A Thousand Broken Hearts

“Every divorce is the death of a small civilization.”
        - novelist Pat Conroy

Each January since 1996 I’ve asked the clerk of the District Circuit Court for the Harrisonburg-Rockingham County marriage and divorce statistics for the previous year.

Fifteen years ago there were 873 marriage licenses issued and 387 divorces granted. Surprisingly, those numbers haven’t changed much. Last year, in spite of a huge population increase in the past decade and a half, the numbers were 933 and 433. In the prior year, 2010, they were only 879 and 358.

At first glance, that may seem like good news. The divorce numbers have remained stable, and the ratio of marriage to divorce numbers hasn’t worsened.  One could even conclude that (only?) around 45% of marriages in our area fail, consistent with national marriage statistics. And some of these divorces, of course, are by people who are experiencing their second, third, or fourth breakups, so it doesn't mean that every couple's first marriage faces the same dismal odds.

But as I point out in an earlier blog, this doesn’t take into account the increasing numbers of couples who hook up and break up each year who are not legally married. Many of these cohabiting couples are in exclusive relationships that are just as psychologically bonded as the wedded ones, and which result in equally painful "emotional divorces" when they break up--which they do in even larger numbers than their legally married counterparts.

But let’s just consider the heartbreak involved in the 433 cases of officially recorded divorces last year.  That means heartbreak for each of the 866 spouses directly involved, and if these couples had an average of one child or step child each (a conservative estimate), that would mean the lives of 1199 people have been forever altered by the “deaths” of their small civilizations, and that doesn’t include the siblings, grandparents. and other close friends and extended family members who are impacted.

I find that heartbreaking. And in bringing this up on Valentines Day, I don’t intend any of this to be condemning or judgmental. Sometimes divorces may be the only sane way to deal with patterns of behaviors like adultery, abuse or addictions in a relationship. But I feel a sense of heartache and grief nevertheless, one that makes me grateful for my having the good fortune of being in a marriage that, while not without its problems, has been a steady source of so much support and blessing.

This morning I included a copy of the following words by Winnie the Pooh, no less, in a Valentine card I gave my beloved:

If you live to be a hundred,
I want to live to be a hundred minus one day,
so I will never have to live a day without you.

Thanks, Alma Jean, for staying married to me for 47 years.

P.S.

Here are the actual numbers of marriage licenses issued and divorces granted in Harrisonburg/Rockingham County from 1996 -2011. You'll note that the marriage numbers peaked ten years ago, as did the divorce numbers:

96  873   387

97  950   405

98  964   396

99  932   405

00  947   365

01 1003  438

02  976   421

03  961   399

04  959   437

05  889   381

06  929   389

07  925   434

08  950   405

09  903   347

10   879   358

11   933   433

Of Marriages and Weddings

Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio, an Episcopal priest and certified life coach, in commenting on recent headlines over the infamously expensive and short-lived marriage of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, observes that even most non-celebrity couples invest a lot more in flowers and entertainment for the reception than they do in careful plans for how to make their marriage last.

The wedding day should be about the marriage, she says, not the marriage about the wedding.

The cost of weddings, Tumminio observes, has dramatically increased over the past decades, largely because we Americans are so much in love with the romanticism and the magic of the day. Having some 5 million people tune in to see the Kardashian-Humphries wedding on television also says a lot about our fascination with fairy tale fantasies that have almost nothing to do with contributing to happily ever after.  

Perhaps, the really big party should be celebrated at a 25th anniversary, she notes, rather than at the moment of commitment. So with tongue in cheek, she proposes that couples receive wedding gifts only after they have earned them by enduring tough problems over time. So no gifts at the wedding, some small ones for a first year anniversary, then more substantial ones after the fifth-year or so.

We're tempted to scoff at Kris and Kim’s downfall, but the reality is that their marriage failed at least in part because of our society’s views of nuptial bliss, Tumminio believes. We should all feel responsible to do a better job of loving our neighbors not just on their wedding day but on all the days that follow.

(Here's the link to check out my book on the subject: http://store.mpn.net/productdetails.cfm?PC=106)

Her Price is Far Above Rubies

We just got back from an overnight 47th anniversary getaway, marred only by my waking up this morning with a bad case of vertigo.

