Wednesday, 24 February 2010
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Why Women Leave Their Marriages
By Sharon at She WorshipsAs a newlywed who has witnessed many marriages in my parents’ generation dissolve, I entered into marriage with a small degree of anxiety. Although my parents have been married for over 30 years and I thoroughly trust my husband, one never ceases to hear stories about pastors and other respectable men who one day reveal that their entire lives have been a lie. In an instant, everything their wives had known was shattered. That terrifies me.
However, I’ve noticed an equally startling as well as puzzling trend among married couples my age. At this stage in life, I already have a number of friends whose marriages have ended in divorce, but not because of the men. Within my own circle of acquaintances, every single instance has been a result of the wife’s decision to exit the marriage. Whether she was unfaithful or simply felt trapped, I have been shocked by the number of women who have chosen divorce relatively early in their marriages.
What has been even more startling is that their husbands were good men. This isn’t always the case, of course, but many of these women left husbands who were godly, faithful men. Any woman would consider herself lucky to have a husband like them. So what’s the deal? Whereas men seem more prone to have affairs in conjunction with a mid-life crisis, why are so many women leaving their husbands at such an early age?
I did a little research on this topic to find out if my experience is unique, but it’s not. Psychology Today estimates that while 50-70% of men have affairs, 30-60% of women do as well. A separate study published in the New York Times reported that this number is particularly on the rise amidst young women: In new marriages, about 20 percent of men and 15 percent of women under 35 have admitted to cheating. So while infidelity is stereotypically attributed to men, statistics indicate otherwise. What is unclear is the reason behind these rising numbers.
The New York Times article offered several possibilities. Due to past cultural pressures, it’s possible that women have always been as equally unfaithful as men but were more likely to lie about it until now. Others speculate that as the number of women in the workforce increases, the late nights in the office provide opportunities for temptation that women never before had. Even women who do stay at home have the added temptation of internet, e-mail and text messaging.
While researchers have yet to establish a conclusive consensus about these “early exits,” I have my own theory. Based on my own experience in marriage thus far, I suspect it’s a result of several cultural influences. To begin, women grow up absorbing unrealistic stories about fairy tale romance from movies, t.v. shows and books. However, these romantic fantasies never provide us with a glimpse of the “happily ever after.” We see the pursuit and the climax, but then the movie ends.
As a result, we enter marriage subconsciously expecting that the same hot pursuit will define the rest of our lives…only to quickly realize that it doesn’t. Even six months into my own marriage I find myself sighing as I watch movies like the Notebook. There’s a part of me that’s sad I’ll no longer experience the newness of love and the hot passion of that initial stage. My husband is incredible and he pursues me every day, but it’s different now. There’s a small part of me that misses that.
Compound that disappointment with the very real challenges of marriage and every day life, along with a culture in which divorce is pretty normal. The result? Young women suspect they got married too quickly. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be!” they think. “I must have married the wrong guy!” Either that, or they suddenly feel they’re missing out on the passion and romance of their single friends. No more exciting first dates. No more thrill-of-the-chase.
And so they feel trapped. That word, “trapped,” has been the common denominator among the young women I’ve known to leave their husbands. She thought she knew what she was signing up for, but then she got married and felt she’d been duped. She felt stuck and she needed a way out. Then a handsome co-worker or family friend caught her eye…
Perhaps I’m totally wrong, but this “theory” is based off of my own battle with the culture’s influence on my expectations. I never realized how powerfully my understanding of romance had been shaped by media until I actually got married.
While psychologists and sociologists are still unclear about the cause for this growing trend, there are two ways in which we can go ahead and be on the defensive when it comes to fighting for our marriages:
1. Be discerning about the messages the culture is feeding you. Romantic movies may seem innocent enough, but be wise to the ways in which they are shaping your expectations of marriage. If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, you know that I think about this stuff ALL the time and it has STILL affected me. It’s hard to resist getting swept up in fanciful dreams about what your life should be, all the while sabotaging the life you actually have. Marriage is a blessing and a gift, but we ruin it by imposing unnatural expectations upon it.
2. Don’t forget your Heavenly Lover. Even in the best marriages, it’s not all romance and steam. Some days you feel ordinary and plain, and your husband may not pursue you the way he did when you were courting. So on those days when you feel trapped, or at the very least forgotten about, remember that you have a Father in Heaven who never stops being enthralled by you. His extravagant loves puts the Notebook to shame. No one knows you as intimately, loves you as unconditionally, and will ever sacrifice more for you than Him. No man will ever pursue you as consistently or perfectly as God, so let Him be your satisfaction on the days when you might be tempted to look elsewhere.
