What a Culture

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/08/26/o.divorce.dreams/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

Probably one of the most disturbing opinion articles I have ever read, and I guess it should come as no surprise that it came from Oprah (or should it? She is a spiritual woman, after all...)

For those of you who don't have the time, energy, or interest to read the whole thing, here is a general recap:

"I contemplate divorce every day. It tugs on my sleeve each morning when my husband, Will, greets me in his chipper, smug morning-person voice, because after 16 years of waking up together, he still hasn't quite pieced out that I'm not viable before 10 a.m."

"Mind you, when I say Mid-Wife Crisis, I mean the middle-of-married-life kind, not the kind where you go to Yale to learn how to legally brandish a birthing stool. As one girlfriend remarked, it's the age of rage -- a period of high irritation that lasts roughly one to two decades. As a colleague e-mailed me, it's the simmering underbelly of resentment, the 600-pound mosquito in the room. At a juncture where we thought we should have unearthed some modicum of certainty, we are turning into the Clash. If I go will there be trouble? If I stay will it be double? Should I stay or should I go?"

one of my favorites...
"We were groomed to think bigger and better -- achievement was our birthright -- so it's small surprise that our marriages are more freighted. Marriage and its cruel cohort, fidelity, are a lot to expect from anyone, much less from swift-flying us. Would we agree to wear the same eyeshadow or eat in the same restaurant every day for a lifetime? Nay, cry the villagers, the echo answers nay. We believe in our superhood. We count on it."

"Because it isn't a shame. Divorce is no longer the shame that spits stain upon womanly merit. Conventional wisdom decrees that marriage takes work, but it doesn't take work, it is work. It's a job -- intermittently fulfilling and annoying, with not enough vacation days. Divorce is a job too (with even fewer vacation days). It's a matter of weighing your options.
A friend once compared the prospect of leaving her husband to leaving her child's private school: The school wasn't entirely to her liking, but her daughter was happy there; it wasn't what she'd expected, but applying to other schools involved a lot of costly, complicated paperwork and the nagging uncertainty of whether another school would accept her and/or really be that much better."

and finally...
"Because in the end, that's basically what it's all about: getting your order right. Our day comes down to choices -- and it's finally dawning on the long-term wives of the world that divorce may be the last-standing woman's right to choose. We can admit that our marriages aren't lambent, lyrical ice-dancing routines and still decide to push on together to the final flying sit spin. We also realize that divorce is an alternative that's fully within reach, be it now or later or never. The more readily we acknowledge the solid utility of marriage (as one friend's husband put it, "I'm essentially a checkbook and a sperm bank -- but I'm okay with that!"), the more ably we can splinter the box of marital fantasy that makes us feel stuck, trapped, obliged. One eloquent swing of the ax and happiness is thrust firmly back into our own hands."


The funny thing is, my first thought at the end of the article was "so what are you going to do the day your daughter starts dating? what would I do if you were my mom?" What a conversation that would be, telling her about your first crush. Odd thing to contemplate I know, but it just made me a little sad. The little girl (or, as I have found in my experience, the still young woman) fantasy of being swept off your feet and romantically in love until the end of life, albeit a fantasy, still says something about the hearts of women, and perhaps even the hearts of men. So though we may exist in this messed up, disappointing, often time frustrating world, this concept has still remained strong, regardless of how twisted and perverted it may become.

What this article say is "It's all about me. My time, my life, my pleasure." It's not about me...it's not about you. Hopefully we are not breeding a generation of like-minded individuals. As a child of divorce and brokenness, I still have a hope and a belief in companionship, and a much greater understanding than the woman with the pen on Life. I can't wait for the day when His voice is heard above all others. Until then, we press on...