Divorce

Divorce has changed historically and the impact of family since the 1800s. There have been three eras of divorce in modern Western nations. During the era of restricted divorce, which lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century, divorce was very difficult to obtain. Couples had to prove there was some kind of wrongdoing like adultery and it was usually only granted to men. The era of divorce tolerance made it more accessible to women. The era of unrestricted divorce began in 1970 and granted couples a divorce without restriction. The no-fault divorce “granted couples to divorce simply on the basis of marriage breakdown due to irreconcilable differences” (Cherlin, 409). Divorce rates increased substantially in the 1960s and 1970s. “… About half of all American marriage begun since the late 1970s will end in divorce” (Cherlin, 402). The increase in divorce has increased the number of children who experience the breakup of their parents’ marriages. “40% of American children who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s are affected by divorce” (Cherlin, 402). Divorce is an ongoing issue in our society. Divorce is such an accepted part of our culture today that single-parent families are part of the new family structure. There are many factors that contribute to divorce such as abuse, different goals, conflicting parenting styles, addictions, etc. However, our society doesn’t realize what we’ve done. Ahrons says, “there is no stigma on divorce today. It’s normal for couples to end their marriage” (Why the Popular View of Divorce is Wrong, pg.) With the high vulnerability that married couples face a divorce, there are many organizations that exist around the world to put efforts to decrease divorce and cohabitation rates and increase successful marriages. Two specific organizations have done so successfully, Marriage Savers and Retrouvaille. Marriage Savers and Retrouvaille are two organizations that really want to see change in marriage and divorce. Marriage Savers focuses on prevention of bad marriages by having churches and clergy adopt Community Marriage Policy, an agreement/insurance for couples to radically reduce the divorce rate in area churches. Retrouvaille is a program to help hurting couples heal and renew divorce marriages. Mike McManus, the president of Marriage Savers lives in Maryland with Marriage Savers located all over the U.S. There is no actual office or company besides Mike because the goal is for churches to adopt the Community Marriage Policy so the location is dependent on the churches that adopt this policy in their congregations. Retrouvaille; started in Quebec, Canada, and has spread all over the United States, South America, and many other countries in the world, attempts to bring “rediscovery” to a couple’s marriage. If one or both people are considering divorce, multiple “help marriage” organizations have said Retrouvaille is the best option. They give couples exercises on how to communicate in a healthy manner in a weekend experience combined with post-weekend sessions where couples have the liberty to accept it or not. Marriage Savers don’t really accommodate to specific couples. They train mentor couples on their ideas of a successful marriage and if it’s not done their way, then basically, marriages will not be successful. Both of the organizations’ websites were informative and explained their views on the issue, goals, strategies, successes, and difficulties. Future goals, personal stories, and further details were learned through interviews with Mike McManus, the president of Marriage Savers and Jack and MaryCarol, co-founders of Retrouvaille. Marriage Savers was started in 1986. According to Mike, “Marriage Savers is huge!” (time of interview'). There are hundreds of churches that are involved with Marriage Savers because of their adoption in the Community Marriage Policy. The size of the staff within the congregations really can vary. With the Community Marriage Policy, clergy and at least four mentor couples are trained. How many mentor couples the church wants to train is really up to them. Pastors from Modest, California put in the first covenant in 1986. The significant fall of marriages and the rise of cohabitation and divorce rates along with unwed births have really inspired Marriage Savers to reverse these trends. They see disintegration of marriage as the central domestic problem of our time, saving marriages must happen community by community, and churches virtually eliminate divorce. The organization has three big goals: to increase the successes of marriage, reduce divorce and cohabitation rates, and provide a better environment for children to thrive. To reach these goals, Marriage Savers wants all clergy to establish a Community Marriage Policy to also achieve six other goals: avoid a bad marriage before it begins, give “marriage insurance” to the engaged, enrich all existing marriages, restore 4/5 troubled marriages, reconcile the separated, and help step families succeed. Marriage Savers aims to target marital problems from all angles, from prevention to cure. An important strategy used is the involvement with communities and churches. They are working to have cities and towns establish a “Community Marriage Policy,” and clergy from all local churches must agree to cooperate with this