Regardless of whether you are single or married, it’s time that we start talking about the fact that more and more women are sabotaging their marriages through infidelity. Women are just as likely to be tempted as men, so we must be on our guard against it. None of us is any safer than the woman next to us. Let’s be realistic about that fact, and pray for grace and wisdom all the while.
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About the Author
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- From: sheworships
- Name: Sharon
- About Me: Sharon Hodde Miller is a North Carolina girl, born and raised! She is originally from Charlotte, NC, and she received her undergraduate degree and Masters of Divinity from Duke University. Sharon has worked for Proverbs 31 Ministries where she was a contributing writer to the ministry’s daily devotions and radio broadcasts. She has written for Relevant Magazine’s online articles, Lifeway’s Collegiate Magazine, Ungrind Webzine, and she continues to write and minister to women all over the world about being a Christian woman in an ever-changing culture. Sharon currently lives in Durham, North Carolina with her husband, who is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity at Duke Divinity School. If you would like to contact her regarding a speaking or writing opportunity, if you have any questions, or would like to submit a blog topic, please e-mail her at sharon(at)sheworships(dot)com.
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Comments (33)
wow thats awesome. i mean like, im not a girl, but im sure its good to know...you know?
i hope when i get older, i can find a really neat christian girl, who will love GOD first, then me second. if gods the reason for the love, what can go wrong? ( of course, its hard not ot get swept away sometimes. =[ )
You need to be more than godly and faithful to make a marriage work. Those two traits alone are just not enough. I really do not think that romance movies are a cause. The only people I know that actually think that relationships should feel like they do in the movies are adolescents. People tend to mature as the get older and learn that movies are not accurate indicators of real life.
Cheating and divorcing are becoming less taboo so people are more free to engage in such activities. Given that women also have more financial freedom now, they may be more likely to take an active role in sabotaging their marriage now, i.e. through cheating, as opposed to passive means if they feel like they need a way out.
Can't relate to this at all. I love every moment of being married. *shrug*
Also, why are you saying more women are cheating because they're unsatisfied/rushed into a marriage? I mean, without anything to back it up, that's a pretty heavy claim.
Wow, this is good! I'm not married yet, but this is good wisdom! :)
I am not married. But while I think cultural influences are to blame for women feeling trapped in their marriages and leaving, I think in certain churches, there is a lot of pressure to marry young and to get married before you really know the person, without a lot of talk of what marriage actually entails, other than, "it's work." I realize that the vast majority of Christians may not think this way, but I have seen a lot of articles from Christian sources about how people should get married you, not date too long before marriage, and have a short engagement. I guess that makes a bit of sense if you don't believe in premarital sex, and the longer you are involved with someone romantically, the harder it is not to have sex. But still, in a religion that teaches how important the marriage commitment is and how important it is that it lasts a lifetime, it seems strange that people would be pressured into making that decision at such a young age. The average life expectancy is much higher than it once was, so if you marry in your early 20s, you'll be married to the same person for longer than someone 150 years ago marrying at the same age would have been. Isn't that in itself reason enough to consider very carefully before you decide to spend your whole life with another person?
i can't say i agree with this at all. you lost me with, "Within my own circle of acquaintances, every single instance has been a
result of the wife’s decision to exit the marriage. Whether she was
unfaithful or simply felt trapped, I have been shocked by the number of
women who have chosen divorce relatively early in their marriages."
those are not the only two reasons a woman would choose to end a marriage, or a romantic relationship of any kind. and you seem awfully biased by openly admitting that you're shocked that women would do such things (as though it's no surprise that men do).
I am one of the fortunate ones--married 54 years to the same woman.
I agree--movies, TV, magazines and romantic novels present a totally false view of marriage. As one persons said to me once, 'Americans love weddings, but not marriage. Marriage is like too much work.
The hot passion of pursuit does end. It gives way to what I call the normal influence of daily activities. Sex has its very important place, but it is still one part of the marriage.
Many marriages fail over financial difficulties. If I got married today, I would demand a credit check.
I have seen long term marriages break up through the internet. One gal left her husband simply because he was not meeting her needs.
I wish you the very best in your marriage.
blessings
frank
I heard a counselor say that you don't fall out of love, you just transfer it.
From one who left a marriage, dont assume that you understand the reasons why. You can have your own "theory," but each and every relationship and marriage is different. Don't assume that by looking at a marriage, you can instantly judge if a man is "Godly and faithful." Trust me, what a marriage looks like to other people is not always what it looks like behind closed doors.
