Till death do us part OR sooner

Lately, the subject of divorce has been the topic of a number of discussions. I am no proponent of divorce and so discussions about divorce have always been rather short. It would seem that divorce has become the norm. I am now genuinely amazed to meet people who have been married for many years.

As a Catholic, I have no divorce escape hatch in my marriage. When Donna and I got married, we agreed it would never be an option. As a result, any argument we have is couched in the knowledge that there is no walking away. It does not mean we do not disagree about things, it does mean we both end up compromising. I can only hope and pray the love we share is sufficient to ride the swells of the rest of our lives together.

I have a friend going through one of the saddest ordeals ever. A brain damaged wife intent on absolutely destroying him. She wants lots of money to support her new free lifestyle sans children, which is a little difficult because he has nothing left to give. Her game is to go to incredible extremes in order to render his life as miserable as possible. Luckily he has only been arrested once this month for a charge she fabricated. The tragedy is that their three young daughters have become the collateral damage in the exacting of her revenge.

Somebody else I know has taken her children, packed what they could carry, and fled to Europe. Extreme measures to escape a new ex husband! She now waits tables, lives in a one room apartment, and is in a far better situation than having to deal with trumped up fraud charges, and his vindictive behaviour. One can only imagine how terrible life must have been for one to resort to fleeing the country...

I understand that these people are not the only ones. There are many more out there whose spouses are out for annihilation of their ex significant others. Now I can feel for an aggrieved spouse, it must be soul destroying. To have gambled the rest of your life on someone, only to have them fail you, must be more than extremely difficult. To have to start one’s life again when least expected, cannot be for the faint hearted. I fail to understand why a separation and new beginning is not sufficient, and where it becomes life consuming to bring this person you once loved to their knees.

I recently wrote about marriage and how it is a sacrifice of one’s life for another. Children change that dynamic again. Life is then supposed to be sacrificed for them, their well being trumping all else. A parent gets to fill these impressionable lives with love, joy, and valuable lessons on how to grow into adults of worth.

Divorce in many instances is as a result of my needs being more important than my spouse or children. Right or wrong, the impact on children is devastating. I am no expert but have seen more than enough children shattered by the dynamics of the two family life.

 I am forced to admit that there is no magic answer to the conundrum. Every situation is different. I do feel that life needs to be less about me, myself, and I; and more about those around us. If we could live for the good of others, perhaps our own selfish needs would not continue to rip apart the soul of society.

Valueless values

The other night we watched a DVD. Friends had recommended it, saying it was absolutely brilliant.

Theoretically the movie was a comedy about a divorced couple getting back together. Not your usual laughing matter! It was not a great movie at all. Instead in typical Hollywood fashion, it gave its thumbs up to a number of questionable practices.

Even I left my couch feeling that divorce was fine, affairs are cool things, breaking up marriages is spot on if they are not great marriages, and the smoking of marijuana is to be recommended, if not demonstrated to one’s children!

Have I missed the latest memo from society? How on earth can we expect our children to grow into strong, intelligent, useful members of society if we condone issues that rip it apart at the seams! Drugs are drugs; there can be no distinction between soft and hard drugs. That is just drivel made up by people who want to justify their own habits. As is any concept that an affair with a married person is OK. It simply is not!

As is typical of movies, the overall message was loud and clear; anything goes so long as it makes you feel good! Is it not time we got over ourselves and started to realise that we are not the centre of the universe. That by denying ourselves, we may do heaps of good as opposed to simply finding pleasure?

I had a chat with a another mate last night. We talked about a whole heap of things but the one thing that struck me was the amount of divorce that is taking place. I mean there are heaps of people that I know that have just recently gotten divorced and probably a whole heap more that are in the process. My thinking was really how much of a role does a company play in employees getting to this point in their personal lives. I don’t mean that companies set out to ensure that their staff separate but rather create an environment where it is most difficult for a couple to work at their marriage. By example I am talking about the long nights, time spent away, office politics, frustrated ambitions, huge pressure, very little give back to the employee, etc. Some may argue that this is the stuff employees are paid to deal with. Yes, this is true in a way. We are paid to deliver outputs. All the stuff I mentioned above is stuff that is going to come with every job out there and the higher up you are the worse this is going to be. Surely companies should be doing more to encourage happiness in the rest of their employees lives. We talk a lot about work / life balance but I am not sure that we have it right at all. I am really writing about doing things very differently in the workplace and rewarding employees (that want it) with something more important than just money.

Here are some ludicrous suggestions to take you out of the box. How about if your company instituted a rule that any employee that got divorced would be dismissed or demoted? I realize that divorce cannot be simplified to this extent and I apologise to all who may offended by this crude example. I am sure that nobody would need a divorce and a dismissal in their lives, there could be no worse support from your company! The hypothetical question is that if this was a rule in your business, what extra steps would you take to ensure that you are putting in as much effort on the home front as you are at work? Why is this not a rule in your life anyway?

If your company gave you a goal that you had to watch 95% of your kid’s soccer games as part of your work goals – how would you then restructure your life? What is stopping you from negotiating this now?

Another question that occurs to me as I write this is – are we as employees just pathetic? Is there not a whole bunch of excellent reasons to stand up and say to our managers that this is not good enough – we want more? There are plenty of people out there who are after money at all costs – this stuff does not apply to you. For the rest of us out there trying to live a balanced life, we need to be asking for the things that are important to us. The great tragedy in life is that we often don’t realize how important they are until they are taken from us!