Recession is good for marriage
- Michelle Wood: SWCD
- January 8, 2010
- 786
It seems that during good times it is easy to find housing, a job and it’s generally easy to cut and run. During bad times, like now, you can’t go out and find a job and financially speaking it is really tough out there.
In a recent article from the Wall Street Journal it discussed the fact that people are looking out the window and the grass is not appearing to be greener. People are deciding it is better to remain married and work things out than to cut and run from their spouse.
With the prospect of locating a job virtually impossible, a spouse is more likely to work out the financial problems they currently have rather than go out and start a new series of problems.
In other words, people are choosing to stick it out and work on the problems in their marriage rather than try to seek freedom.
It seems that divorces fell to 16.9 per 1,000 in 2008, which is a reduction from the 2007 record level.
What does this say about our moral condition? During good times we are apt to think more spontaneously than during bad times. During good times it is easier to jump to supposedly greener pastures. During bad times we will stop and think things out and try to work through problems when the greener pastures don’t look very green.
It seems to me we are learning a new concept. Marriage isn’t easy. Staying married takes work and there are tough times to go through. Just ask anyone who has been married 40 years or so and ask them if they had any bad times. Of course they did. But they stuck it out and worked through those times.
That’s what we all have done who are approaching those number of years married. We have all passed through tough times when it was tough to stick it out and work through our problems.
Thank God for tough times and long marriages. They are the stuff good marriages are made of.
Bill Weber, CPA, has been advising businesses for more than 30 years. He has served in leadership with Crown Financial Ministries and is a church co-coordinator for Financial Peace University.
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