New Book Explains Reality and Damage of Divorce

Published July 20, 1989. I received an interesting book in the mail recently with the suggestion that I review it in my newspaper column. It is titled “The Case Against Divorce” by Diane Medved, a licensed psychologist living in Santa Monica, California. There was an article on “The Case Against Divorce” in May’s Reader’s Digest, and Phil Donahue recently interviewed Medved on his show. I’m impressed with what she has written and recommend that every married couple contemplating divorce read her book.

Medved recognizes there are legitimate reasons for divorce – she experienced a divorce herself and then remarried. Among those reasons are chronic addiction or substance abuse, psychosis, and physical or mental abuse (all reviewed in depth in Chapter 8). But she also notes, “I’ve read more than 50 books off my local public library shelves that comfort and cheer on those involved in divorce. These volumes take you step by step through the court procedure and tell you what stages of distress your ‘normal’ child will endure. These books ease you like silk into the singles game and tout your ‘new freedom’ as if it, rather than marriage, is the ultimate means toward fulfillment.

“I write this book as a counterbalance, to shake a few shoulders, with hopes that I might spare some children helplessness and some partners pain. I want to expose the forces that strive to hide the damage of divorce. Too many people think, “If only I could be out of this marriage and concluded that sentence with their own private miracles. To repeat: it’s not their fault; they’re victims of propaganda. But the lure lets them down, for after they buy it they inevitably remain the same people, with the same problem-solving skills, values, and styles of relating to one another. And so they can’t help but choose and shape new relationships into duplications of their spoiled romance. How can they be expected to see that divorce is, with few exceptions, the wrong way to improve their lives?”

Elsewhere she notes, “If you hear someone for whom you have any feeling at all hinting at separation, instead of tacitly endorsing their move, instantly protest.  Nearly every marriage has something worth preserving, something that can be restored.  Revitalizing a relationship brings triumph and ongoing reward; and as you’ll see, avoiding divorce spares those concerned from one of the greatest traumas of their lives.”

The publisher’s comment at the beginning of the book is also thought-provoking. It states: “‘The Case Against Divorce’ shakes the shoulders of anyone who has ever considered separation or divorce. It argues that divorce, in all but a few extreme cases, is a disastrous mistake not only for the couple but for a wide circle of relatives and acquaintances and indeed for society at large.”

“The book reveals the lies and lures working subtly around us that encourage divorce and deceive us into thinking that single life is good and that finding a better spouse is likely. It spells out the destruction that divorce can bring emotionally, financially, and psychologically, which permeates the lives of divorced people for many years and often for lifetimes.”

“Finally, ‘The Case Against Divorce’ shows how staying married and working to solve marital problems improves your character, your partnership with spouse and family, and ultimately the quality of all your relationships. It shatters the notions that couples staying together ‘for the sake of the children,’ ‘because I’m afraid to be alone,’ or ‘because I don’t have the heart to do it,’ are wasting opportunities, arguing that, instead, they may be saving their very lives.”

Next week I will have more quotes from Diane Medved’s new book “The Case Against Divorce.”