DIVORCE-The UNNECESSARY CONVENIENCE

 

'I am divorced.' He confessed.

There was no glint of regret in the eyes. The absence of glint often has story we can draw lesson from.

'I am going along with someone now. It has been three months since the divorce.' The confession felt like a healing note and the glint was acceptable.

I have survived a divorce that happened more than a decade ago, when I was naive to have held on when circumstance ripped out love at first sight marriage. I know what it must feel like.

Over the next fifty two minutes, we stood at the road side discussing his story and going deep into a culture we may have to reconsider. The story of our discussion was on why divorce happened for a marriage that began with deep romance and did not seem possible for the rift with two children in between. I had watched them swim like doves, wing to wing, inseparable every single day. There was no shade of doubt that their marriage was a fairy tale.

'We are divorced' is often spoken with ease than with a regret. The length of years in marriage does not seem to matter when divorce have to happen. The reasons are diverse, complex and often unjustifiable on either side of the accused.

There is one reason I have often heard people blame for causing the irreparable damage, and that is family intrusion into a marriage. And often the spouses point at their mother-in-laws for being the centerpiece of the trouble that loosens the knot.

When a wife listens to her mother for everything that happens in a marriage life, consults her for every inconveniences, seeking for interventions and amendments, it emboldens her to act accordingly, blinding her judgement. The marriage is often known to deteriorate gradually, and painfully, until disharmony leads to flaming of negative opinions and emotions. A good family soon is irreparably broken, leaving both lovers wounded and children castaway into the whirlwind of confusion. This is same for the man as well although fewer in case.

I have heard of several marriages that fell apart as a result of either spouses, mostly women, being swayed by their own parents. I could rather blame my mother than myself for berating and insinuating her expectations on me for the marriage I live.

How can I grow to taste the sweet fruits of a lasting marriage if I did not face the sourness in my marriage myself? The best answers to the worst differences in marriage are often within each of us, and it must take time to evolve. Divorce is not the perfect solution to anyone. It is the worst betrayal to the life of romance we began, and to the children who will unfortunately suffer the brunt of our impatience, misunderstanding and selfishness.

I had faced the brutality of divorce under circumstances I had no control, wrought by distance in years and ignorance. I wanted to hold on to my first family but nothing I said could redeem it. We were too naive then; I was just out of training college and she had begin to work at a private agency. We were some hundred kilometers apart, mountains between us. When differences and dissatisfaction becomes stronger, we tend to see our future the way we want it, and not the way it must unfold gracefully. How we began to live together becomes less rational.

We have this life to reckon, this life to linger. Divorce must in fact be the last choice of all things. The earlier we seek better pasture on misguided notions, the earlier we begin to suffer the lifelong pain of repentance.

There will be hundred reasons we think are justifiable for a divorce. We may believe that 'it is too much' and we have 'waited long enough.' How long do we live after a divorce? We do not live another fifty years to heal much, but we will have shattered lives we have made. It is inhumanely inconsiderate for us to have left our children to the lack of love and family for no fault of theirs. How unfortunate it is for the children born to this circumstance. Only those who have grown from the womb of broken family will understand the emptiness and hollow feelings.

No amount of wealth and comfort have been a best substitute for an absence of two spouses for our children. NEVER. Nevertheless, for those whose have gone through the unavoidable diversions, we must have the compassion and courage to balance life as beautifully as possible between past and the future. The balance is vital for those who have children walking in the shadows and those before us. Living a life of mutual understanding and courage forward is a potent healing for a broken past.

Having compelled by karma to live another marriage, I have been able to hold on beautifully to my wife, who came as a blessing three years after the first one shattered. I believe it’s a blessing only if we are able to hold on despite wild difference, finding similarities to trust and tender on in life.