How many times have you heard someone tell you that they had "a failed marriage"? In colloquial terms, people often describe the fact that they have been divorced as a "failure". Others, referring to someone who has been divorced, commonly say "she had a failed marriage." The connotation is that this individual was not capable of being successful at a marriage because they did not remain in the marriage until one of the partners died.
Amongst the definitions of "failure" according to Webster's Dictionary is "a lack of success." If divorce is a failure then the only possible success requires someone who is married to remain married until that person or their spouse dies. The fact is that there are many marriages that have ended prior to the death of a party, and those marriages were not "failures". We, as a society should stop referring to divorces as "failures." The reference, and the connotation are not at all accurate. It only promotes the view that a divorced person is somehow a lesser person than someone who has not been divorced.
Many people get married with the best intentions and they carry those intentions out, for a period of time. That does not mean that they have failed. In the course of living things happen to people and those things sometimes cause people to change. Sometimes those events cause their goals to change. Sometimes those events cause relationships to no longer be viable. However, that does not mean that a marriage that ended in divorce was a failure.
Take, for example, the hypothetical couple that each of us knows: They were married for many years and raised children successfully. Their children have left the house. Their interests have changed. They decide to divorce. Does that make them "failures"? Who decided that the only possible success in marriage is to live it out until life comes to an end?
It should be an accepted fact of life that sometimes relationships just come to an end, and that end often occurs long prior to one of the spouses passing away. This does not mean the relationship, nor the marriage was a "failure." In the case of the hypothetical couple, they lived happily and successfully for the years that they were together. Their children were all happy and turned into successful adults. If we now decide that because either or both of them no longer wished to be married that they are "failures", do we mean to negate the years of success that they had? What does that say about their children? How could anyone describe that as a "failure"?
Our hypothetical couple may have developed other interests and no longer felt compatible. Our hypothetical couple may only have been together because they wanted children and the purpose was served. Our hypothetical couple may have comprised two people who had different views of life after children, or different expectations for themselves. That does not mean that they were "failures." If our hypothetical couple comprise "failures" simply because they chose not to stay together "until death do us part," is their marriage more of a failure than the couple who stays together for a lifetime in misery? Is their marriage more of a failure than the one where one spouse is burdened with living with a spouse with substance abuse problem the entirety of his life? Would we refer to the marriage of two people involving a spousal batterer and a victim as a "successful marriage" simply because they stayed together until one of them died? I think not.
While divorce is common on our society, it still has a certain stigma to it. As one of my clients once put it "I am losing my social standing simply because I chose to get divorced". In our society we are obsessed with categorizing people depending upon the manner in which their marriages came to an end. After all, is it not common on an application for employment, insurance, or credit to be asked your marital status? Why is it that these forms always distinguish between "single" and "divorced"? Someone who is divorced is, in fact, single. Yet, the person who was once single and is now again single is looked at differently.
In life, things happen to people. One of the things that sometimes happens is that a marriage ends in divorce. However, this does not mean that it was a failure and there is no reason to refer to it as such. In doing so, we give a negative connotation to something that isn't deserving of it, and we attach a negative stereotype to people without any basis for doing so.
Some of my work with clients is to help them overcome these negative stereotypes. Maybe we can start spreading the positive word, start letting people know that "Divorce" isn't a dirty word....For starters, let that be your mantra...as a next step, contact me to help you work it through!
Why be defensive? If I started a diet and it didn't work, that'd be a failure, and like the failure of divorce, something to learn from. Fact is if you married you made vows, and divorce is the undoing of those vows. Sure, you probably have great reasons - abuse for example, but that still represents the failure of judging character.
Stop making excuses - this guy is putting lipstick on a pig and I aint buying
Happily married=success
Divorce= failed marriage.
Of course, unhappily married is also a failure.
But if you really set out on a till-death-do-us-part commitment, and then you separate, you have failed to do as you intended. That doesn't make you a failure as a person. It doesn't mean you should stay together when you, your partner, and your relationship have changed. It doesn't mean you should automatically be judged unfavorably. It doesn't mean that separating is any more of a failure than staying in a failed relationship.
But it does mean you failed to do what you set out to do.
"My love she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful
Yet she’s true, like ice, like fire
People carry roses
Make promises by the hours
My love she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can’t buy her
In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall
Some speak of the future
My love she speaks softly
SHE KNOWS THERE’S NO SUCCESS LIKE FAILURE
AND THAT FAILURE'S NO SUCCESS AT ALL
The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge
Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge
The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers’ nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring
The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows cold and rainy
My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing"
Thank you for publishing this compassionate article. I hope that some who read it, who may feel low of spirit, are lifted up.
Note, a bad marriage is a failure even if it doesn't result in a divorce.