meaning, are ultimately mistaken. It's in the public domain. I would start from chapter five, and read 1-4 later. Though I admit GK is hard at first to those not used to his style. Patience and determination bring their own reward.

http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/divorce.txt

truefiction1 · Mar 29, 2021

rusmeister said:
My parents divorced after 26 years of a marriage that was unhappy in pretty much all of my memory. I think that what you REALLY wanted was for your parents to learn to get along with each other. Even you would have seen divorce as less desirable than that. I was talking about what kids REALLY want, not what cheap alternative they would accept.
Still, I am grateful my parents stayed together as long as they did. When they finally did divorce, we were better able to deal with the trauma - though it cost us all and created other bad situations with the replacements they chose.
Divorce is the death of love, as suicide is the death of life. It is a refusal to love when it becomes hard. It’s little wonder that the modern world, having eagerly accepted the one and all the brokenness it brings, is accepting the other under pretty foreign words like “euthanasia”.

No wonder at all.

bèlla · Mar 29, 2021

If you want healthier marriages you have to start at home. Most marital chaos finds its root in the person's childhood. No one is perfect but many are reared in environments devoid of love, compassion, and stability. And a lot of them are Christians.

When you've had a bad beginning you need to heal. You bring all of that into the union on top of the other's issues and the problems you develop collectively. No wonder it cracks. The foundation isn't strong enough to weather it.

We should aspire to bring the best 'us' into our relationships. That requires hard work and sacrifice. Not escape or hoping the other will fix what's broken. We have to face the music and acknowledge bad things occurred. But we don't want to bring the baggage into our marriage and replicate the mistakes with our children.

We have to take a stance and be willing to commit to the process. Not at the altar. Before you get there. We should be doing housekeeping en route to the covenant. Dealing with hurts and disappointments while you're alone.

Then you lighten the load and your mettle is stronger. You can bear up under greater difficulties because you've tackled your own. When the muscle is unused its weak and easily overwhelmed.

The bible tells us to count our days. If we use our time wisely we'll be in a better place when matrimony comes. You don't fall into the next phase. You prepare for its arrival.

~bella

rusmeister · Mar 29, 2021

bèlla said:
If you want healthier marriages you have to start at home. Most marital chaos finds its root in the person's childhood. No one is perfect but many are reared in environments devoid of love, compassion, and stability. And a lot of them are Christians.

When you've had a bad beginning you need to heal. You bring all of that into the union on top of the other's issues and the problems you develop collectively. No wonder it cracks. The foundation isn't strong enough to weather it.

We should aspire to bring the best 'us' into our relationships. That requires hard work and sacrifice. Not escape or hoping the other will fix what's broken. We have to face the music and acknowledge bad things occurred. But we don't want to bring the baggage into our marriage and replicate the mistakes with our children.

We have to take a stance and be willing to commit to the process. Not at the altar. Before you get there. We should be doing housekeeping en route to the covenant. Dealing with hurts and disappointments while you're alone.

Then you lighten the load and your mettle is stronger. You can bear up under greater difficulties because you've tackled your own. When the muscle is unused its weak and easily overwhelmed.

The bible tells us to count our days. If we use our time wisely we'll be in a better place when matrimony comes. You don't fall into the next phase. You prepare for its arrival.

~bella

Thank you, Bella! I think your heart is in the right place. But none of this addresses Orthodox teaching. It is modern psychology and the wisdom of the world, which sometimes we can accommodate and sometimes we can't.

The chief thing I think people don't want to face up to is the difficulty of the challenge we are called to as Christians. We all want this cup to pass from us. We don't want to take up the cross. We DO need mercy and compassion. But we have run to an opposite extreme - one of rejecting that we are called to forgive and love even our enemies. In the name of love we sacrifice truth, and treat marriage as a profane thing, not a sacrament - breakable upon request.

bèlla · Mar 29, 2021

rusmeister said:
Thank you, Bella! I think your heart is in the right place. But none of this addresses Orthodox teaching. It is modern psychology and the wisdom of the world, which sometimes we can accommodate and sometimes we can't.

It is and I appreciate your kindness. All human frailties come back to love. An unwillingness to love, an omission of love, or an inability to love. You can trace most problems back to that.

What I'm proposing is biblical. Loving ones neighbor as ourselves. How do you want to be treated? That's what you do. It's far easier to love your neighbor when you recognize the impediments to love within yourself on both ends. Where are you lacking and where was it deficient?

