Updated February 13, 2013 6:51 PM
Debaters
Vicki Larson
Vicki Larson, a journalist, writes about marriage and divorce on her blog, OMG Chronicles. She is writing a book about reshaping marriage for cynics and is on Twitter.
Beverly Willett
Beverly Willett, a writer and lawyer, is the co-chair of the Coalition for Divorce Reform. She is writing a memoir and is on Twitter.
Reform the Me-Centered Approach to Divorce
Beverly Willett 6:39 PM
Today, obtaining a divorce couldn’t get much easier. America’s no-fault by Coupon Companion">divorce laws
allow spouses to unilaterally walk out on their families for any
reason. And many do just that. Spouses who want to keep their families
intact, however, have no alternatives. Thus, the outcome of every
divorce filing is preordained: the family will split up.
We demand
housing, health care and education for our children, but deny them the
experience of growing up in one home with both parents.
We all want to be happy. But our current me-centered approach to
divorce isn’t working, and children bear the brunt. Every year one million children lose the protection that, experts agree, marriage affords. Evidence shows that children from broken homes are more likely to experience poverty, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol addiction, by Coupon Companion">depression, reduced educational attainment, decreased longevity
and suicidal thoughts. Children are even forced out of their homes
every other weekend for our convenience. Consequently, they’ve become
leery of marriage, too.
I support a plan that provides hope and an alternative to families contemplating divorce. Under the Parental Divorce Reduction Act, crafted by a team of bipartisan experts, parents with children who are still minors must attend marriage by Coupon Companion">education classes
(separately or together), learn about the damaging consequences of
divorce, and take an eight-month time-out to reflect on their
life-altering decision (and hopefully pursue reconciliation) before they
file for divorce. This approach, which targets low-conflict unions,
will save marriages. It’s research-based. And the process excludes known
impediments to spousal accord: lawyers and judges.
Americans are big on choice and safety, but our current laws offer neither when it comes to victims of divorce. We demand by Coupon Companion">affordable housing,
health care and education for our children, but deny them their true
heart's desire of growing up in a single household with both parents.
If there’s a sadness greater than stripping children of their
rightful childhood, I can’t think of one. I have faith parents can do
better. With courage and compassion, we can give our most important
commitment the respect it deserves. And in so doing, restore honor to
marriage and grant our children their deepest wish.
A Split Makes Certain Situations Safer, Saner
Vicki Larson 6:39 PM
Beverly, your articles have detailed how devastated
you were by your unwanted divorce, and how you spent nearly five years
fighting your former husband to stop it. I can see that your desire in
forming the Parental Divorce Reduction Act,
with the goal of helping others avoid “unnecessary” divorce, is
genuine. But it’s that word — “unnecessary” — that’s disturbing.
Who decides whether a divorce is “unnecessary”?
Not those in emotionally abusive marriages, because your proposed act
doesn’t make exceptions for them. Nor would it be those living with
serial adulterers, who may be subject to sexually transmitted diseases,
since some research suggests
that most people who have affairs don’t practice safe sex. Your act
would consider divorce for those reasons “unnecessary.” And that’s
wrong.
Before no-fault divorce laws were enacted, many people and their children were stuck in unhealthy, dangerous marriages.
The only people who can decide whether a divorce is necessary or not are the people in the marriage — no one else.
There’s nothing me-centered about no-fault divorce laws; let’s not
forget that before the laws were enacted, many people and their children
were stuck in unhealthy, dangerous marriages. In fact, a Stanford study details
the real and important impact of no-fault divorce — not only are there
fewer female suicides now, but there are also fewer men and women living
with domestic violence, and fewer women being murdered by their
partners. That’s huge.
Your act ignores a fundamental shift in society — single motherhood. Some 40 percent of births today are to women who are unmarried but often cohabiting. Those couples, or fragile families, are poorer and less educated
than married couples. Divorce rates have been falling for the past
quarter century, especially among college-educated people. Many kids at
risk of being stripped of “their rightful childhoods” are those born to unmarried mothers,
who tend to form numerous cohabiting partnerships and have less money
and resources, not children of divorce. These are the children who
demand our help.
