As a pastor and marriage and family counselor I’ve been keeping record of the number of local marriages and divorces each year since 1996. While our Rockingham/Harrisonburg population has grown significantly since then, the number of divorces granted last year, 328, was at a surprising all time low, and the number of marriage licenses issued, 954, remained at near the average of 944 each year during that period of time.
While 328 marital breakups may mark an improvement, it nevertheless means the painful disruption of the lives of 656 partners, along with their children and countless friends, parents, grandparents and other loved ones.
A divorce or separation is one of ten kinds of adverse childhood experiences (ACE's) contributing to trauma in children, even if the parting of parents is amicable. In fact it may be especially difficult for children to deal with this kind of “loss of loved ones” when there is no clear evidence of abuse, infidelity or addiction that make remaining together untenable.
Abuse, infidelity and addictions take many forms, of course, but since children do long for happily married parents, most would urge their parents to get whatever help necessary to bring about needed changes in each of their mom's and dad's behaviors and necessary repairs in their relationship. Everyone benefits when partners, with God’s help and the support of others, make amends and work things out, if they are willing leave no stone unturned in doing it well.
According to the Center for Child Counseling*, divorce can be a significant ACE when…
• It introduces intense feelings of uncertainty, often for the first time if it happens very early in a child’s life.
• It causes an environment of chronic stress from anger, bitterness, and fighting.
• It causes economic strain for one or both of the divorcing parents.
• It separates the child not only from one parent but that parent’s family members who may have been a loving and stable influence.
• It exposes a child to a parent’s new partners, and results in an increased risk of physical or sexual abuse.
While we have good records of documented marriages in our community, we lack any record of the increased number of partners who are living together without registering their de facto “marriage”. This means we have no record of how many of these undocumented marriages also experience undocumented “divorces," with equally distressing effects on children and/or other close family members and friends.
Here are the official numbers as provided by the local Circuit Court:
Year Marriages Divorces
1996 873 387
1997 950 405
1998 964 396
1999 932 405
2000 947 365
2001 1003 438 (most annual marriages)
2002 976 421
2003 961 399
2004 959 437
2005 889 381
2006 929 389
2007 925 434
2008 950 405
2009 903 347
2010 879 358 (fewest annual marriages)
2011 933 433
2012 995 445
2013 924 484
2014 972 427
2015 955 474
2016 985 612 (most annual divorces)
2017 983 426
2018 935 476
2019 947 487
2020 882 445
2021 994 466
2022 954 332 (fewest annual divorces)
We should note that the marriage numbers above are based solely on the number of marriage licenses issued, and include those who come here from other localities to marry, whereas divorce numbers include only the legal breakups of people who live in the City or County. However, it is reasonable to assume that a roughly equal number of residents from here marry in other jurisdictions as marry here from other communities, so the numbers given should be reasonably valid for comparison purposes.
It should also be noted that we cannot assume a rate of divorce based on any one year's numbers, as in "35% of first time marriages in our community will end in divorce." Many of the above couples are marrying or divorcing for a second, third or fourth time, but with numbers like these over a period of many years, we can safely conclude that the odds of a given first marriage surviving are well over 50%.
For God’s sake, and for our children’s sake, let’s do all we can to keep improving our “happily ever after” numbers.
4 comments:
As a father, I always thought that the best thing that I could do for my children was love their mother!
I totally agree, Tom. Always love your photos on "Tom the Back Roads Traveller," and would love to be in touch again sometime when we visit family in your community. Could I have your email address via a FB message?
I've engaged as a Virginia Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator (through the Fairfield Center) with separating, separated and divorced parents for 18 years, here in Harrisonburg, and Rockingham and Augusta counties. While I haven't kept the stats that you have, I can say with some certainty (and well-over two thousand "cases") that around 85-90% of those cases have been unmarried; some (less than 5%) one-night conceptions. The general lack of interpersonal communication skills, (clearly) unresolved childhood (and adult) traumas, and relationship skills that are nearly-universally the result of poor role models, is a sad testament to how lacking our education as human beings has been. Fewer than 5% have ever engaged a counselor to address any of these issues. My own observations leave me with the conclusion that our society and culture (since WWII (at least)) has told "men" that they must be Invulnerable. They may not show fear or pain, as either of those are clearly "weakness". This has left too many of us without even being able to name our own feelings let alone have the emotional intelligence to recognize the feelings of others (as valid) and appropriately name (let alone express) them for ourselves. The results of this are (at least) two. 1. Given that parents can not teach what they don't know themselves, the children of these parents are growing up without models for being emotionally intelligent and are nearly doomed to repeating the same ignorance of their parents in whatever relationships they encounter. 2. There is NO WAY to be in a (supposedly loving and supportive) committed relationship and be Invulnerable. Relationships by their very nature are fraught with fears and pains that are meant to be shared; as that is the way of successful humanity; in partnerships and families.
Jim'sThoughts May 11, 2023 9:55am
Good morning Harvey. Interestingly, most of this electronic article looks the same as what was printed in this morning's paper but with a different title. The paper left out the specific yearly numbers included here. As a high school teacher for 31 years, I would often see the pain and uncertainty in the lives of teens whose parents had divorced. I would also observe teen girls whose boyfriends were disobedient rebels and wish that I could warn them of a very unhappy future if their relationships continued into their adult years and possibly into marriage. I had the very unusual but wonderful privilege of seeing my parents celebrate their 79th anniversary together. Living in a nursing in Illinois they were interviewed by a reporter from Moline who asked Mom the secret to their long lives and successful marriage and her response at the age of 104 was, "I guess just being good kids!" With my dad's small printing business and 5 kids, life was not always easy or peaceful, but we always knew Mom and Dad loved us and each other. You can still see that TV interview on YouTube - Curt and Virginia Peters 79th anniversary. Being "good kids" and faithful partners in marriage makes the whole world better for yourself and especially for your children.
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