Of all days, I asked myself, why did I have to be plagued with this illness? Here we were at a nice Quality Inn and I have a recurrence of all of the unpleasant symptoms of my Meniere's Disease--not fatal but just extremely annoying--resulting in periodic cases of vertigo that result in severe nausea and the inability to stay on ones feet. The whole world spins around you and you have to lie flat on your bed or risk a nasty fall if you try to get up and walk around unattended.

There goes the rest of our mini-vacation, I thought, and in one way it did. But it also proved again how blessed I am to be married to a wonderfully caring wife. As always, Alma Jean rose, no soared, to the occasion, and did her usual superb job of taking care of me as in "in sickness and in health," and “for better or for worse.”

Just another proof of how wonderful it is to be in a good, stable marriage, I concluded, and a great example of why married men live longer than their single and/or separated counterparts. Even in simple economic terms, I would have had to pay hundreds of dollars to hire someone to look after my every need as Alma Jean did, and to drive me home this afternoon--and all without complaint, and without the expectation of anything in return but my sincere gratitude. On top of that, with the kind loving touch, prayers and empathy that are priceless, for sure.

I’ve long believed that in God’s economy nothing goes to waste. Our experience today is another example of that. I’m sorry things didn’t turn out to be the way she and I had planned, but something great happened just the same. Our love is stronger and our conviction deeper that what we began at the Lancaster Mennonite High School Chapel August 8, 1964, was truly meant to be. Until death do us part.

Yes!

To Alma Jean: Feliz Cumpleaños!

For the first time ever, I selected a card written in Español for Alma Jean’s birthday (today!). Neither of us actually knows the language, but I explained that I had run out of English words to tell her how much I loved her, so I felt a need to speak in another tongue, as follows; 

Las palabra no pueden expresar
mi felicidad y amore
que tengo para ti,
Y las palabras no pueden decirte
el goso que siento
porque se que tu me amas tambien.

Feliz Cumpleaños!

I thought this looked pretty cool in Spanish, and the translation in English, on the back of the card, said so much of what I truly feel:

Words cannot express
my happiness and the love
I have for you.
And words cannot tell you
the joy I feel
because you love me, too!

Happy Birthday! 

A Truly Royal Wedding

The Right Honourable bishop of London, the Rev. Richard Chartres, in his wedding homily for Prince William and Kate Middleton, stated, "In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding, with the bride and the groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them into the future."

My wife and I will never forget a wedding we attended some time ago that was as impressive to us as  the lavish event millions all over the world witnessed yesterday in Westminster Abby.

The bride, a family friend, and her new groom personally welcomed each of the guests as they arrived at the Eastern Mennonite Seminary chapel. He wore a simple white shirt and ordinary dress pants, she a matching white blouse and a dark skirt. There was no formal processional, no elaborately decorated auditorium, not even the traditional bridesmaids and groomsmen. All of us were to be the wedding party and to join together in the festive atmosphere the couple and their families created for this once-in-a-lifetime celebration.

As we sat down, we noted a cloth covered table in the front of the chapel with a variety of white candles, a visual feast of light and warmth for the ceremony. Next to it was a live tree from a local nursery to be planted after the reception as a symbol of the couple’s new life together. Music was plentiful and wonderful, and included some congregational hymns everyone joined in singing as members of one grand choir. Several brief meditations were personally addressed to the young pair seated in the front row, and as they stood to pledge their vows to each other for life--and as various friends and family members spoke their personal blessings--many of us were moved to tears.

At the reception there was plenty of hot cider and two kinds of hot soup for all the guests, along with a generous slice of zucchini cake, all of which had been prepared by various friends of the bride and groom for the occasion. After the meal, a time of reminiscing and story telling helped us get better acquainted with the couple and to learn more about their after-honeymoon plans, she to take a volunteer service assignment in a church-run program for at-risk families and he to enter graduate school.

I don’t know how much this wedding cost, but with no pearl-studded gowns or rented tuxedos, no expensive caterers or lavish floral arrangements, no stretch limousines or impressive candelabras, I’m sure it was considerably less than the national average of over $16,000 for such productions. Yet there was something about the service that seemed just right. It was less a staged performance than a time of community togetherness, one in which we felt a connection with the couple as real people and with the God who seemed to smile a warm blessing on the whole affair.

