January 21, 2014

Column #1,691

(Last of a 3-part series)

Answers for the Disintegration of Marriage – III

By Mike McManus

            Marriage in America is disintegrating.  According to Census in 2013 only 48% of people were married – a substantial plunge from 67.3% in 1960.*

            A major reason for the decline of married couples is divorce.  In 1960, only 2.8 million people were divorced.  By 2013 that figure jumped nearly ten-fold to 25.3 million divorced.

            America’s divorce rate is actually the highest of the civilized world – triple that of Britain and France, for example.  After 5 years of marriage, 23% of Americans are divorced vs. only 8% of British or French. 

            Why?  If a British woman wants a divorce, but her husband does not – they must wait five years to divorce!  Six years in France.  Five or six years allows time to reconcile.

            By contrast, 27 states have a ZERO waiting period, and three states require only 30-60 days.  Why are these “Hot Head States” pushing couples to divorce? 

            An earlier column quoted Jennifer Rivera: “After being together 11.5 years, the Family Court of Miami-Dade County was able to legally end it in 11 days.  If we had more time to wait it out, such as a legalized separation, our divorce would not have happened. It was like a Drive-Thru Divorce. That’s how it felt.  They have a waiting period to get a marriage license.  There should be a waiting period to get a divorce.”

When the couple stood before the judge, they were holding hands and crying. That night they had dinner together and spent the night together.

            This divorce should never have happened.

            It would not have occurred in Illinois or Pennsylvania which require couples to wait two years if one spouse opposes the divorce.  As a result those states have nearly America’s lowest divorce rates.  Clearly, a longer waiting period allows hot heads to cool down.

            Their divorce rates are almost half that of 13 Hot Head States with No waiting – NV, WY, ID, TN, KY, AK, FL, AL, NM, MS, CO, AZ and OR. 

            According to Frank Furstenberg and Andrew Cherlin’s book, Divided Families, four out of five divorces are opposed by one spouse.  Yet in America, one spouse can file for divorce and always get it.  In the old days, one would have to prove their spouse was at fault – due to adultery, abandonment or abuse.  However, in 1969 California Gov. Ronald Reagan signed America’s first “No Fault Divorce” law, allowing just one spouse to declare there were “irreconcilable differences.”

            Most states passed similar No Fault Divorce laws in the 1970s, and the number of divorces nearly doubled from 639,000 in 1969 to 1,189,000 in 1979.

            In my book, How To Cut America’s Divorce Rate in Half, I argue No Fault Divorce is unconstitutional.  Both the 5^th and 14^th Amendments supposedly guarantee that no person “be deprived of life, liberty or property without the due process of law.”  Yet how can there be “due process” if every divorce is granted?

            Divorce deprives people of life.  A divorced man will live 10 years less than a married man; a divorced woman, four years less; and their children, 5 years less.  Divorced people and their children are also deprived of liberty.  A typical father can see his kids only two weekends a month. Certainly, husbands and wives lose property when they divorce.

            Yet there is no Constitutional protection for 80% of spouses handed an unwanted divorce. Therefore, I helped design a bill introduced in Georgia called the Children’s Hope for Family Life Act. It would increase the waiting period from 30 days to one year.

            The bill would also require couples with kids to take a course on the impact of divorce on children before a divorce is filed.  Hopefully, that would persuade many to repair their marriage. And during the year, the couple would be required to take classes to improve their skills of conflict resolution.  No state has such educational requirements.

            Greg Griffin, a pastor and counselor who got a divorce he did not want, has led the battle for the bill, spending 17 months at the state legislature, meeting scores of state senators and state legislators, plus the governor.

            He has “positioned this as a children’s rights bill, asking legislators to view the bill through the eyes of a child, and give them every opportunity to grow up in an intact home.” He asks that they think of it as looking out for the safety of children like mandatory bike helmets.

            I dream that the Children’s Hope for Family Life Act passes and becomes a model for every state.

