Divorce has become a regular part of our culture. Many of us come from divorced homes and there is a huge fear of getting married and then getting divorced.
This affects unmarried people in a variety of ways. It raises all sorts of questions. Questions about what is a biblical divorce or when it is it ok to remarry or even date a divorced person (or as a divorced person, can I remarry etc.). There are some clear and some unclear answers to many of these and I plan to actually get into some of that at a later time (I’ve avoided it for about as long as I can). But today I want to help us deal with fear of divorce.
As Christians we want to make sure that we don’t end up in that situation which is good. We want to choose well in a spouse with the intent of never getting divorced. But I think we have bought into some lies that cause us to be more afraid than we need to be. We want to avoid divorce but we don’t need to allow fear of divorce to affect our ability to get married to begin with.
So let’s clear some things up.
Let’s talk about the statistic everyone knows that says that 50% of marriages end in divorce. That is big time scary. That’s half. But that statistic is not quite what it seems in several ways.
For starters, that is not a first marriage statistic. According to the census, 41% of first marriages, 60% of second marriages and 73% of third marriages end in divorce. The point here is that the real number of first marriages ending in divorce is less than half and falling. Granted part of that is because WAY less people are getting married.
People who wait to marry until after age 25 (which is almost everybody at this point) are less likely to get divorced. Attending college makes you 13% less likely. Basically if you live in the U.S., your parents are married, you have a college degree and you are 26, your chance of divorce is actually pretty slim.
Still scared? Well then be an active follower of Jesus. One of the completely false ideas is that Christians divorce at the same rate as everyone else. I’ve always balked at this stat – even though it makes for a really dramatic sermon. But when you dig behind the numbers you get a completely different idea.
This is why the word Christian can be such a mess. Think about online dating for a second. When you join a site like Match.com, you have to pick a religion. A lot of people will pick “Christian Other” for example. What does that even mean? This is why when I was online dating I put Jesus in my profile, because I knew just saying Christian didn’t mean anything.
Here are some real numbers to encourage you. An active Conservative Protestant has a 35% less chance of divorce. An active Catholic has a 31% less chance. (Interestingly a nominal Catholic has a 5% less chance while a nominal Protestant has a 20% higher rate of divorce than a non-relgious person).
Here are a couple of other random statistics to keep in mind that may mess with your head.
- In the past, men cheated more than women. But in recent years that has changed. In one study 23% of men and 19% of women had “cheated”
- Men might need to be more afraid than women. Women file 2/3s of all divorces. In some no fault divorce states that number rises to 70% and among college educated couples in those states women file 90% of the time.
- If you think practice makes perfect, think again. Living together can increase the chance of divorce by as much as 40%. More sexual partners (especially for the woman) greatly increases the chance of divorce.
So what the heck does all of this mean?
First and foremost fear of divorce should not drive us as Christians. It’s not that it can’t happen to us or that we should take it lightly. But we need to understand that the odds shift dramatically in our favor.
Secondly, and maybe more importantly, we have the chance to set ourselves up to not get divorced. Now am I saying that you should only marry a person that comes from a two parent home, is over 25, has a college degree and has never slept with anyone? No that’s not really what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that we can do things ourselves and make choices that matter.
The person you control is you. You choose who to marry (I have a blog coming on some of the important things to look for in that choice). You also choose how you live your life both now and when you get married. You have the choice once you are married to stay married.
Even if you’ve already messed up some of the above examples you can repent and change. You are for sure not disqualified from having a great marriage because of any of that. God’s grace is bigger than that. But it would make sense if you are on any of those bad paths to do an about face if you want to end up in a Godly, stable marriage.
How afraid of divorce are you? What is that based on? Are you setting yourself up to be in a good situation?
Links to Stats from this post
More Than Don't Have Sex 
I have said “I am afraid of divorce” so many times… Thank you for this post. Very helpful.
I was never afraid of divorce. I wasn’t familiar with it and it never seemed an option. Yet here I am, divorced.
What is the difference between choosing a wife wisely, and walking across a loaded minefield wisely? At what point does the risk outweigh the reward, and the whole effort and endeavor, itself, become unwise?
There are plenty of Christian marriages that are technically still intact and not divorced, but many of them have horrible disunity and unending sin and pain. Often, one or more of the spouses refuses to repent and obey God by doing what the bible tells them to do. I’d really like to know the stats on that!
As you said, the divorce rate for nominal Protestants is much higher than for non-believers. But, nominals and some “true believers” are both the ones we must be wise to avoid in order to find repentant/obedient true believers to marry.
There is a big difference between being afraid of marrying someone who might divorce you and being afraid of marrying someone who might not divorce you, but could be hesitant or blind to their need to repent and obey God.
Finding a Christian woman who wants to repent and obey God with her actions (not just her words), AND who wants to be a godly wife according to scripture (not just married) is very much like walking through a loaded minefield, or at very least like bobbing blindfolded through a barrel full of rotten apples to find the one good apple at the bottom.
Even if a man is not afraid of divorce, and is looking for a godly wife, he must still sift and filter through large quantities of Christian women who want marriage and say all the right things, but who don’t want to change themselves to become biblical, godly wives. Those Christian women might never divorce their husbands, but they will still use and hurt their husbands for a lifetime with no intention of repenting. Worse, they know that you will never divorce them, so they figure that they have no need to change, and can keep sinning against you without consequence. Churches and Pastors would tell him, “Tough luck! Suck it up!,” but would never help correct her, and would even stand in support of her rebellion!
Lot of directions here. But here are two thoughts I have
First, each person has to weigh the risk of marriage. It’s a choice. It carries lots of risks, including, but in no way limited to the ones you mention here.
Secondly if we choose marriage, we will for sure marry a person who sins. Including whoever marries us.
Third – perhaps the most important thing you said here is the word repentant. I believe that might be the most important (and often overlooked) trait that we should all be looking for in a spouse.
Pingback: Focussed On Which Family? | More Than Don't Have Sex
Pingback: The Church Is Fighting Yesterdays Battle | More Than Don't Have Sex
Pingback: Lies Single Christians Believe | More Than Don't Have Sex