Marriage is work. It takes learning how to give and learning how to serve another, to compromise and to often put someone else's needs before your own. Don't assume that there are so many divorces just because a woman is unfaithful, or a man. I guess I just want to say, don't judge. You haven't been there. Each and every breakdown of a marriage is an individual event, based on two individuals who each bring their own experiences and expectations into the union.
A very interesting article.
i recall my 11 years my junior bride - looking at her older sisters marriage and admiring it as an 'ideal' - i recall telling her - 'it's not what it looks like from here,there is certainly much we don't see' - meh, the story is - storied within my pages - there may be something of interest - 12 years after our - her - divorce, i still maintain my faithfulness -no - not quite the nut-job that could easily be alluded... faithfulness has it's own rewards-lottsa links in my module...
Blessings and courage i wish you...
I am discovering, in my 40s, that there is an incredible amount of expectations deep within me that I am now realizing is a result of social conditioning, a lot of it from movies & TV, but also by general cultural "scripts." These scripts are not formed by Christian values, yet the scripts are so powerful that even though I reject them with my conscious mind, my subconscious mind hangs on to them as the way things should be. And that these things that you describe in your posting happen to Christians at similar rates as non-Christians shows that cultural scripts have more power than religious beliefs. The only thing more powerful than the cultural scripts is the help that comes from God through an intense, prayer-warrior relationship, which not many of us have.
@jo63psalm@xanga - For almost 30 years, I was upset with a girl from my youth group leaving her husband not too long after their marriage. I moved away soon after that, and didn't think about it regularly by any means, but when she appeared on Facebook and wanted to be a friend, I was suddenly aware of how upset I still was about it. He seemed like such a nice guy, and seemed crushed that she had left him. When I confessed my unforgiveness to her, she told me something from the story I never knew: He had been so abusive, her life was in danger. I had no idea. It was a lesson to me to not make assumptions based on what is visible from the surface.
Any and all of us are prone to wander...the Adamic sin nature is one bent toward discontentment (consider the incident in the garden of Eden).
We're all to take heed, and can never think we're never above temptation (I Cor. 10:12-13).
We can be unfaithful to our spouses w/ out committing literal adultery...once we reject God's gift of our spouse in any way at all, we have committed adultery...
Appearances can be deceiving...
I totally agree with you. My parents are going through a divorce; my dad had an affair. But my mom used that exact phrase of being 'stuck'. Media and culture seem to make a successful marriage difficult to achieve.
Meh.
They leave because they are able to financialy support themselves...in the past they were dependant on a husband's income for survival of themselves and their children now they make as much or more than men so finances isn't a deterrant...I'm not saying they should but without the fear of "how am I going to survive?" they do. That's my guess anyways.
As others have said, women are able to be socially independent more so than historically, they've ever been. Marriage is no longer a matter of survival, divorces are never sought after for such cookie cutter reasons, and people who don't feel repressed emotionally and sexually realize when they're 15 that movies don't depict real life.
Is The Notebook a fun book to read? Sure! It makes you feel all warm and tingly. But at the end of the day, I don't want some dork pining after me for twenty years, building me a house and taking me for a boat ride in a lake full of swans. I want a man that can keep me grounded, tell me when my jokes fall flat, and eat my terrible food.
Sharon,
This is another great article. One thing that did strike me though was when you said that women are leaving their husbands and they should be grateful for these "godly" men. This strikes me because it is so easy to look at what's happening on the outside of someones marriage or at ones spouse and to formulate our own opinions about what women should be grateful for. Things can look so starkly different on the oustide to conceal what might be happening at the core of your marriage. I totally agree with your theory about culture shaping what we think love should look like. I totally concur. We do need to have a realistic view of love...ups, downs and all. Instead of seeing what's going on with women and why they're leaving their men, let's look at what their men are up to. So many people falsely think that the only way to break a marriage vow is by being unfaithful. That is a lie straight from hell. Infidelity doesn't happen at the time and place of the unfaithful act. Infidelity is born when a husband or wife stops loving, honoring, cherishing and keeping their spouse. I think another horrible trick of the media is that we have come to think in exteremes. By that, I mean we are trained to only look at the ultimate WORST thing a person could do and deem int wrong. We're more apt to look @ the cheating partner and say they're the bad guy. But, if you inspect the marriage, you find that their partner has been verball abusive, aloof, emotionally unavailable, invalidating, and all the other love law breaking thigns. These are sings and vow breakers. We need to embrace this idea. If more people understood that they are violating their marriage vows by not making their wife or husband feel desirable, lovable, number one, and appreciated etc...they are just as guilty as someone who is unfaithful. If we learned to work in the grayer areas of marriage vows, we may find the divorce rate go down. How about inciting a new campaign for people to liven up their marriages and really "have and hold" one another. No sleeping in separate rooms. What do you think?