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Copyright © Michael J. McManus is President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist.

January 15, 2014

Column #1,690

(second of three parts)

Answers to the Disintegration of Marriage – II

By Mike McManus

            Fifty years ago President Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty, proclaiming, “For the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty.”

As a TIME correspondent it was exhilarating to cover the launching of Medicare, Head Start, food stamps and the first federal aid to education to help poor children.  Looking back, what has been accomplished?

Percentages of those in poverty don’t appear to have changed much. In 1982 15% were below the poverty line, and in 2010 it was still 15%.  Robert Samuelson, a Washington Post columnist, notes that official figures do not count non-cash payments, such as food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit.  If included the poverty rate is only 5%.

However, the number of families headed by a single parent has tripled since LBJ.  Unwed births have soared 8-fold to 41%.  That’s 20 times Japan’s 2%.  (No wonder Asian kids score far better academically than Americans.)

Almost none of the stories on the War on Poverty note the connection between poverty and the disintegration of marriage. However, the Heritage Foundation has reported, “Marriage drops the probability of poverty by 82%.” 

Churches can do much to increase the odds that marriages will endure.  Last week I urged pastors to preach that cohabitation fails in 9 out of 10 cases, either before or after the wedding.

I outlined a healthier way to prepare couples for marriage, by requiring a premarital inventory and discussing it with trained Mentor Couples.  Although it is self-serving, I’d like to outline four more answers that my wife and I offer as part of our “Marriage Savers” ministry to churches:

Enrichment: All marriages run down over time and need a booster shot. Churches can use many DVD packages to help couples rekindle their love. “10 Great Dates” are sparked by a brief DVD on such topics as “Resolving Honest Conflict” or “Becoming an Encourager” that can be scheduled for 10 Friday nights. Couples watch the clip and then enjoy a date to discuss that theme.  It’s fun and easy.  “Love and Respect” are longer DVDs ideal for a weekend event.

Restoration of troubled marriages is best achieved by training couples whose own marriages once nearly failed, to mentor those in current crisis. Every church has couples who have survived adultery who can be trained to tell their story of recovery to a couple in current crisis over infidelity.  They can share how they rebuilt trust. This is far more effective than sending couples to counselors who, according to one major study, actually increase their odds of divorce. 

Reconciliation of separated couples, when one spouse wants a divorce, is best achieved with a 12-week “Marriage 911” workbook course designed to help a committed spouse grow so much, he/she attracts back an errant mate. It is taken with a friend of the same gender who is given a handbook to know what questions to ask.

Stepfamilies usually divorce at a 70% rate.  However, we help churches create a Stepfamily Support Group that saves 80% of these daunting marriages.

Marriage Savers has helped more than 10,000 churches jump-start these reforms in “Community Marriage Policies,” the 230^th of which was signed recently in Livonia, Michigan. Catholic and Protestant clergy gathered on the steps of the local courthouse to pledge implementing marriage initiatives outlined above to revive marriages in their churches. 

Equally important, they sent couples in healthy marriages to be trained to serve as Mentor Couples to help other couples prepare for, enrich and restore marriages.

An independent study of our work by the Institute for Research and Evaluation reported that on average, divorce rates fell 17.5% in seven years for a city or county. Nearly a tenth of cities – such as Austin, Kansas City, KS, Salem, OR and Modesto, CA cut their divorce rates in half.  Based on Institute estimates, more than 100,000 marriages have been saved from divorce.

In addition, the Institute estimated that cohabitation rates fell in cities with Community Marriage Covenants by one-third compared to very similar cities in each state.

Marriage rates in some cities have increased, such as Evansville, IN where Catholic Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger wrote “We are particularly proud to report that the number of marriages has risen. From 1997-2003, there were an average of only 1,143 marriages per year. But there were an average of 1,324 marriages in 2004-2005. That is a 16% increase in the marriage rate,” while the U.S. marriage rate was plunging.

