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FIRST-PERSON: The Christian divorce rate myth (what you've heard is wrong)
Baptist Press ^ | Feb 15, 2011 | Glenn T. Stanton

Posted on 02/16/2011 2:06:45 PM PST by wmfights

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W. Bradford Wilcox, a leading sociologist at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, finds from his own analysis that "active conservative Protestants" who regularly attend church are 35 percent less likely to divorce compared to those who have no affiliation.
1 posted on 02/16/2011 2:06:48 PM PST by wmfights
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To: wmfights

That makes much more sense than what is reported by the usual suspects.


2 posted on 02/16/2011 2:09:36 PM PST by skr (May God confound the enemy)
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To: skr

Thank you- one of my pet peeves is preachers who bear false witness against the church to make some kind of a convoluted point! I appreciate you posting this-


3 posted on 02/16/2011 2:11:24 PM PST by pastorbillrandles
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To: wmfights

OTOH, if all the couples who were just living together were added into the mix,.....The fact is, Christian couples are more likely to get married in the first place.


4 posted on 02/16/2011 2:17:36 PM PST by eccentric (a.k.a. baldwidow)
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To: skr

In 1996, my wife was part of a group of five women who were very active in their churches, as were their husbands, including deacons, children s ministry, etc. They also had families and had all been married in the “20 years” range. One of the women was even the secretary at her church.

By 1999 all of the women except one had divorced their husbands. And they all used the same attorney. No, the one wasn’t mine. I was the second to go. I had been married 20 years and it happened out of the blue and was brought on by a class she was taking at the church (Learning to live, Learning to love).

Interestingly, the Lord brought the woman of my dreams into my life less than two months later! And I was “done” with women - or so I thought. We are nearing our 13th anniversary and the honeymoon STILL is not over.

And my wife is now counseling a woman she works with that is the same age as my ex was when she did it. And the reasoning is the same - she’s just “fallen out of love” with her husband and wants to move on. And yes, she is also VERY active in her church.

On a side note, the reason I think the divorce rate is so high among Christians relative to non-Christians is that non-Christians often don’t bother to get married. They live together and when the going gets tough they split up. It is not factored into the stats.


5 posted on 02/16/2011 2:22:45 PM PST by RobRoy (The US Today: Revelation 18:4)
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To: wmfights

Thanks for posting this. Every Christian knows it takes 3 for a successful marriage: husband, wife and the Lord.


6 posted on 02/16/2011 2:26:11 PM PST by lastchance (Hug your babies.)
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To: RobRoy

Your story shows that churches aren’t teaching very well what love is - it is not just a feeling. It is not passive.


7 posted on 02/16/2011 2:30:24 PM PST by heartwood
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To: heartwood

Falling in love is emotional, but Love is an act of the will.


8 posted on 02/16/2011 2:33:41 PM PST by agere_contra (Historically every time the Left has 'expanded its moral imagination' the results have been horrific)
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To: heartwood

>>Your story shows that churches aren’t teaching very well what love is - it is not just a feeling. It is not passive.<<

Well, at that same church I was taught that love is a decision and an action. I say to this day that everyone is loveable and hateable. How you choose to “see” them is completely up to you. And when you marry them you make a committment to “love” them.


9 posted on 02/16/2011 2:42:32 PM PST by RobRoy (The US Today: Revelation 18:4)
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To: RobRoy

Interesting story RobRoy. When I was a teenager, our church decided to get a deaconess because it was a very large church and the two pastors were overwhelmed. I don’t know what the divorce rate was before she came, but all of a sudden it seemed like couples all over the church started divorcing ... people who had been married for years or even decades.

The deaconess had a nice big house, and it seemed to become a staging place for women that had just left their husbands ... until they “got on their feet again”. At one point, I think there were 7 or 8 women living there, with their children. I met more divorcing people in the year after she came than I had in my entire life up to that point. And then my parents switched congregations ... and it all went away.


10 posted on 02/16/2011 2:53:35 PM PST by lkco
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To: RobRoy
I think Divorce, like Pregnancy - is highly socially contagious among women friends. It is like when their menstrual cycles align or something!

I thought I was happily married, then the best friend of my wife got divorced........ I was divorced myself within the year.

11 posted on 02/16/2011 2:58:28 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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To: lkco

Yes. I think it is the cuture in which we now live. I understand that roughly 80% of divorces in the US are instigated by the wife. And a huge percentage of them are because she just “isn’t happy” any more.

As a matter of fact, this “fredoneverything” article pretty much nails what happened to my family. Frighteningly so. A lot of men who have read it have commented that it is very similar to what happened to them.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/Divorce.shtml


12 posted on 02/16/2011 2:59:03 PM PST by RobRoy (The US Today: Revelation 18:4)
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To: RobRoy
On a side note, the reason I think the divorce rate is so high among Christians relative to non-Christians is that non-Christians often don’t bother to get married. They live together and when the going gets tough they split up. It is not factored into the stats.

