40 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
Changing Family Structures
Divorce is the sacrament of adultery.
—French proverb
As noted earlier, it is an almost trite saying that money, sex, and
in-laws are the topics around which most marital disruptions cen-
ter. Arguments about work and family issues, and about appro-
priate styles of disciplining children, are also significant factors.
Conflicts emerge over feelings of unfairness about the division of
tasks between spouses, i.e., housekeeping chores and childcare
tasks versus who works outside the home for pay. Couples also
disagree about how they want to spend their time together, and
about just how much of their time they want to spend together
versus independently.
Dual incomes = double the potential trouble. Nowadays couples
get hit with both ends of this problem since during their dual-
income (or is it “dueling incomes”?) yuppie years; while both are
working, they have to keep a marriage together despite intense
time pressures and an inability to enjoy much coinciding down-
time or quality time together (i.e., not enough time together during
the early years of the marriage—the amount of pure spousal time
that young married couples spend alone together has dropped 26
percent since 1975). Later, thanks to longer life spans and elon-
gated periods of retirement, they may have to learn how to spend
more time together than might be their preference (i.e., too much
time together during the later years).
Whatever happened to counseling or commitment? Surprisingly,
entirely too few couples bother to talk to marriage counselors. Less
than half indicate that they ever sought any help to deal with their
marital problems and it’s a pretty telling indicator that women
are ten times more likely to seek counseling than men. Person-
ally, I feel that the failure to undertake counseling represents a
tragic missed opportunity, but some surveys seem to indicate that
perhaps it wouldn’t have made any difference. In post-divorce
follow-up interviews, at least 70 percent of divorcing individuals
later state they are doubtful that they could have worked things
out. Over 80 percent go on to say that they still remain convinced
that they made the right decision and would not go back.