by Fr. George Kelly, The Catholic Marriage Manual, 1950’s

In its practical application, the Church’s teaching that marriage must be permanent has these natural bulwarks:

1. That while there may be disappointments and disagreements in marriage, divorce is no solution; in fact, in many cases, divorce merely takes two persons out of a bad situation and tosses them into a worse one.

2. That many troubled marriages can be salvaged; that a husband and wife can usually find a way either to settle their differences or to live with them in relative harmony. Almost all experts now recognize that most divorces create more problems than they solve.

Magazines tell the stories of women who thought that a divorce court would grant them freedom but who found themselves chained to an appalling loneliness instead.

Others discovered that they had stolen something precious from their children by denying them the companionship of a father, regardless of his shortcomings.

Others, accustomed to being supported by a husband and untrained to earn salaries in business, found themselves forced to live under conditions of grinding poverty.

When some divorced women sought new friends, they discovered that the word “divorcee” attracted only men interested in sexual satisfaction. Those who had led active social lives as married women thought that things would go on after their divorce as before. But most of their friends were other married couples. Invited to dinner parties or other social events, the divorcees were “extra women” and created problems in entertaining that every hostess dreads. In most cases the number of invitations to social affairs dwindled gradually and finally stopped. Similar problems affect the divorced male.

Not long ago Paul Gallico, writing in the Reader’s Digest, told from his own experience how divorce can affect a man. “I have been free now for three years, and I am prepared to report on what this marvelous freedom is like,” he wrote.

“It’s the bunk! You don’t know how lucky you are to be married! The disadvantages of living without marital ties, particularly in middle life, far outweigh the delights. You find for the first time how loud silence can be in the chilly glamour of an empty home. The loneliness and silences close in when the rattle of one’s key in the front door initiates no answering sound.

 It is in this moment that the bark of a dog, the meow of a cat, or the chirrup of a bird is no substitute for a human voice.

“No one really cares what happens to you. That is one of the meanings of this wonderful freedom. You are a man or a woman alone. No longer are you the first concern of another person. Nobody bothers about whether you are sick or well, happy or miserable, alive or dead. Friends do not close the awful gap that was once filled by someone called wife or husband. It just isn’t the same.”

Mr. Calico quotes a friend who summed up the problem succinctly: “There were irritations in my marriage I thought were intolerable until I found that life without them was even more so.”

 Almost everywhere, the testimony of those who have been through a divorce and its lonely aftermath is the same. Try anything else first, they say. Learn to accept your marital problems and live with them. Consult a marriage counselor. Visit a psychiatrist. Do anything—but don’t get a divorce.

The second assertion—that many marriages can be salvaged—is one which experienced marriage counselors now accept whole-heartedly. They have found, in fact, that many persons who initiate divorce actions do not actually want to end their marriages.

Frequently a husband or wife threatens divorce to try to force a spouse to adopt another mode of conduct. When the spouse refuses to conform, the bluff is called. Then the mate who has threatened divorce feels that he or she must save face by filing suit.

Sometimes immature husbands or wives become bored with the day-to-day routine of marriage and regard divorce as an adventure. These immature people fail to distinguish between the marriage and a condition of marriage which could usually be remedied easily.

If they can be made to realize what divorce really means, they often decide that the annoyances of their marriage are trivial compared to the greater evil they have been considering.

That marriages can be saved has been proved beyond doubt. The experience of Judge Paul W. Alexander of the Domestic Relations Court of Toledo, Ohio, is typical. Judge Alexander has long advocated that every effort should be made to help a husband and wife solve their problems before giving up the marriage as lost.

For about twenty years Toledo has had a family court with trained specialists who provide psychiatric or social advice to mates who no longer agree. He has reported that this type of help has been able to salvage between a third and a half of all the marriages that have reached his jurisdiction.

 In other clinics throughout the country, salvage rates reach as high as ninety per cent—nine out of every ten troubled marriages have been set straight. Marriage counselors believe that a large percentage of cases which they cannot settle amicably and which finally reach the divorce courts could be solved if one or both of the partners had a truly conciliatory attitude.

In such cases, the husband or wife, or both, are too stubborn to admit they have been even slightly at fault. In other cases, pride is involved; for example, a wife’s ego may be damaged so badly by the thought that her husband has sinned with another woman that she refuses to forgive him.

But this is the important point: almost always the partner who is unwilling to be reconciled is motivated by the thought that he or she can enter another marriage after the divorce action is concluded.

No such prospect is possible in a Catholic marriage. Since both partners know that their contract is for life, they realize that they must make concessions to achieve a harmonious relationship. They must learn to live with each other’s faults, to work together, to sacrifice. And in doing so, they achieve a happiness that is denied those who constantly carry with them the thought that they can flee at the first sign of trouble.

“It is the home that makes possible the growth of the child’s personality. With every waking moment the child becomes more conscious of itself, more ready to absorb the influence of those nearest to it. Its soul is, as it were, untouched soil which places no obstacles in the way of anything planted in it. How great then is the parents’ responsibility and their need of the graces of matrimony, to bring up their children in the fear and love of God.” -Dominican Sister, Australia, 1955 , Artist – Carl Larson

For when trials come, when they tend to tire a little of each other, when the human frailties begin to rise to the surface which are the heritage of all the sons and daughters of Adam, when sickness throws its shadow, or financial worries eat into the heart… ~Fr. Robert Nash, Marriage Before and After

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