I'm not conversant in Orthodox teachings. But I've helped many heal to be in the position to have the relationship you're talking about.

Humans are selfish by nature. They don't want to be bothered. When the rubber meets the road they'll choose the most comfortable outcome. Unless their love for the other exceeds their discomfort.

The chief thing I think people don't want to face up to is the difficulty of the challenge we are called to as Christians. We all want this cup to pass from us. We don't want to take up the cross. We DO need mercy and compassion. But we have run to an opposite extreme - one of rejecting that we are called to forgive and love even our enemies. In the name of love we sacrifice truth, and treat marriage as a profane thing, not a sacrament - breakable upon request.

They want to choose their cross. I'll put up with this but not that. You see it on the marital front and with singles. That's why there's so many looking who can't find companions. They have issues people don't want to deal with. We want to be comfortable and have relationships on our terms.

Loving the unlovable isn't easy. But we're all unlovable in some ways.

~bella

buzuxi02 · Mar 29, 2021

What we have now is not marriage but a return to concubinage. If one studies the institution of concubines one sees she is not your wife just your temporary concubine.

bèlla · Mar 29, 2021

buzuxi02 said:
What we have now is not marriage but a return to concubinage. If one studies the institution of concubines one sees she is not your wife just your temporary concubine.

We live in a sinful world full of brokenness. Everything suffers. Including our relationships. Both are accountable.

SalemsConcordance · Mar 29, 2021

bèlla said:
What I'm proposing is biblical. Loving ones neighbor as ourselves. How do you want to be treated? That's what you do. It's far easier to love your neighbor when you recognize the impediments to love within yourself on both ends. Where are you lacking and where was it deficient?

I'm not conversant in Orthodox teachings. But I've helped many heal to be in the position to have the relationship you're talking about.

What is your denomination? You are preaching in an Orthodox sub forum. Forgive me, an emphasis on "all we need is love" and if you think "you" have healed others is dangerous vainglory or what we call prelest. God uses what He will to heal, but we do no healing ourselves.

bèlla · Mar 29, 2021

SalemsConcordance said:
What is your denomination? You are preaching in an Orthodox sub forum. Forgive me, an emphasis on "all we need is love" and if you think "you" have healed others is dangerous vainglory or what we call prelest. God uses what He will to heal, but we do no healing ourselves.

I'm not preaching. This isn't a pulpit. It's a forum. Don't put words in my mouth. My posts clears states I helped others heal.

gurneyhalleck1 · Mar 29, 2021

I’m going to bow out and avoid these divorce threads from here on out. In the spirit of Great Lent, I’m going to focus on my own demons, my own sin, my own brokenness and not on divorcees and my frustrations with priests and society. I’ve been married almost 22 years. Personally I’m not a fan of divorce and I see it as defcon 1. I think you already know that.

But you and Father Matt seem to feel I have reading comprehension issues and I’m not grasping these weighty concepts as well as not reading posts, so it’s best if I bow out.

We have Orthodox Christians reading this thread suffering through divorce who need this like a hole in the head. I just feel threads should be more Lenten right now, and less focused on everyone else’s failings.

I’m out.

rusmeister said:
I don't have time now, the school week has begun.
But I understand why so many think divorce is a good idea that we ought to keep. I understand about the horrible situations that give rise to that sentiment. What I would try to say, if anyone can hear me, is that the thinking is backwards. It starts from the horrible situations and works in reverse, rather than from thinking about how we ought to see marriage in the Fallen world and working forward, seeing how the brokenness falls away from the ideal, and understanding the causes, not the least of which is the bad modern idea that marriage is supposed to make us happy. I want to remove the bad attitudes. The defenders of divorce want to remove/dismiss the idea of faithful marriage (except for the minority of happy cases where conflict does not become severe).

Gurney, you haven't begun to understand anything in what I'm saying if you think I am merely saying, "Everybody stay and suffer in your unhappy marriages!"

I see something different. I think love has real power to change things - but that is through Christian agape and sacrifice - "it's gonna cost ya". But in most cases, barring the insane, it is really, really hard to hate someone who insists on loving you in a Christian manner - without resentment, without looking for any payback or appreciation. Try to hate such a person - a person who apologizes to you, humbles him/herself, does things for you just because you need them, even if he/she gets nothing out of it. I believe that has the power to transform most marriages. I said "most". The Christian ideal can call for even harder things - I think of "Jane Eyre" and Mr Rochester's insane wife as an extreme type, someone here might really have lived with such a type with no exaggeration, an axe-murderer or whatever. I know what the Christian ideal calls for, and I know that the defenders of divorce say that it is impossible, as being holy is impossible, though we have saints to deny that theory.