policy. Individual churches participate by providing different approaches and resources including “marriage insurance”. This is a preliminary marital inventory examination of couples, which often prompts couples to end their engagement, essentially “weeding out” bad potential marriages. Churches also provide workshops, marital inventory, and activities to enrich existing marriages. Training for couples that have successfully saved their own troubled marriages to mentor couples currently in need of guidance and reconciliatory sessions for couples currently separated. Last, counseling for stepfamilies is necessary to ensure that their new arrangements do not end in divorce. Another main strategy Marriage Savers uses is community pastors of all denominations sign a contract agreeing to the following: to require 4-6 months of marriage training in engaged couples prior to their marriage, to recruit mentor couples to prepare couples for marriage, enrich existing marriages, restore troubled marriages, and create a stepfamily support group, and to support the training of the mentor couples through “qualified trainers’ (ideally affiliated with Marriage Savers). The organization has been very successful. Marriage Savers is the only organization to reduce divorce rates in over 100 cities as well as increased marriage rates. The Institute for Research and Evaluation performed an independent study finding that in 2000 divorce rates fell 17.5% over a course of seven years. Cities in Texas, Kansas, Oregon, California, and New Mexico all decreased their divorce rate by 48% or more. Kansas City in particular experienced a 70% drop in divorce rats, from 650 in 1995 to 196 in 2005. The Institute for Research and Evaluation also estimated that 30,000 to 50,000 divorces were averted by 2001. Second, the cohabitation rate fell 13.4% from 1990-2000. At the same time, the cohabitation rate for the rest of the country rose by 19.2%. And most importantly, marriage rates have increased. They increased in 2004 by 16% in Evansville, IN. In Modesto, California, marriage went from 1,100 in 1994 to 2,500 in 2005. One of the greatest successes for the organization is that Mike and his wife Harriet, published a book in 2008 titled Living Together: Myths, Risks, and Answers. A controversial Mutual Consent bill was introduced in 2008. This bill would replace the No-Fault policy of divorce. Mutual Consent would require more interaction between married couples and would then possibly cause people to rethink divorce. However, this bill is currently, and will continue having difficulty passing through congress. Across the nation, the numbers continue to be against their favor: marriage rates in the U.S. have gone down about 50% since 1970, cohabitation has increased 12-fold since the 1960, out of wedlock births increased by 8% in 2006, increasing the number to 38.8% of all births, and half of all marriages since 1970 end in divorce (compare to cherlin). Retrouvaille began in 1977 in Quebec, Canada. It was first a French language weekend for hurting marriages and then adopted to English by the community in Toronto. From 1982, Retrouvaille spread through the U.S. and South America and from 1991, it spread into many other countries around the world like Asia and Europe. The two International Coordinating Teams are located in Wisconsin and Oklahoma. The size of the staff is complex. First, it is a Christian Peer Ministry so everyone working at Retrouvaille is a volunteer. Most of the volunteers are post couples whose hurting marriages brought them to Retrovaille and really want to show their appreciation to the organization by helping out other couple in anyway possible: giving presentations, sharing stories, helping with registration, publicity, making pulpit announcements, etc. Second, the size of the staff is dependent upon how well the community develops their people. The size of the community is not relevant to how many volunteers are working for the program. There are 238 communities in 24 countries involved in Retrouvaille. Retrouvaille define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Therefore, homosexual couples are not allowed to participate. “We believe every marriage deserves the opportunity to survive, be healed and thrive as a covenant of life and love. Retrouvaille is the place where we, as hurting couples, found hope and we are passionately committed to dramatically increasing the number of couples served in both new and existing communities worldwide” (Vision Statement, Retrouvaille website). “MaryCarol and I believe more marriages could be saved if couples would try a program such as Retrouvaille” (Interview with Jack, 11/04/09). There are three things the organization believes causes divorce: poor communication, unhealed pain and when couples hit a stage called misery. “It usually boils down to lack of communication. When couples don’t know how to interact with each other or say what’s on each other’s mind in a healthy manner, then this becomes a problem. Unhealed pain from our past, especially from our family of origin, is also a major factor. Unhealed pain usually leads to destructive behaviors” (Interview, 11/04/09). Retrouvailles’ four states of marriage are romance, disillusionment, misery, and awakening. When couples hit misery, they don’t know how to get out of it, and separate or