Suffer together...repost

A while back I did some research into prison life. In doing so I came across statistics that say that more than 90% of all married couples that go through any prison incarceration will divorce. Those are staggering statistics but not all that hard to understand. If one thinks of the roughly 50% overall rate of divorce, is it any surprise that a couple experiencing the extreme stresses of prison would have a higher than average rate of divorce?

And although I can't say those statistics are shocking, sad, yes, upsetting, yes, but not shocking, I can say the statistics I came across today are shocking. According to statistics held by the CDC, the number of children with disabilities is on the rise. No surprise there, we've been hearing that for years. What was surprising is the fact that along with the rise of children with disabilities has come the rise of divorce among parents of children with disabilities.

I can state from first hand experience that raising a special needs child is different than raising a so-called normal child. Those special needs bring extra work, extra medical needs, extra therapy, extra hours and hours of attention from the parent, and extra stress on the parent. There are days when just surviving the minute takes more effort than you have. There are days when you sit and cry because there's nothing left to be done. There are days when all hope is lost, when you flounder for a way to help your child. And there are days of extreme joy and gratitude.

All those things combine together to create more stresses in the parents life because the special needs of their child rule their world. Everything they do must be weighed against the needs of their child. Many times they will ask themselves if it's better to do without milk or have to take their child to the grocery store. Many family experiences will center around trips for medical care. Day to day life is restructured to work around the needs of that child. And all relationships are experienced or endured by the parent based off who they are as that special needs child's parent. Your actions and reactions often stem from who you become as a parent of a special needs child. You see the world through new, different eyes, and you see relationships through those same eyes. All relationships.

I understand how and why a child with a disability...and by the way ADHD is classified as a disability, so is asthma, so is autism...would take a toll on the parents marriage, what I can't understand is how 90% of those parents divorce. When you live in the midst of extreme stress and trial, you need someone that understands, someone that is there for you when the day ends. Facing those stresses and trials alone is so much harder. Sometimes you need someone to hold you while you cry. Parents may be the only safe place their special needs child has but unless those parents have each other where is there safe place? Grandma and Grandpa will never fully understand what Mom and Dad face each day. Auntie and Uncle don't understand. The neighbors don't. I can only imagine the added anguish of a difficult marriage or divorce in the midst of all the hurt and stress of daily life with a disabled child. But statistics say that 9 out of 10 parents with a disabled child face just such anguish.

Yesterday I encountered a woman that spoke of having watched a video that showed husbands go off for the military. This woman talked of how that video brought back all of her own pain and anguish of having said goodbye to her husband, of having sent him off to military. I never sent my husband to the military but I have had to say good bye. I fully understood the pain this woman spoke of. I relived my own experience leading up to telling my husband good bye and of those final moments. I felt the pain again of that last good bye before we would be separated. I hurt as that woman told her story. Hurt for her and what she went through because as she told her experience I relived my own, feeling what she was putting into words, not because she worded it so well, although she did, but because I had experienced exactly what she spoke of first hand.

That separation, both mine and my husbands, and that ladies and her husband's were stresses in our marriages. They created problems that did not exist before one spouse had to be away. They created pain that did not exist before. There was anguish at the separation. But I can say, at least in my case, that even in the midst of the pain, in the separation, my husband was my safe place. He was the one I shared my hurt with. He was the one I shared the pain with. And surprisingly enough, or maybe not so surprisingly, he was the one that made the pain better, even if he had to do it from a distance.

The woman whose story I heard, whose story reminded me of my own pain at being away from my husband, showed me something too. In that woman's story, a story I felt because I had been there even if for a different reason, was the story of a woman that agonized over being away from her husband. I don't know what the divorce rate is among military marriages but I've seen enough things to lead me to believe that it might have a slightly higher rate than the average, although I really don't know. I have seen programs for married couples offering them free marital counseling once the deployed spouse comes home. I have also seen programs that offer free vacations to amazing locations to military couples after one of them has been deployed. So the stress must be high. And maybe the divorce rate too.

But even if the divorce rate is the regular, average, American divorce rate...well, statistics tell us that the odds are against them. Add any stress into those already horrible odds and they just decline from there, or skyrocket, depending on how you look at it.

I read an article by a disabled lady. In her article she wrote of her desire to be married and of her very low chances of actually getting married. She used the CDC's statistics on marriages that involve a disabled child to support her belief that there is little chance she will ever marry. I have no idea if she is right or not. It would seem that a disability would take away some of her options for marriage but I have seen couples that married despite one of them being disabled.

