Divorcing Since They Grew Apart
A woman wrote about divorcing her husband. This was the message she gave publicly: “With great sadness, after 10 years together, we have come to a loving conclusion to get a divorce. We have nothing but love and respect for one another and are deeply grateful for the years shared, memories made, and the children we are so proud of. This is just the situation of two people growing apart. We ask everyone to respect our privacy as we navigate this difficult time within our family.”
Now, since this is all that she published about her divorce publicly, this is the only thing I am going to talk about her marriage since everything else will be speculation and there is ALWAYS two sides to every story. My purpose isn’t to tear this woman down but to show the lies of the message that she is giving to millions of women. A message that divorce can be a “loving conclusion” done with “love and respect for one another” because of “two people growing apart.” It’s NOT this easy, women. I fear many women who aren’t “happy” in their marriages will read this and think, “My husband and I are growing apart. It’s probably time for us to get divorced.” Instead, they should be thinking, “Maybe, it’s time I do my part to work on growing back together again to break the pattern of destruction.”
As I have written numerous times, love is a commitment and has nothing to do with feelings. The definition that God Almighty gives for love is nothing about *falling in love* or feelings. It’s a made up phrase by Hollywood which has caused devastation upon the institution of marriage. Marriage based upon feelings is guaranteed of failing and this is why divorce is rampant. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not seek her own and its not easily provoked. Love thinks no evil and rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and love never fails. This is what young women need to be taught. I see NOTHING about feelings in this definition. Love is an action, NOT a feeling.
Women, you will have times in your marriage when you don’t *feel* in love with your husband. There will be times when you feel like you are growing apart. There will be times of loneliness, frustration, and anger towards your husband. None of these are reasons to divorce your husband and cause devastation upon your children. When you divorce your husband, you are essentially saying to your children, “This burden is too heavy for me to bear. Here, children, you bear it.” Study after study, testimony after testimony, proves this to be true and this is why God hates divorce.
If you love and respect your husband, which you are commanded to do (it’s not a choice), stay married to him until death do you part. Seek counsel from an older, wiser woman if you need encouragement and advice. Don’t go to girlfriends who will tear your husband down. Never speak evil about him to others. Kick critical thoughts about him out of your mind. Fight for you marriage. Be a covenant keeper until death do you part.
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Mark 10:9
30 thoughts on “Divorcing Since They Grew Apart”
Amen! While there are feelings of “being in love” in my marriage, marriage is filled with challenges, some caused by myself, some by my wife, and some just because we live in a fallen world. I am grateful that God put a woman in my life that resolved to be committed when we were married; divorce simply is not an option. Living in a marriage where one is confident that any disagreement or difficulty will not end the marriage provides a place to begin working out any issues and seeking healing in the power of Christ.
I love that you and Ken stand firmly on God’s design for marriage. So many miss the joy that is the result of doing things God’s way.
Totally correct. We must stay in an unhappy relationship so that we might gain rewards in heaven.
You’re so right, Chris! We’ve been married almost 40 years and we have so many blessings! The main ones are our children and grandchildren and simply growing old with one person. God’s ways are indeed perfect.
It’s possible that this anodyne statement is covering adultery on the part of one of the spouses; otherwise, what a silly reason to divorce. Before they get married, people should talk about acceptable reasons for divorce, and if it’s anything less than an extremely short list, the other party can consider himself forewarned that there will be “a parting of the ways” as soon as the lovey-dovey feelings fade.
Whenever I hear someone saying they’re divorcing because they have grown apart, I think they probably didn’t try hard enough. Commitment means that, yeah, there probably will be times when you’re not that close, when you even annoy each other maybe, but you work through it.
I just read an article about Laura Browning Grant and her husband Jon. He had a terrible car crash which left him permanently disabled but she stuck by him and is caring lovingly for him. She will give up a lot: she’s a young attractive woman in her early thirties and she will probably never have kids, never have a normal life. The easy thing to do would be to walk out but she didn’t. That’s what love and commitment is, I think. There are wonderful stories like that out there, too!
I have one simple question that should always be asked to each party when the statement “We grew apart” is made. What have you done to try to grow together?
A follow up is, Have you both gone and done your own things not willing to learn about and support what interests and work of the other person.
I will speak to the men a bit is if your wife has a gift of coooking or sewing what have you done to encourage and help her grow that gift for the betterment of tie family and then Christian community.
For wives what gifts or desires does your husband have and do you build them up or stifle them? Do you see some ability in your husband that needs some growth and development that you can encourage and pray for the growth not tear down and nip in the bud.
I can go on having seen wives tear down their husbands stunting and potential growth. This can be seen in leadership in the family, career advancement, or doing common repairs around the house. We are to grow together into one body not tear the body apart. As men we are to learn our wives and as women be the helpmates to our husbands. The only way that happens if there is action towards growing together.
I’ve heard similar stories, along with the baloney, “It’s better for the children.” Yeah, okay. Divorce affected me greatly at 26 so you’ll never convince me that an 8 yr. old isn’t affected deeply and changed forever.
I’ve been reading Debi Pearl’s book and my goodness, there is so much truth in it! It can be harsh to a stubborn woman, but what an eye opener. Even to this contently married for 27 yrs woman, it’s a great lesson!
