Week 2 - Special Circumstances

“Marriage fosters small cooperative unions—also known as stable families—that enable children to thrive, shore up communities, and help family members to succeed during good times and to weather the bad times.” – The State of Our Unions: Marriage in America 2012 p. xii

To start off, I come from a home with a single mom. My parents divorced when I was about nine years old. I knew there was something different about my parents compared to my classmates’ parents. My parents often fought and argued at home. Tensions were often very high while in public. My mom tried to keep the marriage intact by tolerating his behavior, but he still initiated the divorce process. Just like with all the other ongoing trials I deal with on a daily basis, having divorced parents just became a way of life for me. I cannot speak for my brother Charlie, but I think he took it a little harder than I did. The two of us spent the week at our mom’s then went to our dad’s, or Gramma’s (my dad’s mother), for the weekend for about ten years.

“But Shannon, doesn’t your religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, consider divorce a bad thing?”

Yes, and no, divorce can be considered traumatizing for many individuals within the family and surrounding the family. I think people should do their best to fix their marriage. They should first turn to the Lord, Jesus Christ, and repent. They should also counsel with their bishop as a married couple. Next, they should do what a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints named Elder Dallin H. Oaks has recommended on what a bishop has once suggested as follows, “keep the commandments, stay active in their Church attendance, scripture reading, and prayer, and to work on their own shortcomings.” Elder Oaks then said, “...couples who followed this bishop’s counsel and stayed together emerged with their marriages even stronger” as opposed to married couples who chose not to seek counsel from the Bishop and assistance from the Lord.

However, divorce can also be a reasonable option for a certain limited number of circumstances. This option should not be considered lightly though. President James E. Faust, whom was first sustained as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1972 then later became the Second Counselor in the First Presidency of the entire Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints back in 1995, has once said, the reason for divorce “should be nothing less serious than a prolonged and apparently irredeemable relationship which is destructive of a person’s dignity as a human being.”

My parents did not take divorce lightly. They did try to make things work but, in the end, some things just did not pan out the way they should. Choices were made and my parents had to pay for the consequences of their actions. Years have gone by and my mom is doing far better than when she used to be with my dad.

I would like to share one last piece of advice from Elder Oaks, he once said, “the best way to avoid divorce from an unfaithful, abusive, or unsupportive spouse is to avoid marriage to such a person.” I’m sure in retrospect, my mom wishes she did not marry my dad. She could have avoided the whole divorce process if she just stayed far away from him but what happened has already happened. However, I know that in due time, through the help of our Savior’s Atonement, each member of the family can learn and heal from the past pertaining to this divorce.