It's becoming RARE to find truly HAPPY marriages today!
Divorce is rending asunder marriages at an unprecedented rate — and for every divorce
there are several other homes that are unhappy, miserable, and wretched.
It's about time we understood there are CAUSES for marital happiness.
Put into practice those right CAUSES and you'll experience the right effects.
This article brings you the true perspective of the modern Western marriage crisis
— the incredible statistics about divorce and marital unhappiness —
and gives you the practical LAWS that make marriage work!
IT'S EASY TO FIND divorced people. Even easier to find people who know divorced people.
And it's equally simple to obtain statistics on divorce; along with clamor from sociologists for "trial marriages" and "pair-bound" arrangements.
But it's anything but easy to assess the heartbreak, the disappointments, the frustration and disillusionment behind this readily available mass of data.
Regardless as to our modern, chic approach to divorce — our attempts to kid each other and ourselves that divorce is "not all that bad" — we're really convincing no one.
Whether it's Mia and Frank, or just you and her — divorce is a cruel, heartless affair — taking obnoxious twists through the deepest human emotions, but usually handled in grubby little offices in front of used-looking oaken desks.
From the Mexican "quickies" to the sensationalized trips to Reno, Nevada, we try to kid ourselves divorce is a practical solution to otherwise insoluble problems.
But one thing divorce is not.
It's not happy.
In Search of Happiness
And everyone WANTS to be happy!
Forget the nausea of singing the "Second Time Around," or the picture of the artificially smiling face of the newly freed spouse throwing her dime-store substitute ring into the Truckee River in Reno. That's just our window dressing. Just remember — people don't get married in the first place if happiness isn't the result they are after.
No one wants to live with heartbreak. We all want the pleasant things in life — no matter how "modern" or "stylish" our tastes. From simple sights and sounds to just plain physical comfort, we want happiness!
We want excitement, fun, and Joy. We want stimulating companions — even intrigue and suspense. We want, in short, a really full and rewarding series of experiences; happiness.
We most assuredly no NOT want head colds, nausea, night sweats, physical pain or injury, economic failure and want, or loneliness and frustration.
We don't want arguments and fights, or unpleasant scenes in public, or nasty, rebellious children.
But something is terribly WRONG in all this.
What, after all, are most of us getting out of life? Are we REALLY getting the FUN, the "KICKS," the deep and lasting satisfaction? Or are we getting the misery and wretchedness instead?
Never make a mistake on this! People marry in search of happiness. They marry because they feel they're in LOVE. (Or they marry because at some time in the past they THOUGHT they were in love; and the marriage ceremony is to cover up an otherwise nasty social situation — a child without legally recognized parents)
Marriage, then, is open admission to the whole world this pair believe they have FOUND something in each other. They feel they have found the very person who will make them HAPPY — who will, somehow, by virtue of spending enough time in the intimate moments of life together, cause them to receive the joys, kicks, thrills, pleasures and happiness they seek.
But what happens, in the broad MAJORITY of cases, is anything but happy.
The divorce statistics prove it! And divorce is like an iceberg. You only see the surface — but the broad, hidden part underneath looms huge and unseen, just like the monstrous icy mountain that rent open the Titanic like a gargantuan can opener.
For each actual divorce, there are several other couples who live together only because of necessity.
That necessity may be children, financial security, pressure from church, social group or friends, any of which may cause mostly unhappy people to cling precariously to a "marital" state.
But if the marriage is a hollow shell — a couple living like strangers in an unarmed truce — there's no happiness in it. The children, if any, are subjected to a home environment that is disastrous to their future well-being and character.
You know of such cases. Perhaps you're living such a story, yourself. But whatever your state — whether single, engaged, married, or contemplating divorce — you need the vital information in this article. This is not psychological gim-crackery, or "pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps" philosophy, but down-to-earth, practical, everyday truth every human being needs.
Our Mad, Mad Marriages
DIVORCE has ripped asunder nearly every third home in the United States! Millions of children now grow up with foster parents, or no parents. Others are reared in unhappy homes, filled with sour, bitter, constant family strife.