It made me wonder whether we shouldn’t encourage investing more of our resources in helping young people prepare for their marriage, and less in exhaustive preparations for a display of wealth out of keeping with the rest of their lifestyle. 

This service represented a different kind of richness, a celebration many of us considered one of the most beautiful ever. An example of a different kind of royal wedding.

     

More Local Divorces Than Meet The Eye

 Each January I contact the clerk of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Curcuit Court for the city and county divorce and marriage statistics for the prior year. As a pastor and a marital and family therapist, I am always interested in the direction these numbers are going.

On the face of it, the divorce trends may seem slightly encouraging, in that, like the rest of the country, the numbers have been mostly flat for the past number of years, and actually show a modest decline. But the marriage numbers are also dropping, in spite of a significant increase in our population over the past 15 years, as seen in the above graph.

A decrease in the number of marriage licenses issued, of course, doesn't mean that fewer people are in some kind of wedded relationship. If we were to define the essence of marriage as “leaving father and mother” (forming a separate partnership and household), “cleaving to each other” (becoming an exclusive couple) and “becoming one flesh” (forming an intimate sexual bond), we may find there are more people than ever who are "married." There are always those who engage in purely promiscuous, one night stands, of course, but there are many more couples who are simply in undocumented relationships we once referred to as “common law” marriages. We just don’t have a record of how many.

And when these unregistered couples break up, do they avoid all of the pain and heartache (and legal and other complications) we associate with the nearly 400 registered divorces that took place in our area last year?

I don’t think so. Ending an emotionally intimate “marriage” inevitably results in going through an emotionally painful “divorce.” So just cohabiting without the formality of a license or a ceremony doesn’t insulate people from the gutwrenching grief and betrayal they go through when they tear apart.

My uneducated guess is that we may have at least 25 percent more undocumented “marriages” happening each year than are indicated in the numbers above, and an equally large increase in the number of unregistered breakups.

So how is our community impacted by an estimated total of, say, 500 divorces, each of which, according to novelist Patrick Conroy, involves the “death of a small civilization”?

If there is an average of even only one child per divorce, that means we have 500 children in our community each year whose lives will never be the same. The impact of their parents breaking up is, for many, equal to the death of a loved one in the family. With lots of nurture and support, many children of divorce recover reasonably well from such a loss and go on to have a good life, but who would want to wish such a "death" on a child, or to be the cause of one?

And what about the 1000 divorcees involved in these numbers who, along with their parents, their siblings and their friends, also suffer the painful “loss of a loved one.” Physical deaths are usually due to an unavoidable tragedy (except for suicides), and those left behind savor the bittersweet memories of all of the good times they once enjoyed together. But divorce is more often experienced as a form of “wed-icide,” a preventable tragedy associated with raw feelings of anger, bitterness and betrayal.

In any case, closure is difficult. There are no funeral or memorial services, no burial rituals. Few friends or family members bring casseroles, send flowers or offer cards of condolence. The grief is palpable, and is much the same for documented and unregistered marriages alike.

If we had 500 school dropouts in our community each year for every 1000 students enrolled, we’d be forming blue ribbon panels to do something to help prevent this trend. Admittedly, in cases where partners are guilty of unrelenting abuse, addiction or adultery, a separation or divorce can be justified. And ironically, children may actually recover more easily in those cases than when their parents are equally loved and seen as good people who simply can't learn to get along (as they always insist on their children doing!).

The Harrisonburg/Rockingham Community Marriage Policy has been officially adopted by over 50 congregations in our area, and is one example of people trying to help prevent divorce and strengthen marriage, following the lead of over 250 other communities across the US with similar agreements:

Local clergy and congregations who support the CMP agree to the following:

a) for couples to be married:

 • To encourage a courtship of at least one year before marriage.

 • To guide engaged couples through an intensive marital preparation process involving individual or group educational sessions dealing with religious, financial, relational and intimacy issues and utilizing some form of premarital inventory. 

b) for all congregational members:

 • To promote premarital chastity and faithful marital relationships.

 • To encourage enrichment opportunities to strengthen existing marriages and provide intervention and support for marriages in distress.

 • To train mature married couples to serve as mentors to engaged couples, to newlyweds, and to those experiencing marital difficulties.

