Why Your "Good Enough" Marriage is Good For Your Kids

Lots of people get divorced. They are unhappy people who see it as their only chance for a better life. In the short term, this may be true. I have learned that many who dissolve their marriages are simply looking for relief from the pain of their current situation.

And while I believe divorce can give relief in the short-term, I have rarely seen it offer joy in the long-term. The consequences and the fallout are just too great.

Those who receive the bulk of this long-term pain are children. But most don't see that.

My experience is that many couples in pain see divorce as offering something better for their kids. Just as it offers relief to the parent, the assumption is that it will offer relief to the children. In the vast majority of cases, this just isn't so.

The reality is that children who are raised in "so-so" marriages, even those that have more than their fair share of conflict and tension, typically do better than children in broken homes.

An article by Elizabeth Marquardt sums this up nicely. The author of several ground-breaking books on the subject, she writes in an excellent article on the Huffington Post website that parents shouldn't divorce for the kids' sake. In most cases, a better life for them is simply not going to happen.

Parents, if your marriage is strained, the best solution is to figure it out, not to cut and run. Do this for the sake of your marriage, but also for the sake of your kids.

And I want to remind you...God is still in the business of turning bad situations into great redemption stories. He can do that with you.