No one is promoting divorce. We all realize it can be devastating,
not only to children but to the couple, too. That said, most people
don’t enter into divorce lightly. Many go to couples or individual
therapy, or both, in an attempt to salvage their marriage. We know from
recent studies that high-conflict marriages can be more damaging to kids
than divorce. We also know that post-divorce parental conflict is
extremely harmful to kids, as are custody policies that restrict
children’s time with their father. If our goal as a society is to
protect children, let’s protect all children, not just those whose
parents are considering divorce. Our limited resources and energy would
be better spent helping people marry — or partner — smarter, creating
policies that support fragile families, and educating divorcing couples
about how to co-parent apart in healthy, collaborative ways.
We Can Do Better
Beverly Willett 6:39 PM
Yes, I fought to save my family from divorce. It was the
right thing to do, and I’d do it again. All children deserve to grow up
with both parents if that’s possible.
Your statement that only those “people” in the marriage itself can determine whether to divorce ignores the lack of fundamental fairness in our current system and its impact on those harmed most: our children.
Marriage protects men, women and children emotionally, physically and economically. It shouldn't be so easy to discard.
No-fault is an on-demand system with “me” at its core, permitting one
“person” to decide for all. Children, divvied up like chattel, get no
vote in the dismantling of their families. That sounds harsh, but it’s
true. Marriage, on the other hand, protects men, women and children emotionally, physically and economically.
Granted every marriage can’t and shouldn’t be salvaged. But too many
are needlessly discarded. The Parental Divorce Reduction Act provides exemptions for spouses who are abused or abandoned or married to convicts or addicts. And some research shows
that cohabitating unions provide far greater risks of domestic
violence. Moreover, while high-conflict marriages can damage children,
the act targets low-conflict marriages with good chances for reconciliation. Spouses can divorce under current no-fault laws after the waiting period expires.
Divorce rates have leveled off. But they remain high (nearly twice that of 1960), and remarriages fail at astronomical levels.
Meanwhile marriage rates are at an all-time low, while single motherhood and cohabitation rates have soared.
Across-the-board, the prognosis for children is dismal,
including for children of divorce, many of whom fall into poverty,
suffer lower academic achievement, and need and deserve our help, too.
Pro-marriage divorce policies and elimination of the marriage tax
penalty will also help shore up those "fragile families."
You’ve written
that few divorcing couples feel loving and generous enough to work
things out. Yet you believe that they can co-parent when they are
divorced against their will, in split households, often with blended
families, while unable to coexist in one. This strains credulity.
Even mediocre marriages protect children better. Unhappiness is a symptom, incurable without getting at the root. The Parental Divorce Reduction Act provides real skills to help floundering couples (traditional marriage counseling often fails) and allows time for jets to cool. Marriages that ride out the storm can, and often do, become success stories.
And you want children to have more time with their fathers? Let’s
stop making media darlings of privileged women who extol unwed
motherhood. Let’s stop claiming fathers are superfluous, glamorizing cohabitation and normalizing infidelity. Let’s put fathers back in their homes with their wives and children.
Family fragmentation costs taxpayers billions
every year. The only resource we have in short supply is the courage to
do better. Certainly, we should encourage better co-parenting for
inevitable divorces. Yes, we need another conversation about marriage
other than our failed soul-mate one. We simply can’t have that
discussion, however, without acknowledging that marriage matters and
addressing what’s wrong with divorce. Otherwise, we leave millions of
married couples and their children in the dust.
Good Parenting Should Be the Goal
Vicki Larson 6:39 PM
This isn’t the place to discuss unwed motherhood in the
media, but if people look to pop culture for parenting role models, then
they most certainly deserve whatever they find there!
Thank you for acknowledging that “every marriage can’t and shouldn’t
be salvaged.” You’re right. Unfortunately, the act does nothing to help
those couples that will end up divorced. Even if it’s able to stop half
of “unnecessary” divorces — and that’s likely generous — that means the
other half will divorce with no help on how to co-parent post-divorce.
This makes no sense.
