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Why bother?


If you fear your marriage might go under soon, why bother trying to save it? If you think it might take some effort on your part, you're probably right. Is this an effort that's worth making?

Ideally, you love your wife, and of course you want to preserve your marriage.

The reality may be a little different - your life together may not be a loving one at present. If you were asked, "Do you love each other" you both might answer "Yes". But what would you say if you were asked: "How does that love reveal itself - if a movie was made of you lives, would it look like a happy love story?"

So maybe you'd make the effort to stay together because you hope the good times can be rekindled. Ask yourself, "Has what I've been doing so far been successful? Is there any sign that it will suddenly become so?" Probably not. Or you wouldn't have read this far.

Consider this: 80% of relationships are ended by women. So chances are if your marriage is at risk, it's your wife who'll pull the plug. You can either lie back and accept the ending, if it's coming, or do something to prevent it.

What are the benefits of a succesful attempt to keep your marriage going? Of course, these will be different depending on whether you have children, and if so, what their ages and living arrangements are:

  • well, retaining your mutual love, of course, and more practically, also these other matters:
  • no property division,
  • no alimony,
  • continued involvement with and access to your children,
  • reduction in stress for the children,
  • better growing and learning environment for children as they see the improvment in communication and family skills,
  • no disruption to your living arrangements,
  • continuation of the relationship you have so much investment in, both emotional and financial,
  • vastly reduced stress (however bad it may seem now, believe us, divorce is usually very much worse)
  • increased life expectancy (married men live longer - though there is an old joke that says 'it certainly seems longer').
  • it's easy to later reverse your decision to work at staying together, but nearly impossible later to reverse your wife's decision to divorce.
  • you will feel the satisfaction of having done something good for yourself and your family.
  • What are the disadvantages of working to keep your marriage going?

  • you may fail, (but if you do nothing, you will fail for sure!)
  • your sense of being under stress or confrontation may continue for some time (but note, the stress of divorce may turn out to be much worse),
  • your children will watch - whatever you do - and it could be a stressful time for them even if they are now adults (but, if you succeed, their stress will reduce and they will have learnt a valuable life skill, whereas the stress of a divorce on them can continue to have harmful effects long after they have become adults).
  • Both of us authors (now happily married to each other) have children, were divorced from our initial spouses, and coincidently both of us lost subsequent partners to cancer. Preventing the deaths was beyond us; we could not have avoided those times of grief. Was it beyond us to avoid the earlier divorces? Perhaps with more understanding we could in each case have taken actions that would have avoided the distress of divorce - and avoided great collateral damage to others as well.

    Copyright © 2007 Peter Leon Collins
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