Top 5 Reasons Marriages Don't Last - Lack of Commitment: People of Character can Choose Duty over Feeling..

Last week I started a blog on the top five reasons marriages don't last.  I was very candid how I maybe had chosen an uncommitted person and that let to the demise of my marriage.  But marriages can fall apart if there is one person that is not committed and you might not even realize they are not committed.   Scott Stanley found in his research about Sliding vs. Deciding that when there is that commitment from both partners, enough to get a marriage license there is a much higher chance that the marriage will make it till Death Do us Part rather than When We Don't Love Each Other Any More.  Lack of commitment is the top reason marriages fall apart, but I want to say that it is the main reason any marriage would fall apart.

I was reading a blog by Michelle Weiner Davis and how she says if you want to get a divorce just
admit it rather than trying to say that it would be better for everyone if we got divorced.  Don't sugar coat or make excuses for making moral choice.  Boy, that's the truth.  As I was listening to a podcast by Randy Roberts from Loma Linda University Church I heard him say something quite profound, "People of Character Can choose duty over feelings".  I might get in trouble for this but I will say it any way.  Even when you are being emotionally abused and feeling so down and hopeless you can choose to stay committed to your marriage.  Wow that's harsh.  What I mean by that, if there is emotional or physical abuse you stay committed to the marriage but don't keep putting yourself in the place of the victim.  Maybe you need to separate for a while or choose to distance yourself from the person and see what you can do differently to change your negative behaviors.  Too many times we rush into divorce before we even try to work the relationship out.  My caution is wait.... take your time till you know you have done everything you can, then take the step.

So many times it seems to be easier just to divorce than to work on the relationship, especially when there is adultery or emotional or physical abuse involved.  In our society today, we seem to think that divorce cures these particular problems, but unfortunately, it doesn't.  Unless someone does some deep work on themselves (and I mean both partners) then they will repeat the problem, even adultery in the same or a different relationship.  It is a well know fact, it takes people being physically abused a minimum of seven times before they are actually ready to leave the abuser, but then how many times when they do leave do they get in a situation that is very similar.  Wouldn't it be better to learn what to do rather than jumping from one relationship to another?

In adultery there are all kinds of excuses for committing adultery, but the person of character will choose duty over feelings and make their relationship work.  I hear the silliest reasons for why a person might leave their husband or wife for another partner such as she just didn't know how to clean house or do the laundry.  He could not give me the attention I needed.  Once you have said "I do" you mean it.  I know of a gentleman that could not live with his wife, so they separated.  He has never divorced her but has continued to live separately for over 25 years.  Don't know if that is really a marriage, but at least neither of them jumped into another relationship and they stay committed to the marriage.

Marriage is hard sometimes, and you have to have the character to stay with it when it gets tough.  We know that couples that stayed married when they felt like getting divorced, were happier than those that chose to divorce.  That goes back to the old saying, "Love is a Choice".  It really is as simple as that.

Lack of Commitment - Biggest Reason for Divorce

Before I get into this topic, let me clarify that all these pictures are of people that to the best of my knowledge are still committed to each other.  But I have been surprised before.  But none of these couples have shown to me that they were anything but committed!!  I also am not trying to point fingers at anyone, we all have choices and With That.....

Commitment, commitment, commitment!!!   After twenty-three years of trying to figure out what went wrong in my first marriage, the only thing I could think of was a lack of commitment. Is there anything I could have done to prevent this?  No, not after I was married.  I am being very candid when I share that I knew that my marriage would fall apart even before it started.  But I was more scared to admit I had made a mistake in the choice of who I married.  I have studied and read and researched how one can prevent your spouse from having an affair and leaving you and there is not really anything YOU can do.  You BOTH have to be committed to the marriage.

The funny thing is, I remember talking to a friend and telling her I knew I would be one of those statistics.  Maybe I was pronouncing my own defeat, I'm not sure.  But six years after I said that I was one of those statistics.  Do I regret marrying him.  I would have be lying if I told you that I don't have some regrets.  But, I look at my two beautiful children and the only regret I have is that they had to go through the rejection that they did not deserve.  I was given the opportunity to grow in a way that I would never have grown if I had not gone through this experience.  It was VERY difficult and there are still some tough times,  but I am still growing.

Approximately nine years ago I met a gentleman, Dr. John Van Epp, that wrote the book, How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk.  He has done a lot of study in the RAM (Relationship Attachment Model) and applying it to finding a life partner.  After I read and studied his book, I realized I ignored the warning signs.  I ignored that he was not as committed to me as I was to him.  Have you heard of the movie I think it's called "He's just not into you".  Well, I should have known that was where we were.  But there were other things that were looming that when we are young we try to ignore, such as parents trying to warn us that this is not a good match.  I realize now, since I've become a parent, that we can see things that might not work in a match.  After all we should understand our children pretty good after we have passed on our values and watched them grow.  But so many times, we have those rose colored glasses that cover things up and when we are "IN LOVE" we close our eyes to the problems that could occur.  We as women think we can change them. But I  now realize how foolish I was.
breaking
I wish I could give you a magical formula that would prevent your marriages from breaking up, but I can't.  All I can say, after studying this topic for twenty-three years, you have to be committed yourself and choose wisely before you're married.  It's not a good idea to marry someone that has had multiple affairs with another marriage partner.  They may be a wonderful person, but they have a lack of commitment.  You might want to take a second look if you are dating someone that cannot stay committed to a job,  if they cannot be committed in one area will they be able to commit in other areas?

