I just finished reading the following article, which promotes a deeply worrisome mentality that seems to be embedding itself ever deeper into the ideologies of people in America today (and probably in other parts of the world, as well):
Author: Heather Sweeney
Title: “Divorce is Having a Moment. And I Wish it had Happened 10 Years Ago”
In her article, the author attempts to justify her choice to divorce her husband. She explains that there was no abuse in the marriage and there was no heinous breach of trust. She went on to admit that her sole reason for choosing divorce was the bare fact that she felt unhappy. She goes on even further to what amounts to encouraging other wives to divorce their husbands if they themselves feel less than happy. She claims that “women want to find happiness” and so it follows that women have every right to use any method possible (namely, divorce) in search of it. (How very logical of the author.)
Ah, the elusive and illusory feeling of happiness…everything of true worth must be sacrificed upon thy altar.
In the hope of proving the foolishness of this immature mentality, I put to you a scenario:
You are on a long-anticipated 7-day beach vacation. After spending a large amount of time and effort (and money) to carefully plan, pack, and schedule your trip, the big week finally arrives. You are starry-eyed and ready to enjoy the fruits of your labor. The week begins with sunny, blue skies and warm ocean waves. Everything is picture-perfect. Then, on day 3, a change comes over everything. The sky darkens, black clouds roll in, the wind begins howling, and you can hear thunder in the distance.
At this point, you would have a choice to make.
Option 1: Recognize that storms happen and, in fact, are a completely normal part of life. Knowing this, you choose to hunker down indoors and wait out the storm. Even though you would prefer to be on the beach right now, you realize that storms are temporary, not permanent. You also understand that after the storm, the air may be even more fresh and clean than it was previously. Storms are cleansing and cause growth. You patiently ride out the day of unpleasantness. In turn, you will also have the reward of experiencing many more days of relaxing beach time for the entire remainder of your scheduled days of vacation. As an added bonus, you will have a more interesting story to tell once you return home: “Remember that big thunderstorm that swooped in on us in the middle of our vacation! Wow, that was something else, wasn’t it!” etc.
Option 2: Immediately rush to pack up everything. You hurry to the car, and drive away at full speed. You see no other viable option. In your mind, no amount of rain should ever have to be endured. In fact, you may even tell yourself that a thunderstorm is a death sentence that one could never possibly survive. Storms are dark, scary, unpleasant. After all, it could cause a flood, you might lose power, or an entire tree might uproot and crush your vacation house with you inside of it! No way are you willing to risk these outcomes (no matter how unlikely). Cut that 7-day vacation short and hope that you never see another raindrop again for the rest of your days!
Does it really make sense to totally abandon the vacation on day 3 of 7 because of that 1 stormy day, and then miss out on the entire last half of your vacation? Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait out the storm until day 4? And what happens the next time you’re on vacation and it dares to rain!?!? I suppose you’ll run for the hills to avoid that storm, too? Furthermore, I have yet to hear of a thunderstorm that has lasted forever. Have you ever heard of one? (Besides on the planet Jupiter, of course.) Here, grounded on the planet Earth at least, chances are quite good that the sun and calm will return in a day (or maybe 2, tops), and then you can enjoy relaxing on the beach again. There is simply no good reason to desert your vacation because of a day of storms.
This little anecdote is meant to illustrate how feelings work. Feelings are like the weather. They can, and will, change from one day (…hour, minute…) to the next. And, guess what, folks? HAPPINESS IS A FEELING! (I know, the truth stinks, doesn’t it?)
Feelings, such as happiness, are dangerous grounds on which to base your life choices, including whether to divorce your spouse or stay in the marriage. Happiness is in a constant state of flux; it comes and goes just like the changing of the weather: sunny and 70 degrees one day and black storm clouds the next. Chances are very high that by basing your choice to divorce on a feeling, you are only setting yourself up for the same situation to happen over and over again in the future. Except the next time down the line (just for the fun of it, I guess), you’ll be experiencing it with a different person. It is not a matter of “if,” but of “when.” It is inevitable that you will not always feel happy in life. That’s just the nature of life and feelings.
However, there is hope for marriage when there is LOVE! Love, unlike happiness, is not a feeling, it is a CHOICE. Yes, it requires much patience and hard work. A person must develop mental, emotional, and spiritual strength in order to choose to give their love to another person. Without those personal strengths firmly in place, a person will undoubtedly succumb to those wishy-washy, changeable things otherwise known as feelings. Mentally, emotionally, and spiritually stunted people can easily fall into the trap of allowing their fickle feelings to overtake control of their decision-making powers; even though by nature, the feelings of one moment are bound to change in the next. But the hard work of choosing to love is completely worth it, because it is not fleeting like the state of happiness. A relationship built on the foundation of love is like building one’s home on a foundation of solid rock, while building a marriage based on the feeling of happiness is like having a foundation of shifting sands.
In case I haven’t yet convinced you, let me put it to you this way. When people marry, they usually vow to LOVE (aka, CHOOSE over and over again) that person until one of them dies. Then, when the storms of life inevitably come, husband and wife can stand firm together to weather the storms. They can fully trust that their partner won’t abandon them during the less-than-picture-perfect times. They can each remain calm during the tempest and look forward to the time when the dark clouds will dissipate. The sun still exists behind those clouds and is destined to shine again another day.
On that same note, there is a very good reason that wedding vows don’t go something like this: “Well, as long as you make me happy, or as long as I am happy, I will stay married to you.” A person would have to be a complete and utter foolish idiot to choose a person like that for their life partner! It seems ridiculous, but the truth is that this is exactly what people nowadays actually mean when they say their wedding vows. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.
Maybe, just maybe, and it may sound crazy, but I’ll just get it out on the table. Perhaps if both spouses focused less on their own happiness levels and instead shifted their focus to the happiness of their spouse, their happiness together as a whole would increase…? I don’t know, it might be a long shot, but it might just be worth a try to replace selfishness and narcissism with empathy and altruism. Maybe that would be mutually beneficial to both marital partners…? My challenge to you would be to go for it! Why not try sprinkling a little bit of sunshine on your spouse? Can it really hurt to try to make their day a little brighter? Instead of slathering your misery on everyone around you and blaming everybody but yourself for having so much of it, why not choose to spread kindness and laughter in your household? I think that is what love would choose to do and I believe that is the key to a true and lasting happiness.
In my experience, happiness always eludes grasping hands. However, if you choose to spend more time focusing on enriching the lives of others and less time wallowing in self-pity, you may wake up one day to discover that happiness has been slowly, quietly, and delicately building a cozy home for itself, nestled deep inside of your soul.
(Disclaimer: I am not saying that NO good reasons to choose divorce exist; I’m only suggesting that personal happiness levels should not be the deciding factor.)
Pieces to Peace 
I agree completely.
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