Uncountable books, magazines and newspaper articles have attacked the problem from every conceivable angle.
Sociologists have attempted to uncover the cause of divorce, and marital counselors by the scores and hundreds have used every means at their disposal to save shattered marriages from divorce.
All of these combined influences have seemed to have little, if any, effect.
Divorce a Gigantic Problem
Just how serious is the divorce problem in the United States, Britain and Australia? The shocking statistics answer plainly. Divorce, with all its resulting heartache, court squabbles and homeless children, is one of the most monumental sociological problems of our times!
As mentioned, in the United States, presently leading the world in divorce, nearly one out of every three homes now knows the heart-sickening experience of the divorce courts! In Los Angeles County, there is one divorce for every marriage!
The Family Service Association of America said, "Family breakdown is fast reaching epidemic proportions and now ranks as America's No. 1 social problem." Each year, there are upwards of one million persons divorced. The current divorce rate is seven times higher than it was 100 years ago! There are an estimated 100,000 desertions each year — all this in addition to the actual recorded divorces.
The illegitimacy rate has tripled since 1938. Each year, there are more than 300,000 illegitimate babies born in the United States alone. Another closely linked problem, that of juvenile delinquency, has nearly tripled since 1940. Besides these staggering facts on divorce and the home, many other serious problems in human relationships and problems of the family have been revealed by recent studies.
Behind these cold statistics are human beings, whole families, whose lives have become distorted, twisted, wretched things! Little children crying "Mommy — don't leave me!" Boys and girls wondering what their choice will be when they are asked with which parent they would rather live, teenagers knowing no homes, thousands of youths living with "foster parents" or being placed in institutions.
Truly, as this Family Service Association has said, family breakdown is fast reaching epidemic proportions.
LIFE magazine said, "No other civilized nation comes even close to the U.S. divorce rate. We have three times as many divorces each year, allowing for differences in population, as nations like England, France, Finland and Australia, and four to six times as many as Canada, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands." And, of course, they too have their divorce problems.
Every time the clock ticks off 90 seconds, another American home is broken by divorce! There were more than 1,000 divorce decrees granted each day last year in the United States!
Why?
Did you know the majority of murders are NOT committed by professional hoodlums in connection with a robbery? Did you know MOST murders are committed by "friends" or RELATIVES of the victims?
And did you know that the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that killings within the family made up 29 percent of all murders in 1966? Over one half of these involved spouse killing spouse. And 15 percent of the family killings involved parents murdering their children.
What's happening? Why such violence? Why so much anger, so much hatred between marital partners?
Old-fashioned "tiffs" and "spats" between married couples have given way to fist fights, knifings, beatings, shootings! Husbands and wives involved in murder-suicide, or homicide, are increasingly in the news. But why?
What terrible changes are occurring among our families? Why are so many marriages falling apart? What are the pressures that drive marital partners who once said they LOVED each other into the venomous vortex of hate?
Millions of husbands and wives live together today as if total strangers. Divorce is on the increase. Separations, disappearances, desertions are becoming commonplace.
What about your home? What about your marriage? If you're not married — do you sincerely hope someday to become married — and then divorced? Do you look forward to a failure in one of the most serious steps in your physical lifetime? Of course not.
If you're presently divorced — do you know why? Do you know what happened to bring about such a tragedy?
If you are one of the MILLIONS of couples who have deep marital troubles — whose lives are not really happy — don't be ashamed to admit it — and seek to do something about it, before it's too late.
Our modern marriages are deteriorating. Couples today find it difficult to converse, to share, to sincerely blend together as a family unit.
It's common, today, to see husband and wife sitting at a table in a restaurant — each staring at others about them, dolefully, disinterestedly — and see them silently finish their meal, pay the bill, and leave.
How many millions of families are there where all love — real love — is gone? How many millions live like two chance acquaintances, each with his own separate life, each with his own separate thoughts, each going his own way?
The point of all this is quite plain.
Divorce is only the end step in a whole series of terrible mistakes. There need be no divorce whatever — quite literally — if the true cause of divorce were revealed; and, more importantly, the true CAUSE of marital happiness!