divorce. They understand that not all marriages can be saved. “If one or both spouses continue to act in a destructive way, such as continuing to abuse alcohol or drugs, be physically or emotionally abused, remain in other addiction such as gambling or online porn or sex addictions, or affairs, it may be better in those instances for the couple to divorce” (Interview, 11/04/09). They also mention the acceptance of divorce in our society, like Ahrons does in her article Why the Popular View of Divorce is Wrong. “Today’s unchallenged acceptance of divorce suggests that many friends, families and church communities are providing only limited support for marriages” (Retrouvaille website). Divorce can cause life-long heartache for children, even if they are grown when their parents divorce. So whatever they can do to help, they will. “Retrouvaille is an International community of disciples committed to the continued healing of their marriages and, empowered by the Holy Spirit, sharing their stories, talents and gifts to promote and spread the healing ministry of Retrouvaille” (Mission Statement, website). From the two-part program, their goal of the initial weekend is for couples to learn how to communicate in a respectful manner. In the post-weekend sessions, the goal is to provide support as couples discuss concepts of the importance of communication in marriage, intimacy, and other important topics. Retrouvaille hope couples can rediscover each other and examine their lives together in a new and positive way. Their central point is that couples that are disappointed by the end of the romance stage need to recognize the reality that it is only temporary and that there are learnable skills necessary for the survival of marriage in the real world. The Retrouvaille program consists of a weekend experience and 6-12 follow-up sessions over the next three months. The first part of the program is the weekend. Three couples and a priest share presentations. In between the presentations, the couples are asked to do some communication exercises in separate rooms from the other couples that are taught. These discussions are not intended as “marriage advice,” but instead provide practical communication techniques. Individual conversations are then held between the priest or pastor and each spouse. The second part is the twelve post-weekend talks, also given by couples. Many communities present two post talks per session. After that, couples may go to CORE (Continuing Our Retrouvaille Experience), which are monthly meetings. These involve fellowship, a short presentation, dialogue, group sharing, and prayer. Many communities also have social gatherings outside of CORE formats, especially during the summer, and the holidays. Communities also have days of enrichment, with a speaker, or they may gather to help couples write their personal introductions (the story of their marriage) or other talks. There are training weekends called Team Formation Weekends, which forms ministers. There are also Retrouvaille Servant Leadership weekends, which help to develop Christian leadership for couples and priests. There are International Council Meetings once a year, in the fall, where anyone who has been through the program can attend. The business of the International Board is addressed, and many workshops for enrichment are offered. All communities are eligible to host an ICM (website and interview, 11/04/09). There has been success. Retrouvaille’s following of the Canadian Catholic “marriage repair” program has been successful in 70% of cases around the world. 66% of couples who participated with Retrouvaille in 1993 were surveyed in 1995, of those couples, 83% were still together. For Retrouvaille’s couples, divorce rates were one in every 1,105 couples. Like many organizations, funding is an issue for Retrouvaille, especially communities in countries outside the U.S. But they do not advertise for money. Some of their funding comes from voluntary donation on the Sunday of the weekend to cover the cost of putting on the program for the couples. There is a non-refundable registration fee to secure a sport for the hotel/retreat center (interview, 11/13/09). The volunteers are worldwide and are deeply committed to the program and have saved many marriages and families. Though, cultivating new volunteers and getting media and church attention are two most ongoing issues. According to Jack, they do have resources to address these issues. “We have material that is posted on the website. Our International Board is always available to assist communities. Each region also has support from a designated Retrouvaille couple. And our communities are happy to help each other” (interview 11/05/09). Future expectation is “to continue to support our existing communities, making them stronger. We expect to continue to expand and have new communities created, both within the U.S. and around the world” (interview, 11/05/09). Also, they hope to get involved with the younger community like giving presentations at high schools but that is also difficult because they are church-affiliated (interview, 12/01/09). They will continue to work with other organizations such as Third Option, Marriage Encounter, Smart Marriages, PREP, and NACFLM. “We are supportive of organizations that seek to strengthen marriages” (interview, 12/01/09).