We should focus on making people better parents, whether they are married, divorced or single.
People can and do co-parent well
after divorce if they put their kids first, not their egos and anger.
Parents who act like adults know that while they may not be able to live
with their former spouse, that person is still their kids’ dad or mom.
If we make divorce harder, people may game the system just like they
did before no-fault laws were enacted. Abuse was so prevalent in New
York alone — the last state to enact no-fault — that the state’s bar
association, as early as 1945, pushed for reform to eliminate the
“widespread fraud, perjury, collusion and connivance" that accompanied divorces.
Who wants to go back to that? Make divorce harder and people may
choose to opt out of marriage altogether and cohabit instead, which as
I’ve already mentioned is worse for children.
If people really want to make divorce harder there’s already a way to do that. Arkansas, Arizona and Louisiana offer covenant marriage,
which, among other things, requires marital counseling and a long
waiting period before a couple can divorce. By all accounts, it’s barely lived up to its potential since on average, fewer than 1 percent of couples marrying in those states choose it.
If nothing else, that’s proof that most of us, despite intentions to marry “till death do us part,” want an out.
Salvaging a Marriage Saves Children
Beverly Willett 6:39 PM
True, people want a divorce “out.” The Parental Divorce
Reduction Act doesn’t change that. It provides something better -- a
fighting chance for marriages that have good prospects of recovery. In
sum, Vicki, I think it’s fair to say you oppose any delay or
modification in divorce policies whatsoever.
If we stop
trying in our marriages, how will our children, as they start
relationships, know how to identify with their own potential instead of
our failures?
America’s current approach to divorce is mired in a 1970s pessimistic
and erroneous assumption that it isn’t possible to save distressed
families. Meanwhile, running from our relationship troubles has solved
nothing. It’s only made things worse. Marriage is the most important
contract in society, but the least protected and respected. When our
laws once again value marriage, more people will marry, fewer will
divorce and children’s lives will improve.
The short shrift we’ve given marriage has harmed parents, children
and communities, causing a host of undeniable problems that society –
and you in this debate – have largely ignored, including serious health
and emotional fallout to spouses and children; decreased standard of
living for families, with many impoverished; and significant retreat
from marriage altogether by the middle class. It’s raised the odds of premature mortality
for children by five years, too, notwithstanding that a minority can
develop some resiliency. By contrast, marriage is a wealth and health
building institution, which provides the best stability for men, women
and children.
Agreed, there have been fundamental shifts in society. We divorce
more, marry less and are increasingly dissatisfied. That’s not progress.
Covenant marriage, while a noble endeavor, hasn’t worked. It’s an
option in only a handful of states where few couples even know the
choice exists. Those who do are steered to traditional marriage
counseling, which often fails. Acrimony, too, still pervades our divorce
process.
Fear that cohabitation will rise if we do the right thing for our
children by enacting divorce reform ignores the correlation between the
devaluation of the institution of marriage, on the one hand, and
skyrocketing cohabitation, unwed childbearing and divorce, on the other.
Perpetuating the status quo won’t improve these odds. Admitting we
were wrong will. Not wrong about each other, but about our capacity to
envision a loving future with the family we’ve already been blessed
with, provided we’re willing to put in the requisite hard work, patience
and forgiveness.
Without legal and cultural divorce reform, we’ll merely continue
breeding the same self-fulfilling prophecy of failure we have now. How
we feel in our relationships today, however, need not be how we feel
tomorrow. And those who choose to put in the effort of preserving their
families? I think they'll be pleasantly surprised at the outcome.
Those parents who you believe are better served by co-parenting
instruction (inherently part of the communication skills training
outlined in the act, by the way) made public vows to love and choose one
another in good times and in bad, and became responsible for other
lives. Many are weighed down by the stresses of 21st century life that
does little to support families. The act will help them because when
“egos and anger” flare, putting children first requires turning over
every last stone, not walking away. Otherwise, when it comes to their
own relationships, how will our children ever know how to identify with
their potential instead of our failures?
My heart breaks every time I hear about another family splitting.