Not all that long ago I had a conversation with a family member about how there was a time in history when disabled people were hidden away in asylums because 'normal' people didn't want to have to be around them. About 17 years ago I met an older woman that told me she had one child, well, she said, I had two but... And there she began telling me of how she had had a daughter born with disabilities, I don't remember what but she told me what her daughter had been born with, and then she told me of how she had another daughter, I think, three years later. The second daughter was healthy and had no disabilities. The woman and her husband put the older daughter in an institution, yes, she used that word, because they didn't feel it would be fair to the younger daughter to be raised with a sister with disabilities.

I have never forgotten that conversation. At the time I was shocked to hear that they had given away one child to be 'fair' to the other. Today, when I remember that woman's story, I am still shocked. I can't fathom such a thing and yet I know it happens.

I have to ask...why?

Why would a parent put a very young child into an institution to save their other child from being raised with their sibling? Why would parents divorce over a child with disabilities? Why would couples divorce over forced separations?

Sin and selfishness are the answers that come to mind. But as I think on those situations, I also think of something else. It falls into selfishness but I think it may deserve a category of its own. It is the inability, or unwillingness, to suffer, or go through hardship, for someone else, with someone else. In times past, people with disabilities were hidden away in asylum's. Why? To save those that were 'normal' from having to deal with them. I'm sure there were a million different reasons why a person was placed in an asylum then. But I am also certain that social stigma played a good part in those decisions. Disabilities weren't always seen the way they are today.

And while the way people with disabilities are viewed may have improved...the way marriage is viewed has become atrocious. I read something once, I have no idea where, that many people today marry just to make their affairs legitimate. They have no intention of staying in those marriages. They fully plan to divorce just as soon as that marriage is no longer fun or as soon as the next person comes along that catches their attention. And as shocking as that is, I'm not sure that divorce rate among parents of disabled children isn't more shocking. What makes those divorces happen? Does one parent not want the stress of raising their child? Do the parents simply become so caught up in caring for the child that they fall apart? Statistics say that 90% of marriages with a disabled child end in divorce. With an average divorce rate of 50% that means that at least four out of ever ten marriages where there is a disabled child may end in divorce as a direct result of having a disabled child. Prison marriages have a slightly higher than 90% divorce rate, putting them at just over 4 out of every ten marriages ending as a direct result of prison.

With statistics like that, marriage has become a throw away relationship. Where marriage was once seen as special, where divorce was once rarely ever heard of, and when it was there was a social stigma attached, divorce is almost like a badge of honor today. I recently saw a list circulating on social media. This list was a list of things accomplished in one's life. I never looked at the entire list, the beginning of the list was more than enough to turn me away. This list placed 'fall in love', 'get married', and 'get divorced', all in a line up, making get divorced look like some kind of accomplishment. It's just one more thing to do, and expect to do, in a person's life.

Another shocking statistic is that 75% of marriages where one spouse has a chronic illness ends in divorce. So much for the 'in sickness and in health' part of marriage. It would seem that, when it comes to marriage at least, people aren't so good at staying close to those they love, or should love, when illness or disability crops up. It also makes me wonder if we have really come as far as we think we have from the days when those that were disabled were placed in asylums. Maybe disability no longer carries quite the stigma it once did but it would appear that it is enough to put an end to the majority of marriages that encounter it.

Military marriages carry no stigma, as being in the military is generally looked at as being a very good thing, and those in it are looked up to, but what toll does that service put on the marriages that must go through it? Prison carries a heavy stigma, one that really never goes away. That stigma is on everyone involved, the prisoner, the spouse of the prisoner, the children, even the prisoners parents and extended family. Anyone close to someone that has been to, or is in, prison must face the social issues of being related to a prisoner. Oddly enough, from what I read, it would seem that the spouse of a prisoner actually gains some kind of standing if they divorce their spouse. There is something about prison that, supposedly, makes the husband or wife, held up in society, or among family, when they divorce the prisoner.

Funny thing...I don't see prison listed as a reason for divorce in Scripture. Nor do I see illness, children with disabilities, extended family problems, or the million other reasons people come up with to end their marriages.

Illness and disability are only two of many trials we may face in this earthly life. And instead of running from our spouse, maybe we should run to them, share the troubles and sorrows of all of life's trials with them. Feel the pain of every separation, not just the long term, unwanted, one's, with them. Hold them closer through the pain. Cling tighter in the stress. Talk more in the quiet moments. Just as we should hold tight to Christ in the difficult times as well as in the good times. We should cling to Him, hold Him closer, talk to Him more. And in this earthly life our marriages should be a representation of Christ and His bride, His people. Instead of running from our husband or wife when trouble comes, no matter how difficult the trouble is, maybe we should run TO them. Seek our shelter in our husband or wife just as we seek shelter in Christ.

Suffer together so that, as Christians, your marriage will stand out from the other, world based marriages around you. Let your life, your heart, and your marriage be an example of Christ. Don't live for your own happiness but for Christ. Be the light, even in marriage, that points to Him.