You might want to be hesitant if you find someone that wants to live with you, but does not want to commit to you for life.  That is usually a huge red flag.  Scott Stanley has studied this and found that this phenomenon is very common, and calls this sliding vs. deciding.  When a couple just kind of falls into living together, there is less likely that the relationship will last because there is lack of commitment.  My heart breaks every day when I see mommy's come in with their newborn babies and they are not in a married relationship.  I don't understand what it is that a piece of paper can make that much difference, but it does.  When two people sign the paper together by their own choice their is a much greater chance a baby will have both his parents in the home.  When they come in with this situation, I can pretty much tell them, he will be gone in three months.   But who wants to hear that at this point in their life?

You might want to be hesitant if you see in their background a family with a pattern of lack of commitment.  Are their parents committed?  Were their grandparents committed?  What is the pattern?  We don't think that two generations makes a difference, but somehow it does.  We know that when parents are divorced there is greater chance that the children will not be committed in their relationships, because that is the pattern that they have seen.

Yes, it takes two and we could go into all kinds of reasons a person might have an affair.  I could go on and on and try to tell you things that you could do to keep your spouse from leaving you.  But the only thing I see that might prevent is to be wise and take a serious wide open eyed look at the person before you commit and determine if  they are as committed to me as I am to them?

Insanity: Doing what we have always done and expecting things to change!! Top Five Causes of Divorce and How This Affects our Community

Recently I quoted that we are seeing a dramatic decrease in our area on the number of teen births.  It is wonderful that this is happening for our community due to the positive things that can happen such as less children in poverty, possibly breaking a cycle that was so strong in our community.  Saving our community and businesses great amounts of money etc.  And these are the reasons or basis for Family Frameworks in our community and its focuses.  It may sound strange that a Marriage Initiative Organization focuses on teen pregnancy results, but we know that stable relationships are usually not (and please note the word usually) the most stable relationships later in life.  We also know that when you prevent teen births you can prevent further poverty which we would like to see, but also prevent that teen from passing this behavior on to their child.  We have learned through the research that there are higher number of teen births where there are not two biological parents in the home.  And the last thing we have noted is that our community has been listed for many many years as having the highest teen births as well as highest divorce per 1000.

So this has told me as a leader in our organization that we first of all need to try to break the cycle of

teen births.  And this means hitting it in many different areas.  We chose to work with the teens first.  They were a captive audience and the curriculum we use made it easy to talk about the choices they make.  We have gotten very positive responses from both the students and teachers on the topics and how we approach these topics.  But what put the icing on the cake was seeing the dramatic decrease in teen births for the Whitfield and Murray Counties, which is greater than surrounding counties.  But I don't want to take this for granted.  We will continue to work in this area but now we need to focus on the families and help them to stabilize with the younger children that are still in their homes so that they learn how to have good relationships and choose good life partners and make the choices that will lead to happy healthy lives.

Well, how do we do this?  When we first began this organization we started by working with the premarital couples.  Teaching them good communication, problem solving and conflict resolution skills.  Which was great, but we slacked off and decreased the amount of information that we would put out to the public on how to keep a strong healthy marriage.  Now it's time to look at where do we need to focus to keep families together before they fall apart.

I wanted to start with why or what are the main reasons why couples

get divorced?  There are several lists and we have all heard some of the reasons, such as infidelity, money or finances, or just growing apart.  I looked into some of the latest studies to see what the latest list might be.  That was a bit challenging.  These have been studied since 1985 and there are all sorts of variables and differences you must consider the greatest is the reasons women divorce compared to why men divorce are different.  We think differently and we don't like to think that we just fit into a box.  I finally chose to go with Paul Amato and Denise Previtti's study from 2003 and see what they found.
Here is the list:
            Men                                                                  Women
1. Infidelity                                                        1. Infidelity
2. Incompatibility                                              2. Incompatibility
3. Lack of Communication                                3. Alcohol, or Drug use
4. Personality Problems                                     4. Grew Apart
5. Grew Apart                                                   5. Physical or Mental Abuse
6. Don't Know                                                  6. Personality Problems

Over the next few weeks I hope to give resource that address these issues and possibly some ways that couples can prevent these from happening.  Please let me know as we go along if this is helpful.

I see,  in my practice way too often children that are suffering in various illnesses both mental and physical that might be prevented if we actually keep the parents together and in a healthy relationship.  Will this be easy?  Not at all, but if we don't start somewhere and stop doing what we always have done then we definitely won't see our community change.