It's not so much about what happened after marriage, but also before marriage. I find that my single girlfriends have lust for romance and wandering eyes. It seems innocent enough but they don't realize the way they look at cute guys, even in a non-sexaul way, is still dishonouring to these guys and their future wives. It's also dishonouring to their future husbands. It's like dishonouring, being unfaithful to their future husbands even before they meet them! Is it so surprising that the marriage doesn't work?
It sounds I'm a little "conservative." Actually I used to be a "hopeless romantic" and "liberal" (just an intellectual spin on being selfish and foolish) but God has put me into an in intense year-long "rehab" program to heal my addiction to romance (while I used to innocently believe I was pursuing true love). I'm strongly convicted that to fully trust God regarding relationships is to give up my own idea of romance, and stop eyeing guys in hope of finding someone for finding someone's sake. The idea is that, when your heart and mind are so full or romance, and wanting to have someone for your own sake, you put God second, no matter how you justify it. That means you put away God's protection for the sake of romantic pursuit. God is not being too strict, but He really wants to protect you (and the people you pursue). Single brothers and sisters, it's flattering when someone attractive notices us, but may the peace of God guard our minds and hearts, that we can listen/discern in Spirit rather than being drawn by superficial things like looks, positions in ministry, charming personality, etc. I learned my lessons and it's a heart-felt plead.
On a lighter note, I still watch chick-flicks once in awhile. I just don't take them seriously anymore. :)
I cheated on my boyfriend before. That's before I was saved. So I know something about the mentality of cheating. When a woman focuses on self, may it be self-esteem, self-worth, self-pity, that's how the cheating seed is planted.
The world is full of those seemingly good-intentioned (sometimes labeled "Christian"!) lies. Be weary of those self-esteem talk. We as Christians should focus on God-esteem. Fix your eyes on God rather than feelings, rejoice as commanded, don't do anything we know to be wrong, and we'll be fine.
Best teaching I've ever heard on making a marriage work is by Andy Stanley from North Point Community Church. It's a series called iMarriage. The second sermon is all about not loading your spouse with expecations once the marriage starts but loving instead like the bible tells us to: sacrificially like God loved us.
Andy does a much better job getting the point across and he's a great speaker. Definitely look it up... it may help answer more of your questions about why people leave. http://resources.northpoint.org/store/shop.do?pID=656 (My church is buds with their chuch so we're getting the sermon at church for free. But so good I'd pay for it.)
Great post, interesting to read. After scanning all the comments, I think it is important to recognize that only women are complaining about the truth to your post. This probably falls under your theory of being "trapped," for while someone is trapped they shift the blame on other factors than themselves. So clearly your points have some truth to them.
Very thoughtful, nice!
I wonder though about the role of media. Doesn't media merely reveal our desires (both God given...and fleshly). If true than its not the Notebook that is unduly influencing you, but merely exploring and revealing desires that are ALREADY in you.
I don't believe God's best hope for marriage is for us to stay locked in them feeling trapped. And we can't control our feelings...they just are...and they're sign posts to what's going on inside (not to say they control our actions, but they can be used to reveal to us who we are).
We've never before in history had the freedom to question without restraint the personal benefit of marriage. Women have not had status in society previously, there has not been the opportunity for both men and women to explore themselves (in relationships outside of marriage)...as you present in your post. If you believe that God is leading His people (all of us) on a journey than this is a good place...an opportunity for renewed hope in marriage.
It seems to me the problems you mention merely are symptoms and the real issue as always is the human heart. God's invitation is to journey, explore and discover who we are. Our challenge then is to not fight to be good girls and boys, but to continue the journey. Marriage is an offer to explore myself with another...allowing them to show me who I am (and vice verse)...there's both pain and joy in that. The alternative is to flee...and to settle for merely a promise of deep intimacy as revealed in the honeymoon (again and again and again), but never experience the real thing (knowing, being known, and loved...that seems the good promise of marriage).
Funny that you use
The Notebookas an example of a romance movie; when it is the story of a woman who cheated on her fiancee... (: