AJC.com > Opinion > Woman to Woman > Archives > 2008 > December > 05
Friday, December 5, 2008
Is it a good thing many troubled couples can’t afford divorce?
Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week and Andrea Cornell Sarvady, a left-leaning columnist, responds.
Rebuttal
My colleague’s silver-lining scenario sounds like a Hallmark movie. Let’s call it Recession Romance. Our chick flick in a nutshell? Things go from bad to worse for an unhappily married couple when they lose their jobs, lose their house, and have to move into a lousy apartment in a bad neighborhood. All’s well that ends well, however, as the recession plays Cupid, forcing the couple to stay together in their dangerous, dilapidated hovel until they fall back in love.
Lights up, folks. As a child of divorce who is still thrilled after 20 years to find herself in a stable and thriving relationship, I’m all for taking marriage seriously. Yet I’m pretty sure that rampant job loss, rising medical costs and a housing crisis don’t make a bad marriage better, and I’m more than a little worried about what’s happening in those disharmonious homes. A small percentage of marriages involve abuse, and those women tend to seek divorce anyway? Hardly. I recall from my marriage and family therapy training how difficult it is for victims of spousal abuse to jump ship, even in the best of times. And in times like these? The National Domestic Abuse Hotline reported a 21 percent increase in calls for September. “Our people make notes of what’s said during the calls,” spokeswoman Retha Fielding told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “They tell us more women are talking about money problems in relation to the violence.”
Kiersten Stewart, director of Public Policy for the Family Violence Prevention Fund, confirmed for me this grim correlation: “Many women make the decision that being in an abusive relationship is better than homelessness,” she explained. “In times like these, there are many more women having to make that agonizing choice.”
I’m sure Shaunti would agree that abused women shouldn’t remain in untenable situations. Yet I think it’s important to remind ourselves just how bad things can get. Stewart informed me that, on average, three women in this country lose their lives every day through a current or former “intimate partner.” That’s why the increase in domestic violence this year makes it hard for me to see anything positive in forced domesticity.
Women who can’t afford to flee to safety? They’re the stars of a pretty grim picture, with no happy ending in sight.
Commentary
By Shaunti Feldhahn
The number of couples who can’t afford to get divorced has been one positive aspect of this tumultuous economic downturn. Articles abound on troubled couples who can’t see a way to finalize a split right now. In a strapped economy it seem impossible to suddenly support two households instead of one — especially if the couple’s house has declined in value and wouldn’t provide much of a cash cushion once it is sold. Not to mention the reality that, as described in a 2006 Journal of Sociology study, divorcing couples usually lose about three-quarters of their net worth anyway.
For all those reasons, the latest survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) found that by nearly two to one, their members are seeing a national decline in the number of divorces, instead of the increases that sometimes accompany recessions. In places like Michigan, where the unemployment rate has greatly exceeded the national average for years, divorce rates have been consistently decreasing. And the trend extends beyond America. The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics reports a decrease in divorces to levels not seen since 1981.
Some observers might think it is heartless to see a silver lining in this reality, worrying that it will merely prolong the suffering of already suffering individuals. That is a legitimate concern for some, especially the small percent of marriages that are abusive — but various studies show that those individuals are more likely to seek divorce anyway. For the majority, a nationally representative 2002 study by the Institute for American Values found that most couples hugely benefit when they can’t or won’t divorce. In the study, two out of three unhappy couples that stayed together described themselves as happily married five years later. More significant, the report noted, “The most unhappy marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds.” Further, those who did divorce did not, on average, become happier.
It is ironic that financial woes — which often cause marital strife — may in fact prevent couples from taking the ultimate step of severing their marriage entirely. And in the end, it is heartening to know that, statistically, many of them — and their children — will look back on this difficult economic period with gratitude.