Thank you for talking about it. I think it’s called Born to be his Help Meet. I’ve been reading a chapter every day after my regular bible reading.
I should add that my parents divorced when I was 26.
They haven’t said anything about adultery so it’s best not to speculate. We take what they themselves say and go with that. What she has said is a common excuse for marriages these days. There’s an article out today that states that US Marriage Rate Plunges to Lowest Level on Record. We, as believers in Jesus Christ, must NOT have the same said about us but instead fight for marriage.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-marriage-rate-plunges-to-lowest-level-on-record-11588132860
God hates divorce because it is opposite His nature. He is a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. Ask yourself, is something that God hates right for me? Or is it sin if I participate? Since your covenant to marry is made before God, He is part of that covenant; and He will help you keep that covenant! If more saw marriage as a promise to God first, (so that His ways are seen, so that He is glorified), if more saw it as an act of worship to Him first, if more realized it was an act of obedience to Him first, then the deception of their wavering “feelings” for this person(who can never completely satisfy) would not lead them to even consider divorce. And that’s when the blessings really start.
AMEN!!! We glorify God when we obey Him.
Our life is about glorifying God in everything. It’s not about our *happiness* which is fleeting.
I think a lot about divorce being considering the family I married into…
Anyways…
I think there’s an aspect of divorce we don’t talk about…
Malicious Intent Upon Children
There are A LOT of mothers and fathers who are Competitive with their children.
I said to myself, ‘I understand why a husband could leave his wife…especially if she was quarrelsome or troublesome. But how could a father abandon his Children? How could a man walk away, to a different country, and just leave his kids behind…not to be seen for months or a year later?’
Also, how could a father marry a step-mother who is …on some level…deceptively hostile to one’s biological children?
And then it hit me…
That was the point. That was a feature, not a bug.
If a man sees his own children as competition to his ego…Then wouldn’t he try to hurt them in any way possible? Then a divorce and that type of new wife would actually be a GOOD thing.
Now that I look at my sister-in-law through the ‘Feature, not a bug’ scenario the affect on the children makes the divorce make even more sense.
If you have highly-competitive, high-jealousy people, with low empathy…Then divorce hurting their children…IS THE POINT.
It’s a hard concept to wrap your head around…but I’ve seen parents be competitive and hostile with their offspring often enough to know this is a Thing.
Amen! Most people don’t look at the bigger picture.
My husband and I have told our children that divorce actually means the family has died. It’s the death of a family. No matter how someone may sugarcoat it or justify it, that’s what it is. Even if adultery happened and the divorce is biblical, it’s still the death of a family. And that’s why God hates it, why it’s so horrible. Satan wants to kill the family. Let’s not help him do that.
Unfortunately, in the case of the couple in question it was the husband who initially filed for divorce. I think that statement is a joint one from the both of them.
As a divorced and remarried woman, I can say with confidence that I had bought into the lies that marriage was about “being in love” and the mutual building up of each (equal/same partner) and when those things faded or failed to happen, my frustrations grew and I initiated a divorce. These are very succinct, tip-of the-iceberg explanations and there were far more failings and details; but this statement does a nice job of summing it up. Now that I am remarried, I understand that my commitment first is to God—-and my response and behaviors as a wife has VERY LITTLE to do with my husband and EVERYTHING to do with my Christian walk, my desire to please the Lord, to be obedient and committed in my marriage and for my family. I choose to act the way I do because of my relationship with Jesus, not because of how my husband treats me(which is mostly wonderful.) Do I get frustrated? Sure. Is there conflict? Sometimes. Am I sometimes disappointed? Yes. But, a person must be accountable for their own responsibility as a spouse within the marriage. Blaming the other spouse or saying “it grew apart” fails to take responsibility.
Obeying God is about making us holy, not necessarily always “happy”.
Sigmund Freud, a massive fraud, spread his psychobabble, that we all needed to do what we impulsively felt like doing, leading to massive mental illness in the West.
Interestingly, his nephew, Bernays, wrote “Propaganda”, detailing how people can be easily controlled by the media.
Which perfectly describes how this woman and millions of others are deluded into thinking their feelings are to be relied upon in determining whether to stay in a marriage. Women initiate divorce 80% of the time.
No fault divorce was a curse on our society.
Marriage was forever.
Globalist bankers have deliberately attacked marriage and the church. The 19th Amendment in 1920 was deliberately passed, to allow women to vote, thus allowing them to be dominated by the globalist banker controlled media, schools, and tech companies, instead of lead by Godly husbands. Notice how the banker controlled media, schools, and tech companies all talk about “empowerment”, “liberation”, “the patriarchy”, contraception, porn, homosexuality, and abortion in glowing language, and how they disparage stay at home wives with children, and child bearing. Since women are emotional, these vicious lies have an effect on many, only a few brave ones, like Lori and many of the women here are able to resist the evil message and to rely on Gods love and truth instead.
