Love, Marriage and (Inevitable?) Divorce

I had an interesting conversation with some of my friends today. Strangely enough, I can't stop thinking about it. It was brought up in regards to a question that really never had anything to do with the topic. We were discussing homework and somehow that led to discussing the lives of our parents. Between the four of us, we all had different view points. Two of my friends both had parents who were together. One has parents who have been divorced, one recently remarried. Finally there's me, whose got parents on the edge of divorce.

The question that got us started was asked by me:

"You know how during a wedding, they say 'till death do you part'? Doesn't that mean that a divorce is like cheating the rules of marriage?"

Well, I recieved different answers. From the friends whose parents hadn't divorced, I heard comments about how divorce was okay if you weren't meant to be with that person. My friend whose parents had divorced said that in her opinion, people should not get divorced, especially if they have kids. For me, I was straddling the line. I want to believe that a marriage can and should pull through, but that it shouldn't feel like a cage for both.

When I look at my parents, I know that neither is happy with being together. Unfortunately, in the beginning, both of them never loved each other. They actually didn't even know each other at all. The only reason they got together was because they'd both come out of bad relationships (leaving behind marriages with kids) and were staying together in the same crappy room being rented out to them in San Francisco.

From there, they'd convinced themselves that being together wasn't so bad (better than what they had at the moment at least) and that they could and did love each other. They had a couple of good years while the nice novelty of the realtionship lasted, then things got bad. Arguements and violence became more and more frequent. Sooner or later, one of them strayed. Now, neither of them wants to stay. The only things keeping them together are my brother and me and the financial stability of being together.

Sadly enough, it's more for the financial stability. They both know that without the other's income, they'd be dirt poor again and we'd be kicked out of house and home. So for now, they're acting like nothing's wrong. I don't really know if I want them to split up. Sometimes, it makes me feel bad that I'm more concerned about how I'll be managing money for college without them together than about their relationship.

All I know is that even if it meant I'd have never existed, I wish they never got together. There had never been love, their marriage was a farce and divorce seems inevitable within the next 3 years, if not sooner. If they'd just stayed clear of each other, it would've saved a lot of people the heartache and stress.