But I think most cases are NOT "Bertha Mason". I think the ordinary painful squabbling, quarreling, hateful words, plates thrown, etc, is between people who could be touched by agape, Christian love on our part, and it is our failure or refusal to love that drags things down into a dark hole. I have been on the edge of divorce before, as well as on the edge of suicide. I do not speak from a comfy armchair, knowing nothing of such things. I know where despair goes. But I also know that love can drag a relationship gone ugly out of the dark hole, and with repentance, into light. Not perfection, but at least restoration of love, a more mature love that doesn't look for the marriage to give you, but for you to give to the marriage. Most divorces don't need to happen, flat-out. EC is right- we HAVE made it far too easy.

My solution, EC, is not to "ban anything", but for Orthodox Christians who say they want to follow Christ. Do you, really? Does anyone? Who is willing to take up a cross when it becomes really heavy? I agree with you completely, we need to prepare our people better for it. But it has to start with what Church teaching is on divorce, and that is that by and large, we are not supposed to do it. We are supposed to love our enemies. Answer me as to how we may make our wives an exception to that imperative. We need to rightly understand, or learn, since our catechisms evidently failed us, that marriage really is for life, not for just as long as is comfortable for us. We need to understand what we married people are already committed to, and commit to it, daily.

Man, I wish more people would read the book I so painstakingly translated into Russian, "The Superstition of Divorce" - the practical (not mystical) reasons why the Church teaching has always been right, and why the defenders of divorce, however well-meaning, are ultimately mistaken. It's in the public domain. I would start from chapter five, and read 1-4 later. Though I admit GK is hard at first to those not used to his style. Patience and determination bring their own reward.

http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/divorce.txt

seeking.IAM · Mar 29, 2021

I am a marriage and family therapist who has counseled Orthodox couples. It would help me if an informed Orthodox member could educate me, please. Is there a definitive policy about the Church's response to divorce? If there is discretion, is it at the discretion of the Priest or the Bishop as to the Church's response to such matters? I've heard certain things claimed in sessions and I am never quite sure what is factual.

ArmyMatt · Mar 29, 2021

gurneyhalleck1 said:
But you and Father Matt seem to feel I have reading comprehension issues and I’m not grasping these weighty concepts as well as not reading posts, so it’s best if I bow out.

I never said anything about your reading comprehension or your ability to grasp what anyone is talking about. I only spoke to the examples you gave.

E.C. · Mar 29, 2021

rusmeister said:
But I think most cases are NOT "Bertha Mason". I think the ordinary painful squabbling, quarreling, hateful words, plates thrown, etc, is between people who could be touched by agape, Christian love on our part, and it is our failure or refusal to love that drags things down into a dark hole. I have been on the edge of divorce before, as well as on the edge of suicide. I do not speak from a comfy armchair, knowing nothing of such things. I know where despair goes. But I also know that love can drag a relationship gone ugly out of the dark hole, and with repentance, into light. Not perfection, but at least restoration of love, a more mature love that doesn't look for the marriage to give you, but for you to give to the marriage. Most divorces don't need to happen, flat-out. EC is right- we HAVE made it far too easy.

My solution, EC, is not to "ban anything", but for Orthodox Christians who say they want to follow Christ. Do you, really? Does anyone? Who is willing to take up a cross when it becomes really heavy? I agree with you completely, we need to prepare our people better for it. But it has to start with what Church teaching is on divorce, and that is that by and large, we are not supposed to do it. We are supposed to love our enemies. Answer me as to how we may make our wives an exception to that imperative. We need to rightly understand, or learn, since our catechisms evidently failed us, that marriage really is for life, not for just as long as is comfortable for us. We need to understand what we married people are already committed to, and commit to it, daily.

Man, I wish more people would read the book I so painstakingly translated into Russian, "The Superstition of Divorce" - the practical (not mystical) reasons why the Church teaching has always been right, and why the defenders of divorce, however well-meaning, are ultimately mistaken. It's in the public domain. I would start from chapter five, and read 1-4 later. Though I admit GK is hard at first to those not used to his style. Patience and determination bring their own reward.

http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/divorce.txt

I'm glad you reacted to my post positively because after rereading it I realized that it could come off a bit harsh. Forgive me.

