Monday, August 5, 2013

There ain't no such thing as a happy divorce

The True Face of “Happy Divorce” is Quite Ugly | Crisis Magazine:


Yep, we've got several single parent families in my wife's daycare- I can guarantee you that the only people who *might* be happy with a divorce are the parents.  The kids never are.

13 comments:

Theodore M. Seeber said...

My brother and his wife divorced after all but one of their children were out of the house. He met someone else and is happier than he has ever been. I would never begrudge him of that happiness.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

And that last child, of course, is entirely ignored in your equation, because your brother's "happiness" is more important than his child.


You Easterners are all alike. NO sense of duty or honor.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

"And that last child, of course, is entirely ignored in your equation,,,"

Far from it. My brother would get a kick out of that statement. She gets more attention than her older siblings ever got.

And it has nothing to do with me being part of yet another group, Easterners, against which you have formed one of your petty prejudices. No one east of the Mississippi has any sense of honor or duty in Ted's world.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

Sure she does. Especially the stability of knowing a mother and a father who had the honor to stay together in holy matrimony---whoops, no they didn't.


I consider anybody who gets a divorce to have made a worse mistake than murder.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

"I consider anybody who gets a divorce to have made a worse mistake than murder."

Right. These are things you can't post anywhere else. Now I get it.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

Yes, but I've told divorced couples exactly that in real life- that it is kinder to kill a spouse and the children than divorce them. The damage you do with a divorce exceeds the damage done in murder.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/d-a-wolf/death-or-divorce-which-is_b_1101346.html

http://heshistory.com/2008/04/whats-worse-divorce-or-death/

Theodore M. Seeber said...

" it is kinder to kill a spouse and the children than divorce them. The damage you do with a divorce exceeds the damage done in murder."

You actually say that to people?

Theodore M. Seeber said...

Yes. Have in the past. Likely will in the future.


Divorce is an evil that must be combated. It has led to the destruction of our society.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

I've gotta say that I'm with Bill on this one, at least to some extent. The damage to a person's psychological well-being is greater from divorce, than from murder, yes. You know why? Because the person who gets murdered is DEAD. They can't comment on how they feel after they've been killed, so any psychological damage to them would be done before they're murdered. There is no possible way then, that divorce would harm them anymore, because they have already experienced one of the greatest violations of their being.

The argument that killing a person is better than putting them through a crappy situation is the same argument that people try to use to justify having an abortion. It's thereby not valid for the exact same reason.

Divorce isn't good, no, on the other hand, it offers a legal escape route for people who otherwise would be killed, or beaten, neglected, and have worse psychological damage done to them over the course of their life than what comes of a divorce. Want to know how I know? My late grandmother went through two. Both of these divorces ended in an annulment. The first because of a neglect of information on both sides, the second because her husband abused her, my father, and my aunts and uncle. The person she did marry in the end is one of the best examples of a husband I have ever found.

The problem with divorce is that people often do it for the wrong reason. Instead of treating it like the last and most desperate solution, they use it as their go-to solution, instead of working together to look at the issues that are in their marriage, and then compromising and trying to fix it, first.

That being said, there are cases where the choice to divorce is made because no other option will provide any children involved a better environment, such as was the case with my dad's family, as well as many other families.

I'd go even further, and say that another part of the reason so many problems in marriage today is because some people who should get divorced, don't, and it has such a harsh psychological impact on the children that they cannot have a successful marriage themselves, resulting in a continuous cycle which can be broken by a divorce, and giving the children a chance to grow up in a more stable environment.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

Precisely *because* the other person is dead, the psychological impact on the survivor is less. The men your grandmother divorced should have been sent to the insane asylum and cured.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

You do realize that murdering people causes a very severe impact on a person psyche, right? It causes a much higher likelihood of the person developing depression, suicidal tendencies, alcoholism, and numerous other issues. While divorce can cause an increased likelihood of the same issues as well, it does so to a much lesser degree, and also doesn't violate anyone else's body.


To say that you're Catholic, yet profess to believe something that is so much in opposition of the Church's teaching is simply to call a pile of crap a rose, and expect people to believe it'll smell the same (or in this case,subscribe to heretical beliefs under the name of a faithful Catholic).

Theodore M. Seeber said...

The point is more that in a divorce, the wronged party has to deal with the party who did it over and over and over.

A priest put it to me this way- IF a marriage is true as the Church describes it, there is a spiritual third person that is the blending of the souls and flesh of the two become one. Divorce kills that third person- divorce is a form of murder. But the two who had previously been one are still alive- and still have to deal with each other, for the rest of their lives.

Oddly, though, you're right, this isn't church teaching: It is liberal secular philosophy, as the church has no real experience with divorce.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

Wrong. The Church does have a position on divorce, and that is that divorce itself is technically irrelevant; in the eyes of God, those two people are still married, if it was an actual, valid marriage. If it wasn't, then they were never married in the first place, and thereby the Holy Spirit was never present in the relationship. In the case of valid marriages, divorce doesn't destroy the presence of the Holy Spirit in their relationship, so in the eyes of the Church, they're still married, just not together. Thereby, in the case of a divorce in a valid marriage, there isn't a problem with a divorce, just in getting remarried afterwards, without having an annulment.


Also, simply because you talked to a priest about it, doesn't mean that you, or he, happens to be right. Priests aren't infallible in matters of official Church teaching, unless that priest happens to be the pope, and he's stating that it's official Church teaching.

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