 • To cooperate with other congregations and agencies to share resources and to create a positive climate in which all marriages are helped to succeed.

Let's all see what we can do to strengthen marriages and spare adults and children alike the stresses associated with their demise.

Note: For a pastoral response to couples in undocumented marriages, you may want to check out the following: http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2010/11/undocumented-marriages.html

Six Dozen Red Roses for Dawn

Dawn always loved roses like these.

One of our nephews, Dr. Jonathan Yoder, decided on impulse one day to have a half dozen red roses delivered to his wife Dawn’s door. It was January 26, 2009, and he wanted to express his love for her on the thirtieth anniversary of their engagement.

In his haste to get in his order in on one of his busy days at his Atmore, Alabama, practice, he mistakenly ordered six dozen roses instead, which meant 72 of these fragrant beauties were delivered to his awestruck wife instead of six. Dawn was way beyond simply surprised, of course, and Jon, though chagrined at what he had to pay for his extravagance, figured his beloved wife was worth every bit of that and more, so the two of them enjoyed a big laugh over his mistake.

Neither of them could have imagined that on July 6, just over five months later, 50-year-old Dawn would be fatally struck by lightning just outside their home while taking out some household trash. When a friend from her church found her lying on the ground unconscious, she was rushed to a nearby hospital emergency room, then transferred to a medical center in Mobile where she lay in a coma and on life support for two agonizing days of waiting before being pronounced dead.

In an e-mail circulated among members of the extended family, Jon described his experience during that time,.. “My heart cries out... as I see my wife, and our children's mother lying helplessly, and I ask why?  But two things I know is that God is strong, and that he is loving.  Dawn remains essentially in a coma this morning with only the faintest response to pain, and minimal fluttering of the eyelids.  It is hard to see her like that, but we are praying for faith for a miracle...  There remains a huge knot in my abdomen where my stomach used to be, and the future looks uncertain...but one thing we know is who is in control....Continue to pray.... Your outpourings of love and support for us mean a lot more than you will ever know;  God is faithful...”

Dawn died on July 8, 2009, terribly missed as the wonderful mother of four young adult children, two sons and two daughters, and as the wife of Jonathan, with whom she lived and loved for 29 blessed years. She was a selfless and giving person who served her family, church family and community in countless ways, and who left a multitude of friends and family members in a prolonged state of grief and disbelief.

There is more to the story. Several years before Dawn had given her oldest daughter a rose bush to plant for her birthday, one of the unusually fragrant and rich red “Mr. Lincoln” variety. For years it bloomed faithfully every spring, but during the months following Dawn’s tragic death, it appeared to have died, resulting in Jonathan's deciding to simply mow over the remaining brown stems with his lawnmower.

To his surprise, however, a green shoot reappeared this past spring, bravely rising up from the mowed down plant. And as Jonathan lovingly watered and nourished the revived bush in memory of his one and only Dawn, it began to green and thrive.

Later last summer, on the July 17  morning of their oldest son Robert's wedding, Jon witnessed the resurrected plant’s first bloom of the season, an exceptionally beautiful dark red rose that reminded him powerfully of his precious Dawn.

It was as if she were saying, "I am still with you. Nothing we had together will ever be completely lost. Everything will bloom again forever. "

So we remember Dawn, surrounded by countless rich red roses.

To my one and only!

We aren't prone to lavish celebrations, but Alma Jean and I enjoyed a delicious pre-Valentine dinner together Saturday evening at the quiet little Calabria Italian restaurant nearby, after which I felt moved to write the following in a card I'd gotten for her:

Dearest Alma Jean,

It's hard to believe that on Valentine's Day 47 years ago we sent out the cards we had printed to officially announce our engagement, with the words:

two hearts
warmed by breath of God's own love
have met to melt into one

I don't know if we've accomplished the "melting into one" part (if that's even possible or desirable), but I believe we've managed to do something even better. Together we've created and maintained a partnership that has resulted in tons of precious memories, wonderful intimate moments, a stable and lasting marriage of over 46 years, three precious children, a great son- and great daughter-in-law, and soon to be six truly incredible grandchildren.

I chose this card because it said, in a few short words, exactly, exactly how I feel:

I love and adore you
   to no end--
My wonderful wife,
   my very best friend.

Happy Valentine's Day!