It is not factored into the stats ON PURPOSE! If they only added the non-traditionally married (common-law marriages) into the stats, it would COMPLETELY blow their statistics and talking points out of the water! If they also added in the lived with someone for more than 12 months crowd, it would become a complete non-issue!

Including the real statistics would simply negate their entire argument, so they do not include the BAD information!
13 posted on 02/16/2011 3:04:51 PM PST by ExTxMarine ("Convictions are more dangerous to truth than lies." ~ F. Nietzsche)
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To: allmendream

Yes. I was at a wedding last summer where I met the woman who stayed with her husband. She said she stopped going to the “ladies night out” because it was basically a “complain about your husband and get moral support” session. You know, the old, “my husband did such and such.” and “I don’t know why you put up with him” baloney.

True friends don’t respond that way, unless we are talking REAL abuse.


14 posted on 02/16/2011 3:07:17 PM PST by RobRoy (The US Today: Revelation 18:4)
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To: allmendream

>>I thought I was happily married, then the best friend of my wife got divorced........ I was divorced myself within the year.<<

Yep. Same thing here. I literally did not see it coming.

One of the reasons they are doing it, I believe, is because they “can” and play down the negatives and play up the positives.

A woman in a prarie log cabin in the early 1800’s would be kinda stuck if she divorced her husband. Of course, like is mentioned in the article I posted from Fred, many feminists consider this newfound “freedom” for married women to be a Good Thing. Kinda like picking up a hot chick at a sleazy bar is a Good Thing, until you come down with the clap.


15 posted on 02/16/2011 3:13:16 PM PST by RobRoy (The US Today: Revelation 18:4)
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To: RobRoy
...it was basically a “complain about your husband and get moral support” session.

My wife was getting into that same depression mode and she met up with an old high school friend (actually an old high school boyfriend) and started talking about how bad I am and how I didn't do this or I always wanted to do that, etc...! I found this out because she told me they were just talking. Then she started telling me I needed to do this or that and that is what "she thinks." Stuff that was NOT coming from my wife!

I told her if she had complaints, etc... then she and I needed to talk about those items, not her and someone else. She said, it wasn't like that. Then I said, if he doesn't know my side of the entire story then he is simply giving you the moral support that everything YOU are feeling is right, which makes me the BAD guy - no matter what.

It took her almost six months to finally realize that I was right and that he was leading her to question her marriage to me. She said she was trying to fix US without including me in the conversations! Earlier this month we celebrated 24 years together! I thank God that she decided to sit down and talk to me about these things and not someone else!
16 posted on 02/16/2011 3:21:54 PM PST by ExTxMarine ("Convictions are more dangerous to truth than lies." ~ F. Nietzsche)
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To: ExTxMarine

>>Earlier this month we celebrated 24 years together! <<

Congratulations! Seriously.

Meanwhile, mine refused to talk - at all. We even got the church deacons involved and the only thing she would even listen to is anything supporting her position that if only I would change, everything would be ok. Funny thing is, I WAS changing and continued to change. My current wife of almost 13 years is reaping the benefits and she never tires of telling me how she feels.

Meanwhile, my ex is falling into exactly what Fred warned about, except in her case it is not a cat named fluffy, but a dog.

And our three daughters? The middle and youngest were in a rock/pop band with me last year (we have a web page but I don’t post it here) and my oldest is actually thinking of moving to Kentucky when we do.


17 posted on 02/16/2011 3:30:23 PM PST by RobRoy (The US Today: Revelation 18:4)
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To: RobRoy

Sorry that it didn’t work out with your ex, but very happy that it IS working with the new wife!

It is always good to hear when the kids come out on a plus side! Too often that is not the case (my parents divorced: it was NOT good for my siblings (I was still young enough to not be as affected as the older ones - and she was re-married by the time I got into my developmental years))!

Lots of prayers to you and your family!


18 posted on 02/16/2011 3:38:48 PM PST by ExTxMarine ("Convictions are more dangerous to truth than lies." ~ F. Nietzsche)
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To: RobRoy
Well yes, and there is the other side to it as well.

Sexual and physical abuse, of herself or her children, that a woman wouldn't have the economic freedom to leave.

My father said he read a book about the habits of the upwardly mobile (not those born wealthy, but those born poor who become wealthy) - and one thing they seem to NOT do is divorce.

Divorce killed me economically.

I used to own a three bedroom house with an ocean view and we had a maid twice a month and a gardener every week. The two of us worked hard, but lived like royalty. We had a combined income well over 100k a year.

Now I live in an apartment and have debt and a tax bill, had to shortsale the house in a down economy.

On the plus side she was the best damn roommate I ever had! Payed half the bills, was sexy as hell, and kept ME real happy!

Being single hasn't been so bad either. A LOT of desperate women out there!

19 posted on 02/16/2011 3:39:17 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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To: agere_contra

Wonderfully said.


20 posted on 02/16/2011 4:06:05 PM PST by Sergio (An object at rest cannot be stopped! - The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight)
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