When I was doing research for a cheating spouse feature it seemed most of the advice, suggestions and even “spy” techniques I found were aimed at gathering evidence that could be used to justify divorce.
During my searches, I found very little encouragement to try to “fix” a marriage in which adultery had occurred. Many marriages that end in divorce due to adultery could have been fixed if a different approach had been taken by the people involved.
We are becoming more conditioned to disposing of relationships that displease or bore us instead of repairing them. There are going to be times in any normal marriage when our spouse will displease us. There are going to be times they will bore us. Marriage routine and the tedium of day-to-day activities will dull the “passion” that we assumed would always burn between us.
It takes maturity to understand that even a good marriage will have bad days. Some bad times can stretch for weeks, months, or even years. Maturity isn’t measured in age as much as it is measured in how a couple responds to the bad times, the humdrum times, the boring times.
Marriage to an abuser, an alcoholic, or an addict would be termed “dysfunctional.” Some dysfunctional marriages will last for the long term, many should not.
It is easy to say “I want a divorce” or “I don’t love you anymore” in this era of quickie marriages and divorces. It’s more difficult to say “We have a problem that’s putting our marriage in jeopardy — let’s work together to stay together.”
I don’t like divorce. Divorce makes nice people into monsters. Divorce puts families into the welfare line. Divorce forces children to grow up faster than they should have to. Divorce shows children that marriage is disposable.
If I could, I would make it extremely difficult to get married. Or at least as difficult to get married as it is to get divorced. I would absolutely require that couples learn good communication skills before they were issued a marriage license.