That said, I do apologize for assuming a ban on divorce. Far too often these days when people are "against" something it immediately translates to "ban it!" Sometimes I forget that people here in TAW don't always fit that mold; thank God.

I would like to again emphasize that the best prevention of divorce is a better preparation for marriage. Part of that is realizing that marriage isn't going to be awesome all the time. As I've been told, and will likely continue to be told until I am married, there are many days when there is conflict, tension, stress, and even borderline hatred in marriage. That doesn't mean that when one of those days does happen we need to throw in the towel immediately. I remember one of the TV shows of my generation called "Boy Meets World" which followed a group of middle schoolers through college. Two of the main characters, Corey and Topanga, eventually do get married after years of dating. In one of the post-wedding episodes they do have struggles and even a fight or two. They then spend the whole night, and coincidentally the remainder of the episode, talking out their issues which makes them stronger and improves their marriage through the end of the series. It may be a little too idealistic, after all it is TV, but it does drive home an important point: sometimes you gotta work on your marriage and work out the issues as they come up. People have forgotten that the last few decades.

rusmeister · Mar 29, 2021

One thing I think should be made clear to all and sundry - we need to grasp and start living the ideal from where we are. Some are remarried and/or the original marriage cannot be restored. All of us are broken in one way or another. OK - what can you do NOW? How can you live out Christian chastity from here on out? If you ARE in a 2nd marriage, can you commit to be faithful to it and never divorce again, ever again? If not, then it is as Buzuxi says Serial marriage is just polygamy, only one wife (or husband) at a time. If a vow (Including the response of “Yes” at the marriage service) and a sacrament can be broken once, what’s to prevent a second divorce on the same principle as the first? Either we are faithful for the rest of our lives from this day forward, or we are with our spouses only as long as we can stand them, until we are tired of them. The wedding vows in 1980’s Flash Gordon were a parody then, but they aren’t any more. It’s really how the world has come to hold marriage, and we most often bring our baggage from the world into the Church, and unfortunately, sometimes think the wisdom of the world is or ought to be the teaching of the Church.

I think remarried people who cannot change the past can commit to holy lives of chastity. It would have been better to get it right the first time, just as it would have been better if Adam and Eve had not sinned. But Christ is merciful, and extends that mercy through the Church. The main thing, as in everything, is to repent. It is when we start to say things like “My (first) marriage was a mistake” that we fall into the trap of worldly thinking. The mistake was not the marriage, but not seeing rightly what marriage is. So if we got it wrong before, we determine to get it right now and not turn to divorce again.

And again, this is directed only to people in the Church, who wish to follow Christ and accept that we must bear crosses, including in marriage.

I don’t wish to cause harm to anyone; please forgive me for any perceived harm! But I think tremendous harm not perceived is caused by the wrong and bad attitudes toward marriage inside the Church, starting with children, in-laws, and spreading out to friends and neighbors, and harm to others in the Church. When the first divorce happened in my parish some nine years ago, I thought that all the other wives must be thinking, “Could my husband leave me, too?” And sure enough, over the next several years, a good dozen divorces took place among churched families with multiple children. I teach some of those kids. They perform worse than any others. They are more likely to skip lessons or just plain drop out.

We think divorce trivial in the face of all of the other sexual sins now springing up everywhere; I discovered that it was modern “no-fault” divorce that enabled those other sins, made them eventually thinkable, and then accepted in our culture. I should probably offer my outline of the fall of sexual morality over the twentieth century. The chain progression from one manner of breaking the sanctity of marriage and the bed undefiled is interesting to study, to see what happened when, what language was used in each case. But it really began with the social acceptance of divorce for causes other than adultery.

rusmeister · Mar 29, 2021

bèlla said:
I'm not preaching. This isn't a pulpit. It's a forum. Don't put words in my mouth. My posts clears states I helped others heal.

Hi, Bella,
Like I said, I appreciate your good heart. But this is an Orthodox issue, so your advice is really outside of that. You’re certainly welcome in TAW, but sometimes we need to deal with things “in-house”.

Dorothea · Mar 29, 2021

Forgive me. I should keep my personal experiences to myself.

Divorce is wrong

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