Churches can reverse the disintegration of marriage – if they implement proven strategies to do so.

Copyright © 2014 Michael J. McManus is President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist.

January 8, 2014

Column #1,689

(first of three parts)

Answers for the Disintegration of Marriage - I

By Mike McManus

            Marriage is deteriorating in America – and churches seem indifferent to it.

            There were 2.1 million marriages in 2011, but 2.4 million in 1970 when there were only 203 million Americans.  With 314 million today, there should have been 3 million marriages.

            America’s congregations who perform 86% of all weddings – appear indifferent to the marriage crisis.  No Protestant denomination has issued a report on the decline of marriage let alone suggested any answers.

            To their credit the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a Pastoral Letter on Marriage in 2009.  They quote Pope John Paul II as saying that the “future of humanity depends on marriage and the family.”  And they express concern about how “reluctant” Catholics are to “make the actual commitment” to marry.

            However, in their 60-page Pastoral Letter, they do not cite the grim evidence of that fact.  In 1970 there were 426.000 Catholic marriages, but only 167,000 in 2012.  That’s a stunning 61% decline – more than double the 30% decline of U.S. marriages.

            Catholics at least track the numbers.  The Assemblies of God, the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church could not tell me how many married in their churches.

            Why are they indifferent to God’s first institution? 

 Genesis states, “The Lord God said, `It is not good for man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him.” After doing so, we read, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”

            What might be done?  In this column and two future ones, I’ll suggest some answers.

            First, pastors should preach on the importance of marriage – and the risks of the popular alternative: cohabitation.  National Marriage Week (Feb. 9-16) is a good time to start.

            Last year 8 million couples lived together – nearly four times those who married. Why? Many are children of divorce who fear marriage and hope to test the relationship by living with a potential mate. Seems logical, but is in error.

            I suggest pastors offer three sets of numbers to prove conventional wisdom wrong:

1.      Two-thirds of those who married were cohabiting. But that’s only 1.5 million of the 8 million cohabiting couples.  What happened to the other 6.5 million? Most broke up – proof that couples cannot “practice permanence.”

2.      In our book, Living Together: Myths, Risks & Answers, we report that the risk that women are 18 times more likely to be assaulted by live-in partners than by a husband and are five times more likely to suffer “severe violence.”

3.      Couples who live together before marriage are 50% to 61% more likely to divorce than those who remained separate before a wedding, report two studies.

Therefore, pastors should ask, “Why live together if the couple is five times more likely

to break up rather than marry – and more likely to divorce?”

            Few cohabiting couples attend church.  But many of their parents do. Pastors could suggest they ask their cohabiting children:  “Do you want a 9 in 10 chance of breaking up before or after the wedding?”

            Additionally, I have a question for clergy:  Why marry couples who are living together?  Scripture is clear: “Flee from sexual immorality.”          Clergy who marry cohabiting couples contribute to the problem.  They should add to their sermon on marriage:  “I will no longer marry any couples who are cohabiting – unless they move apart for three months.  That will increase the odds they will marry and that their union will last.”

              Paul wrote: “Test everything. Hold onto the good. Avoid every kind of evil.”  Cohabitation is clearly evil.  But how can couples test their relationship?

            In the 1990’s my wife and I pioneered the training of couples in our church for healthy marriages by requiring them to take a premarital inventory and meet with trained Mentor Couples to discuss 150  issues such as:

·         Sometimes I wish my partner were more careful about spending money.

·         When we are having a problem, my partner often refuses to talk about it.

  Of the 288 couples we prepared for marriage, 58 decided not to marry.  That’s a big 20%.  Studies show that such couples have the same scores as those who marry and later divorced.  Thus, they avoided a bad marriage before it began.  However, of the 230 couples who did marry in the 1990s, we know of only 16 divorces.

That’s a 93% success rate over two decades – virtual marriage insurance.

We want to have healthy marriages for our children and grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2014 Michael J. McManus is President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist.