Mediocre Marriage Is Better Than Good Divorce

Published July 27, 1989. Last week I wrote about a new book, “The Case Against Divorce,” by Diane Medved. Medved is a licensed psychologist living in Santa Monica, California.

As noted in last week’s column, Medved claims we have gone too far in advocating the so-called freedoms of the single life, which many married people believe they can attain once again . . . through divorce. Her book identifies what she thinks are the few legitimate reasons for divorce. But for those who feel their marriage simply lacks excitement and therefore justifies divorce, she has this observation: “A mediocre marriage is better than a good divorce.”

Here are a few more quotes from her recently published book:

“It’s finally time to renounce – openly and clearly – the self-serving platitudes about independence and fulfillment and look at the reality of divorce. We act too frequently as if every infirm marriage deserves to die, based simply upon the emotional report of one distressed partner. Rather than viewing a separation first with alarm, we’re full of sympathy for a divorcing friend, and we offer understanding of the temporary insanity involved in severing old ties.

“Still influenced by the ‘do your own thing’ era, we don’t act constructively. We don’t take the husband (or wife) by the shoulders and shake him. We don’t shout in his ear that he might be making a disastrous mistake. Even if we care immensely about him, we feel it’s too intrusively ‘judgmental’ to do more than step back and say. ‘OK, if that’s what you want,’ and close our eyes to the consequences. My research suggests that this is more cruelty than friendship.”

Later on in the book, Medved notes, “While everyone laments the immediate trauma of ‘going through divorce,’ more discomforting is the alarming news of its lingering emotional and psychosocial effects. Research by the California Children of Divorce Project headed by Judith Wallerstein, for example, shows an especially dismal future for women 40 and over – even 10 years after the divorce. Half the women studied at that distant point could be diagnosed as ‘clinically depressed,’ and all were moderately or severely lonely, despite the fact that 50 percent of them had initiated the divorce themselves.”

Speaking from both professional and personal experience, Medved concludes: “Quite simply, I discovered in my research that the process and aftermath of divorce is so pervasively disastrous – to body, mind and spirit – that in an overwhelming number of cases, the ‘cure’ that it brings is surely worse than the marriage’s diseases.”  Of course, there are exceptions. There are times when divorce is clearly the only recourse . . . But when I look at the balance of the bad and the good that divorced individuals endure, my only possible conclusion is that people could be spared enormous suffering if they scotched their permissive acceptance of divorce and viewed marriage as a serious, lifelong commitment, a bond not to be entered into – or wiggled out of – lightly.

“The old wedding vows read ‘for better or worse  . . . until death do us part.’ They now commonly intone, “Through good times and bad . . . as long as our love shall last.’ Until recently, I nodded at the ‘improvement’; now I soberly acknowledge the wisdom in the message of the past.”

“The Case Against Divorce,” by Diane Medved, is 262 pages long and is published by Donald I. Fine in New York, 1989. It is now available at most local bookstores. I highly recommend it, particularly for column readers or other married couples who are seriously considering divorce.