In which our regular writers toss around subjects a
little more volatile than usual.
Last week we discussed the “new normal” — that almost
70% of divorces are now initiated by unhappy wives — and suggested a number of
possible reasons for a phenomenon that is growing not just in the world but in
our churches: young women brought up in Christian homes, most or all of whom have made professions of faith, seem increasingly able to walk away not just from their husbands but from their families, often to raise the children of their new partner.
Tom: We talked about the Internet and the work environment, IC, and the family-associated problems of over-protection and legalism.
But let’s leave the family for a moment.
The Death of Shame
You made reference in passing to the fact
that our society no longer stigmatizes those who divorce. Now, it’s not our business to pass judgment on those outside our churches, but it’s hard to avoid the obvious: ridding our society of the concept of shame
has not done the institution of marriage any favors.
IC: True. It’s not that shame can
fix a bad marriage, or even that it should hold a bad marriage together …
I wouldn’t look for that. The problem, it seems to me, is that there isn’t even
enough shame to cause a person who’s perhaps having adulterous thoughts about
leaving a marriage that’s going through ordinary rough spots to feel ashamed,
or to make such a person hesitate and think about what his or her choice could
entail. And that might be just a little too shameless.
Tom: You’re inadvertently
reminding me of another common element in these situations, and it’s related to
the loss of shame as a motivating force in our society: many of the departing
spouses seem to have no end of enablers who rationalize their conduct for them
and justify them to others. Some of these folks are even professing Christians.
I’m pretty sure that’s not something one had to worry about in 1940.
IC: Quite so. But our society’s
view of the highest value is “personal fulfillment”, or “happiness”, whatever
that might mean. So our heroes are people who are pursuing those in a confident
and unrestrained way, and on their own terms. Thus there are any number of
cheerleaders for persons who are crossing boundaries, so long as they are in
pursuit of obtaining that.
Two Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Tom: Well, let’s go on to that
then. We’ve talked about where the family and society might fail a young woman,
but let’s talk about her expectations. It’s my conviction that the deification
of romantic love in the media has created impossible expectations for young
Christian women of what their marriage should be like, and later, equally
impossible expectations of what a fling and a divorce might bring to their
lives. In both cases, they’re in for a bit of a shock.
IC: Oh, my dear
sir … if ONLY it were just “romance” that is the problem today. How easy
life would be …
It’s the pornographication of relationships: that’s what I’m
seeing in the next generation. Both the expectations of young men of what will
be involved in “romancing” a woman, and the expectations of a young woman as to
how she must behave in order to be “romantically desirable”, and how she may
recognize herself as the recipient of a “romantic” intention, are being
reconstructed by the kinds of media they are ingesting. I’ll leave you to
imagine just how bad that is, because the Word says it’s not good even to speak
of what that entails.
Tom: [sigh]
Admittedly, IC, I am using the word “romance” as a convenient euphemism for
exactly the sort of thing you suggest, but I recognize we have some older readers,
as you do. I concede that what women are looking for today is markedly
different from what they sought in the days of our dear Queen Elizabeth. I wish
it were not so.
Great Expectations
Can we agree, for starters, that there is a significant
difference between what a young modern Christian woman expects of her husband
in marriage and what is possible to actually deliver?
IC: Yes. And
there’s a significant difference between what many modern men expect and what a
wife can deliver as well. Both sides have become very unrealistic about how
complicated and challenging marriage really is. That older generation you
mention generally stuck it out through some very difficult times, and learned a
lot more about it; I think we jump in and out of relationships too soon to let the
Lord refine us in them the way that he did that generation.
Tom: Agreed. There is no green grass on the
other side of the fence, either in marriage or out of marriage. And this is
what moderns don’t grasp. They expect that in marrying or remarrying, their
partner is somehow going to “fix” their problems.
Uh … no. Not happening. “Romantic love” is an interval, if
we’re lucky. It is not a lifestyle. No real relationship can sustain it.
Something More Than Romantic Love
IC: No. I remember my English
teacher years ago asking our class why Romeo and Juliet had to die. (We
couldn’t think of an answer.) He said, “Because, can you imagine them as old
people?” Well, none of us could. They work well as romantic models precisely because
they die young … that kind of passion is neither plausible nor healthy for
the long haul. Something else is needed.
Tom: Yes. This is the problem.
The media is lying to us, and unfortunately young women are the biggest victims
of their lies. It’s lying to us that marriage should be a non-stop exercise in
fulfilling our desires, and it’s lying to us that leaving marriage for some
internet flame will do the job that marriage didn’t do. Neither is true.
Marriage is hard work, and your spouse will not always be the person you want
him to be, even if he’s a sincere, devoted Christian.
And
an affair is never painless, or fulfilling, or a long-term solution. Rather,
it’s a recipe for growing old as a Cat Lady while someone else raises your
kids. Not, I hasten to add, that there’s anything wrong with cats or Cat Ladies: I’m fond of both. But it’s probably not the final chapter a woman leaving a Christian marriage in mid-life is anticipating when she leaves it. Those few that make a second relationship last have frequently traded down, whether they realize it or not.
IC: Well, men have been sold a
bill of goods on desire for a long time already. So maybe it’s just women’s
turn to find out indulging one’s passions doesn’t actually work. But surely,
none of this is genuinely a Christian way to behave, Tom. So where do we go
from here?
Pushing the Stop Button
Tom: Well, at some point we need
to push the button marked “stop”, don’t we? I mean, there are a million reasons
to leave that guy you married. He probably will never amount to what you hoped,
either in the church or in the home. He almost surely will fall short of your
expectations in one way or another.
But
nobody could meet those expectations. Nobody. They are a fantasy concocted by
Hollywood. Forget Eat Pray Love: that one’s obvious. Even in the Kendrick Brothers movies that Christians love, the
ending is always that the prayerful wisdom of the poor, loving wife eventually
turns the husband into what she’s always wanted by the final scene. And that’s simply
not realistic.
IC: Yep. There’s
a certain rough reality to marriage. I think I wrote about how I talk to my
students about this in an earlier post. It is a solemn contract because — it’s very, very, very, very hard! Yes,
there are good times; but anyone who can stick out a marriage over the long
haul deserves special respect … because a thousand times the heart gets
restless, and something stronger than a feeling of romance is always needed to
preserve the bond.
Tom: Well, we’re
coming back to commitment here, aren’t we? Not so much a commitment to the
marriage, but a commitment to the Lord.
IC: That’s the
thing. If we look in ourselves for the faithfulness to get the really tough
jobs done — jobs such as loving people when we are not feeling it, raising
difficult children, being truly sacrificial financially, or sticking out a
tough domestic situation — we’re likely to be disappointed. Not many of us
have the virtue to see such things through, especially over the long haul. It
takes the situation-transcending power of Christ to keep us faithful. It’s not
about how much we like our circumstances, it’s about how much we love him …
and always, of course, because he loves us first.
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