Sometimes I read about it in the news; sometimes it greets me in my
inbox. And there I sit, with families suffering all around me, trying to
save other people’s marriages when I couldn’t even save my own.
Still, I believe we’re capable of restoring faith in marriage and
doing what’s best for our children. I worry that if we don’t, our
unrestrained divorce culture will continue producing fatherless homes,
families that struggle to make ends meet and rootless, joyless latchkey kids living out of suitcases.
Americans love the message of hope and change. The Parental Divorce
Reduction Act provides that hope to America’s families. It restores
dignity to the institution of marriage, and will bring honor to the
legacy we leave our children. Passage is worth it even if it saves only
one family. Forty-two years of failed divorce policies is enough.
Trapped Parents Aren’t Happy Parents
Vicki Larson 6:39 PM
You’re partly right, Beverly. I actually do want to change the way we divorce, just not in the way you’re proposing.
If we truly care about kids’ well-being, we need to get divorcing
couples out of litigation and into mediation or collaborative law, which
has seen great success in Australia, England, British Columbia and elsewhere. As one family law attorney accurately observes, “No one can expect a couple to effectively parent after being exposed to the court process.”
We don’t do our children any favors by being martyrs and staying in dysfunctional, toxic marriages.
And that’s what it is ultimately about — parenting our kids in the best possible way,
whether we're married, divorced, cohabiting or single. It’s great that
your act requires marriage education, but its emphasis — and scare
tactics about the impacts of divorce on kids — is misguided. What struggling parents need
is support. And for those parents who do divorce, there’s nothing in
your program that directly addresses the unique situation of
co-parenting once spouses are apart. Generically boosting “communication
skills” just won’t cut it.
We know the real problem for kids is parental conflict,
which leads to behavioral and emotional problems. So is separation from
their father, as too many kids have sadly had to endure — the
fatherless homes you mention have often been court-mandated because of
decades of unfair custody laws. Just like we need to make mediation, not
litigation, the default, we need to push for more shared parenting
(provided it’s a safe situation, of course). Although we may not want
to live with our former spouse anymore, kids want to live with both of their parents.
We don’t do our children any favors by being martyrs and staying in
dysfunctional, toxic marriages for their sake. Kids see right through
that. Although some of us never fight in front of them, they are
all-too-aware of what’s going on because divorce doesn’t happen
overnight; it’s a long, tense process. For that matter, so is a bad
marriage.
Even the now-defunct Smart Marriages Coalition
was against government intervention in divorce, fearing that it could
“increase resentment and the sense of being trapped” and might “keep
some marriages together” that are “hugely destructive for adults and
children.” Trapped parents aren’t happy parents, and unhappy parents don’t create an environment for happy, healthy kids.
Fear is a horrible reason to stay in an unhealthy marriage. Your act
is dismissive of the pain-staking efforts many couples endure to make
their marriage work. Insisting that they “try harder” is judgmental and
borders on cruelty. Forcing couples to wait in hopes of reconciliation
may actually increase conflict and even domestic abuse. And while
marriage may offer some health benefits, studies show that those in stressful marriages appear to be more susceptible to illness and at greater risk for cardiovascular disease.
The Parental Divorce Reduction Act is like telling a severely ill
patient who shows up at the E.R. that she can’t get help until she
learns how to better manage her diabetes and hypertension. Why not
encourage couples to marry more consciously and give them tools to build
enduring, successful marriages from the beginning? And if we truly want
to support children, why not create policies that make life easier for families of all sorts — not just middle-class nuclear families?
I can understand why your heart breaks whenever you hear of another
split; divorce isn’t easy. Yet many parents and their kids go on to live
healthier, more fulfilling lives after a divorce. Marriage isn’t always
the answer and divorce isn’t always the problem. I’ve stopped saying,
“I’m sorry” when someone tells me he or she is divorcing because too
often the response has been, “No, it’s a good thing.”
We can’t possibly know when a divorce is “unnecessary”; only the
individuals within a marriage know this. And they must have the freedom
to make this difficult decision on their own.
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http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/02/13/when-divorce-is-a-family-affair