My parents divorced after twenty-six years. It threw our family into a tailspin, but after the dust settled and we started to look at patterns and how it all could have come about, we identified many contributing factors. I’d like to share some of those factors with you.
My mother was raised in an abusive home. She left for a time to go to college, but she knew that marriage was the only way she’d be able to leave permanently.
My father was raised with the expectation that he was to get married, but without a more clear goal, such as, what kind of wife to choose.
When they met, they both saw the opportunity. She thought, “I can leave home now.” He thought, “I can fulfill my parents’ expectations and get married.” They were both running away from something—her from abuse, he from being pestered. They got married as an escape mechanism.
When two people get married to escape other circumstances, they aren’t entering into the relationship with the right goal. They should be running toward each other, running toward creating a life together, rather than running away from things they want to avoid.
Avoidance mode means, “I’ll do anything to get out of where I am now.” We don’t often look at where we’re going—we’re just so anxious to escape. We don’t weigh our decision carefully, and in the end, we frequently discover that where we ended up was just as bad as where we came from. I’ve spoken with countless couples who got married to escape a bad situation and ended up absolutely miserable.
I understand the desire to run away. There are times when we absolutely must escape our current situation. But getting married solely as a means of escape is, in many cases, a mistake. Choose your spouse carefully. Make sure he or she is the one you really want to spend the rest of your life with. Create a positive future to overcome your past, rather than compounding sad situation on top of sad situation. And if it turns out that the absolute right person for you is the one who helps you out of a tough spot, that’s wonderful.
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