Marital Challenges: An Opportunity for Growth

 

Hey friends! So, I know I told you last week that was the last time I would be blogging. Until about three days ago, that was the case, but there was some slight confusion on my professor’s end about when the last day of the semester was. So now that that’s been sorted out, I have the opportunity to write yet another blog for all of you wonderful people (and hopefully bring my grade up a little more before the end of the semester, so no complaints here)! Just so you’re all aware though, this one will be the last blog post for the foreseeable future (for reals this time).  I basically said my formal goodbye in my last blog, so I won’t spend too much time doing that again here; it has genuinely been a lot of fun writing these and I hope someone out there has found my ramblings to be useful. Anyways, lets get into this thing!

This week we only had one discussion, since our final was scheduled a class period early (which was fine since now it’s out of the way). Our topic for this week was on divorce and we managed to cover a whole lot in just one class period: why people get divorced, the different stages (or kinds) of divorce, how it has become easier to divorce in recent years, common trends in divorce, and more. I think there were a few things that stuck out to me this time around, but the first thing was how divorce is kind of like giving up hope in a marriage. Now, before I continue, I want to preface that there are times and situations where divorce is the correct choice, particularly in cases of abuse or similar situations.

Now, back to how divorce is like giving up hope in a marriage. My professor prefaced this idea by talking about how difficulties in marriage are common, and by coming through and overcoming those challenges you actually become stronger. Earlier in the semester we talked about how we tend to look back at hard times with a special kind of fondness because we usually come out the other sides of those experiences as better people. The same thing is true for difficult times in marriage. Those times certainly not fun to go through (not having as much fun as they thought is actually one of the reasons why younger couples tend to get divorced), but if a couple bands together and overcomes the problem, they are more likely to find greater satisfaction in their marriage. I think this is important to remember since it encourages us to work harder and gain new skills to overcome our challenges. I personally don’t want to have to go through difficulties, but I do want to have a strong, enduring relationships, and if I have to pass through some hard times to have that, I would say that would be worth it.

Lots of cases of divorce happen because people fall out of “love”, but that is because a lot of people don’t misinterpret passion as love, and passion can change from day to day. Overall, I think what I learned from this week was how it is important to try and keep things together when things get tough in marriage. For those of you who have gone through hard things, I’m sure you can know look to those times and see how they have made your relationships stronger. My hope is that more people might be able to see challenges in their marriage as opportunities for growth and change rather than an immediate reason for divorce.