There Are Proven Practices that Keep Couples from Divorcing

In my last article (“Remember When You Vowed ‘Until Death Do Us Part’?”), I focused on the truth that marriage is ordained by God to last until death, just as our Lord’s love is faithful to us to the end. Regrettably, a life-long commitment has seemed to become archaic in the 21st century, with the recent estimate being 50% of first marriages and up to 70% of second marriages will end in divorce. Divorce not only creates heartache, but it ends up damaging the family’s children as research here, here, and here shows. 

The fundamental reason for a married couple to stay together is God created marriage as a lifelong commitment and Jesus commanded this permanence! Christ’s teaching on the permanency of marriage is unmistakable, held by the Church for 2,000 years:

“What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder…And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery.” (Mt 19:6,9)

Assuming one agrees that God created marriage to be lifelong and one concurs that getting a divorce causes lifelong harm to the children involved, what can a husband and wife do when their marriage is struggling and they bicker and shout more than they nourish and hug? As a follow-up to my recent article stressing the significance of the vow, “Until death do us part,” I would like to now discuss some successful practices of Catholic husbands and wives that has kept them happy, kept them from harming their children, and kept them from resisting the urge to destroy their covenant with their spouse and with God.

The first practice to increase the chances of married couples staying together is to have a consistent prayer life which includes regularly attending church together. Data compiled at the University of Virginia reveals that men and women who are married and who attend church regularly (all denominations; not just Catholic) are 15 percentage points more likely to be very happy with their marriages and up to 50% less likely to get divorced. Similarly, research conducted at Harvard’s School of Public Health reveals that regularly attending church services together reduces a couple’s risk of divorce by 47%. 

Attending Mass together is a Catholic couple’s most essential way of praying together, and this is followed by the basic prayers done together such as daily grace before meals and praying the Rosary. A special type of shared prayer is when a wife and husband speak to God spontaneously in their own words and in each other’s presence. When partners take turns naming to God what they are thankful for and sharing with God their worries and needs – with their spouse listening – it has been proven to be an intimate, unifying practice.

Along with making sure they regularly pray and attend church as a couple, successful husbands and wives practice honest and open communication. In his book, Simple Steps to a Stronger Marriage, Catholic psychologist and marriage expert Dr. Ray Guarendi says:

“I tell spouses, you don’t have to agree with how your spouse thinks about something. But you better be able to understand it. People want to be understood almost more than they want to be agreed with. Ask questions. It’s the easiest way to communicate. In other words, what I tell spouses is: Can you get inside your spouse’s head? Do you know why they think the way they do? I’m shocked at how many don’t. So one of my small suggestions is: Just ask questions.”

Another basic practice that helps marriages is for husband and wife, after arguing with each other and saying or doing hurtful things, to go through the steps of reconciliation both in an unofficial and official fashion. Unofficially, the husband calls to mind the specific sinful or inconsiderate items he has done to his wife or specific considerate acts he has failed to do, and requests forgiveness from her. The wife responds by saying to him, “I forgive you.” Then the tables are turned with the wife asking for forgiveness for specific acts of commission or omission, and the husband forgiving her. 

Self-reflecting on what one has done to cause hurt to the other’s heart and then saying aloud the sin are humbling acts. Humility quashes the sin of pride and is a cure for selfishness. The acknowledgment of the maltreating spouse that he/she failed to show total commitment to the original marriage vows (“to love, honor, and obey”) is effective in that it brings one to one’s knees. Humility often leads not only to a life of holiness but to a happy marriage.  

After this informal manner of reconciliation, the husband and wife should go to a priest for the formal, official act of individual sacramental confessions. Marriage is first and foremost a spiritual union where God united the souls of the couple, and the couple entered into a covenant with one another and with God.  Therefore, just as the first part of this process involved the spouses confessing to each other in the desire to repair any brokenness in their marriage, so too should they confess to their Lord via the priest because they love God and want to repair their relationship with Him. 

Those of us who are married need to vow to love our significant other that God has given us and try our hardest to be the best husband or wife possible. This translates to needing to apologize and amend our ways when we are the one at fault, and to love and forgive our spouse when he/she is the one at fault, even if that partner does not appear to be able to truly love us in return. 

God knew marriages would be difficult to keep together. When the couple got married, God didn’t say, “I want you to love your spouse until death do you part as long as your spouse is nice to you and your children, is a great provider, stays healthy and fit, and is always fun to be around.” God knew that some spouses will be constantly loving but some will be consistently selfish. He knew that some spouses will be easy to live with and some will be darn near impossible. Yet He still said it was a lifelong covenant.

However, what if we are not just talking about self-centered, rude, or weak spouses, but extreme cases, such as where the husband is abusing the wife or the wife has an unrepentant affair? The Church’s Canon Law states there are times when the couple are permitted to separate:

“If either of the spouses causes grave mental or physical danger to the other spouse or to the offspring or otherwise renders common life too difficult, that spouse gives the other a legitimate cause for leaving.” (can. 1153 §1)

The Church permits a physical separation of the spouses, with the two still remaining “married” until an annulment, if applicable, is granted. An annulment is not a Catholic divorce, but affirmation that the marriage never met the conditions to be considered sacramental in the first place. 

Hopefully, before things get so bad that separation is needed, the husband and/or wife, sensing a growing distance and recognizing significantly increased tension in the marriage, should seek the objective counsel of both a wise spiritual director or pastor and a marriage counselor.

It is vital to find a counselor who is not just clinically competent but who is a Christian who understands Church teaching on marriage. Too many secular or non-Catholic marriage counselors don’t see it as their jobs to save marriages but to help start the path to amicable divorce.  To help find faithful, marriage-friendly, professional help, the distressed couple should ask their pastor or look into these resources:

• CatholicTherapists.com;
• MarriageFriendlyTherapists.com;
• CatholicCounselors.com. 

When traditional marriage counseling seems to be fruitless, The Alexander House and Retrouvaille are two well-known organizations that help Christian couples who are experiencing major marriage problems and want to make one last attempt to heal their marriage instead of turning to divorce. 

Like everyone else, my own marriage has had its share of personal faults and stressful times. Fortunately, though God’s grace and my wife’s and my efforts, we will be celebrating 42 years married later this year. If you are reading this and suspect your impaired marriage will never make it even 42 more weeks before the idea of divorce is laid on the table, this post was not written as a judgment upon your circumstances, but as a motivation to remain faithful to your vows, fight for your marriage, and stay together. 

The virtues of faithfulness, chastity, and forgiveness are counter-cultural in today’s selfish and immoral society. It is difficult to share our imperfect self with an imperfect spouse, and much easier in our throw-away culture to just settle for the ease of simple, no-fault divorce.

Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No.

As the author of marriage, God provides grace that can give you the strength to stay faithful to your spouse during difficult times. If you live chastely, forgive your significant other willingly, and commit to live up to the vow you made – “to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do us part”– you can be sure that the essential third person in your marriage, your Lord Jesus Christ, will be with you helping you spiritually.

Our culture assumes true unconditional love, where a husband and wife commit to each other no matter what, is a fairy tale, and that modern marriage should be painless and effortless. If it is not, no worries, because it is simple to get a divorce. However, faithful Catholics – being counter-cultural – will stay married no matter how challenging it is because they want to adhere to our Lord’s command, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”