Marriage Crisis

The marriage crisis in yourlife is more than just the crisis in your own marriage.  If you were on a cruise and the ship began tosink so that everyone had to jump off, part of the survival rate would bedetermined by how quickly people are being rescued and finding safety.  The people still in the water would beencouraged by seeing their fellow passengers being pulled to safety and theywould hang in there beyond their normal endurance.  On the other hand, if everyone saw a bunch ofsharks chewing people up and the rescue boats lingering in the distance manypeople would simply give up and drown even though they had the physicalcapability to hang in there longer.

I think the analogy ispretty obvious isn't it?  The divorcerate in our society is so high that everyone gives up long before they shouldwithout fully considering what they could do to save their marriage.  And it is completely understandable.  Part of the crisis in our country is thatwhen people are having difficulty with their marriage they look for marriagecounseling.  Why should that be a problemyou ask?  Because the sad but truereality is that marriage counselors usually don't save marriages.  The most commonly accepted statistic is that70 to 80% of all couples who go to marriage counselors end up divorced within ayear.

When I went to mediationschool we were told to get our leads from psychologists because mediation wasusually the next step for those who sought help.  The other group that gets leads frompsychologists who specialize in family counseling is divorce lawyers.

It is theChildren who Suffer the Most

For me a crisis is alwaysexacerbated when there are children involved and as far as I am concerned it isthe suffering children that make divorce a crisis.  I honestly have sympathy for those who getmarried and discover incompatibilities that make marriage a challenge. But ifthere are no children they can dissolve their marriage without too muchdestruction.  However, once there arechildren involved divorce should not even be considered unless there are realdangers in maintaining the intact family. But those circumstances are very rare. I met with many couples who were initially advised by psychologists toget a divorce.  After just a few hours ofpracticing my Lessons For A HappyMarriage principles they were very happy that they didn't give up.  They discovered the truth of how simple andfast a marriage that looks like it is over can be turned into the happiest marriagein the world.  A horrible part of ourmarriage crisis is that so few people are currently aware of what is needed.