The Joy of Staying Together Until the End
Every week, I pick up one of my children’s four children and have them over for the day. This is to give my DIL a break, and I enjoy having them. We work puzzles and I read to them, but we mostly are outside in the front where many of the neighborhood children come to play too. Whenever I have a set of the grandchildren here, my oldest daughter will drop off her 18 month old son, since he loves playing with his cousins.
The other day was one of the days I had them. It rained. It was the only third day it’s rained here in six months! Therefore, we had an indoor day with a house full since some of the neighborhood children came into our home. I made a big bowl of popcorn while the little ones were dancing, the boys were playing with their cards, and the older girls were playing with their dolls. Sometimes, some of them went upstairs to help Ken “work.”
After I took them home, Ken asked me to watch one young woman on American Idol sing. I don’t watch that show, but he said this young woman was one of ten children and her dad was a pastor. The wife left him and their ten children. This is heartbreaking. I told Ken that this is pure selfishness. She was only thinking of herself and not how her actions were going to forever impact her children.
I reminded Ken of the time when we had four young children and he looked at me and said, “I will never leave you because of the children.” We didn’t have a great marriage back then. We argued a lot, and I was far from a submissive wife to him. He then responded that he wouldn’t have left me at least until the children were grown. I told him that even then divorce harms the children greatly. Our children and grandchildren love coming to our home; their parent’s and grandparent’s home.
A friend of ours has parents who divorced when he was an adult. Their entire family is fractured and not close. There’s no place where they can all gather frequently and enjoy each other. Even the weddings are uncomfortable. My parents stuck it out even though they weren’t “happy” together. (They ended up very happy together in the last years of my mom’s life.) But all of us children and grandchildren are SO thankful they stuck it out! Not only as an example to all of us but for the many special memories we have of gathering at their home and celebrating one thing or another.
We’ve been married over forties years now. There is great joy in having so many shared memories together, mostly of raising and loving our children, and now enjoying and loving our grandchildren. We’ve also grown a lot spiritually. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s always good. It has become a lot easier as I have learned the ways of the Lord and am being transformed by renewing my mind with God’s perfect truth. Build a godly generation for your family, women. Yes, it’s a lot of hard work, but the fruit is beautiful beyond compare!
Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.
Proverbs 17:6
13 thoughts on “The Joy of Staying Together Until the End”
Amen! I have the same story! Coming from a divorced family I was determined to not let that happen to my children. It is not easy! I am unequally yoked, s very hard road to travel, but He is good! My husband’s health is failing in his mid fifties. But we are here, enjoying our many grandchildren. Both happy we stuck it out.
Sadly the church and women use this to shame men and never address the issues of the marriage. Because it’s easier to shame men than to fix marriage. The suicide rate amongst men including Christian men is a stain on the church.
My parents divorced soon after I became an adult. I was the youngest. My parents had been extremely active in our church and my father was one of the most prominent members of our church in our city.
It was devastating, especially on me and my oldest sister. Even though she was married with children of her own, she told me not long ago that she went into a deep depression. I thought at the time it didn’t impact me, but I soon had very serious health conditions.
In a recent conversation with my father, he still tried to justify it. There was no adultery or abuse, just two unhappy people in a marriage, unwilling to do what was necessary.
Because of my parents divorce, we have had lots of drama at family activities, very unpleasant times. Also because of my parent’s divorce, I have fought through very difficult times in my marriage, times that continue, often.
I dream of a day when my marriage is something that brings me joy instead of the most difficult challenges in my life. Even so, I know God has been good to me.
My mom and stepdad divorced when I was 25 and it was an absolute nightmare for me. At least most parents try and protect small kids but adult kids are fair game to drag into the brouhaha. It’s been 33 yrs., my mom died 8 yrs. ago and my stepdad is STILL incapable of having a conversation with me and not mentioning how much he had to pay her in the settlement.
That said and though I do love my stepdad, her marrying him was the single biggest negative impact to my life. I went from being a well adjusted and happy child to an emotional trainwreck. If any parents want to screw up their kid’s life, don’t just divorce….remarry and guarantee it!
I know there are rare exceptions, but parents tend to not see the obvious in this case, believe me. I think they’re intentionally ignorant. And don’t bother asking your kid and expecting a truthful answer. We’re great liars to protect you. My mom apologized to me less than 6 months before she died for remarrying. I never said a word one way or the other. She knew. But those rare exceptions I spoke of? I’ve never met one. I’ve only heard about them, like unicorns.
So precious. I love this. Great advice. I am not happy you had a time you struggled in your marriage but it does give strength to your words about staying even then in marriage.
Beautiful, congratulations!
Stable marriages are the backbone of America, and require righteous selfish men and women. Too many men and women break up their marriages over selfish motives, and that let’s everyone down, themselves, their children, their friends and family, and society.
Growing up in a family of 18 was full of beautiful memories, and, no women in my church practiced birth control, so, families over 10 were common, and having 4-6 kids was the bare minimum.
I need to finish my book about the experience, because rather than condemning the death lifestyle so many men and women embrace today, where they either have all kinds of sex outside of marriage, or, they refuse to have children in marriage, it’s far more effective to shoe the joys and beauty of Gods design for marriage.
“A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still”
Harpies gotta harp. The sad fact is no one, bar a few you can count on 1 hand shoot straight with women in their complicity of destroying masculinity, men, and marriages. I’ve sat in counseling rooms with a “Christian” counselor speaking truth about my problems in my marriage and I get told im being offensive and we cannot continue because of my statements about “dangerous patriarchy”.
But I’m still here, making the best of it because of the children. But there have been many days I’ve grown weary of enduring the barrage and wanted to give up. The church is also responsible for the destruction of marriages and men as well. They were early adopters of cancel culture, wanting to cancel dangerous masculinity.
Just celebrated 36 years. My daughter will never be able to have children, my son and his wife have only just married. So fingers crossed we will get happy news in the future.
My parents stayed together, although they were not compatible at all and my father was objectively a difficult man. Divorce would have been more stressful for my mom and me, since my dad would come back into our lives whenever he wanted and bring worldly chaos. Nobody could stop him from that. By having him in the home, we made him calmer and had at least some positive influence on him and his health, both mental and physical. He even became saved in the last weeks of his life. Praise the Lord.
The bond remains forever once you have children. Choose wisely, a godly man, but if you already ignore red flags and big trials come – at least do your best to make it work and bring peace.
Hi, I discovered you through Instagram. I look forward to browsing around your blog. My husband and I just celebrated our 35th in February, and like you, it hasn’t always been easy, but we persevered through the difficulties, and our marriage is stronger because of it. We both come from long-married parents—my parents will celebrate 62 in May, and my in-laws celebrated their 65th two weeks before Mom passed into the arms of Jesus. Both sets of my grandparents had 50-56 year marriages before passing. Long, committed marriages are one of the best legacies we can give our children!
A few of our “couple friends” have divorced after 25 or 30 years of marriage. None of the divorces have been about adultery—just about growing apart or becoming bored. Their adult kids are the ones who are really suffering now, especially the ones who are married to someone whose parents are also divorced. They now have 4 sets of parents to try to spend time with.
I’m sure you probably get a lot of ugly comments here at your blog. But I want to thank you for standing firm on God’s truth and not caving in to the feminist voices of the day.
Blessings,
Patti
Amen
I want to buy said book.
This is such a wonderful post, thank you. It’s a simple statement about your life and your family, and everybody can understand that.
My own parents got divorced when I was a teen, and it not only destroyed my siblings, but left us with noplace to take our kids to be with grandparents. So sad.