Heidi, I agree. Her statement sounds like a PR release. It is best not to hurt each other’s careers, family members, or children. Making a blanket statement that it was an amicable divorce and they still respect each other makes sure their acquaintances and friends do not pry into the reasons for the divorce. While Lori is right to take it at face value, from experience, these types of statements are usually covering up something very painful but that the ex-couple does not want to be made public.
Beautifully stated, Heather. Thank you.
I didn’t research anything about it, Eva. I took it at face value for what she said and wanted to deal with this since millions of women are reading it and taking it at face value too.
Very true, sad that few will connect the dots. Reminds me of this scripture 2 Timothy 3:5,6 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
I too am divorced and remarried. My ex and I married way to young. We were high school sweethearts, I think it was almost expected we marry. We mutually agreed to part and are still friends. My current husband is my rock, my world, my everything. I’m so lucky to have him. We have disagreements but we’re in it “for the long haul”. At the time of my 1st marriage I didn’t have God in my life, if I had, I don’t believe the marriage would have happened.
This practice is devastating, Christine. We know very few divorced people (friends or family), so I have not seen this phenomenon. Are you saying that the divorced parties are competitive and hostile with their own offspring or are they competitive and hostile with their ex, using the children against each other?
This is heartbreaking, as is divorce for children.
If the couple in this post was married when they procreated for ten years, it stands to reason, their oldest is at the most, 9 years old.
I remember being 10 and my parents were building a home, and argued incessantly through the process. One evening, after yet another argument, I asked my mom if they would get a divorce. In anger (which was very unlike her), she firmly responded “I don’t know!”.
I was sick. All these years later, I can still remember that feeling. After observing my behavior through the evening, she came to me and apologized, assuring me that no, they were not divorcing, they just had a terrible argument. She felt badly and never was a flippant remark made again about divorce.
My parents have been married 50 years, and my in-laws were married 68 until the Lord called my husband’s mother home.
I know there are grounds for divorce Biblically, and I don’t share the blessing of still married parents and committed in-laws in any way to hurt anyone’s feelings or sound haughty or judgmental. I’m thankful, though, and give God the glory for the legacy (not perfect by any means, but committed) that both my husband and I observed growing up and enjoy today.
Or maybe if you had God in your life, you would have never gotten a divorce from your first husband. Most are no longer taught of a life long commitment and the sacrifice that it takes.
Every single word of this woman’s announcement is dishonest. Hard to even read it.
As a child whose parents divorced 40 years ago, I remember my parents saying some of these things, and really believing what they were saying. It wan’t until later that everyone in the family realized what lies they were.
As the youngest child, of course, I bore the brunt of the damage. My parents and older siblings all skated off free of consequences. As the youngest, I got utterly cheated, in every way a young man can be cheated. This was after I was reassured over and over again that “my needs came first”.
The real damage to the souls of children, is that every adult involved in the divorce lies, lies, lies, and lies.
Divorce is the most evil of modern lies, perhaps second only to Abortion.
I totally agree with you. Although I believe that the battle for those marriages has already been lost before they started. I love hearing when people manage to overcome issues, but that only happens when both sides change for the better, which is rare.
The main problem that women face in the in their 20s are anxiety and depression. They do not enjoy these years at all. They are expected to be colleague graduate, with a good salary, never complain, be “a chef in the kitchen, a lady in the living room, and a whore in bed”. The last is due to widespread pornography and wicked practices.
That is an ideal that no woman can sustain, whereas men (at least the ones that I come into contact with) expect every single thing on the list. The mood and patience go out of the window first, men stop tolerating that and it comes to a divorce. Men have their own set of issues – alcohol, pornography, gambling.
In your community you probably have a different situation, whereas in Europe, where almost all people are worldly, what I described is not an exaggeration.
There are for sure good men out there, but in order to be prepared for a relationship with one of them, a lot of work needs to be put into healing from psychological disorders (guidance, counselling) and resetting one’s mindset.
In short, I believe that healthy and damaged men have a totally different set of values and one cannot pursue both. I love all the things you say, but I do not see how they could be applicable for damaged men. To be totally clear, I do not blame either men or women. They have been fed by so many contradicting messages and no guidance from the family, that they are mostly lost.
True believers in Jesus Christ need to find out who they are in Christ by reading and studying the book of Romans. This is the most healing and freeing thing anyone can do.
Only death breaks a covenant marriage. Adultery is not grounds for divorce and to remarry. Luke 16.18. We are all in it until death, it’s the remarriage that’s the sin, if there is a living spouse. It’s all about forgiveness, just as Jesus did for us on the Cross. No exceptions, no loopholes. God is Great, He is a God of many chances, Amen. ?❤️?
Wow … such an excellent blog post! Exactly what I was searching for! I wrote a blog: Notoriouslysinglegirl, and all too often I hear this from the men I date “ We grew apart. We fell out of love. We were living like roommates.” Yes, they have children and it’s sad… these men all too often do not seek counseling and carry much anger in their hearts. Yes, Hollywood has distorted love and unless you have a spiritual connection to yourself and a greater power… you won’t know what it is. I do believe there are issues that may not be resolvable ie: abuse of any kind and yes that last when divorce is warranted. Would love to have you on our podcast once we launch for Notoriouslysingle … I’ll be in touch! ❤️