In Praise of Divorce

In Praise of Divorce

I have a theory. I've heard many times that the divorce rate for second marriages is higher than the divorce rates for first marriages. The idea here is that once you've been divorced, you are statistically more and more likely to get divorced from subsequent spouses.

The numbers don't lie, but I don't think they say what the pundits think they say. The increased likelihood of divorce in a second marriage has more to do with knowing when to call it quits than lack of ability to commit.

Think about it — with the exception of parenthood, there's nothing in the world that we commit to for our entire lives but marriage. We split up with our jobs, our homes, even our parents. If we had a job that sucked as much as a lot of marriages, we'd be out in a flash and everyone we knew would be commending us for doing it.

So why not with marriage? Why not laud the ability to realize that this person isn't for you? What about saying, "Right on! Way to be true to yourself!"?

My divorced sister-in-law is quasi-engaged to a man who is also divorced. They both married fairly young and for fairly stupid reasons. They're now in a position to know what they want and what they need in a partner far more than they could when they originally walked down the aisle. I'm happy for them, and I hope they're happy together. They certainly seem to be.

But if they were to split up or divorce, I wouldn't think it was because either of them wasn't able to be married. I would think that they weren't able to be married to each other. To me, divorcing under those circumstances seems like a pretty smart idea.