I am a product of divorced parents, something that I seldom think about except around the holidays and we're trying to juggle 3 different families with mixed success. My parents always got along, there wasn't a prolonged custody battle and both of my parents have been remarried for 25+ years. I actually don't ever remember my parents being married to one another. Both of my parent's remarriages seemed to have the same ups and downs that most people have, so I did have examples of marriages that stay together in my life.
My assumption (and I think the assumption of a lot of Christians, in particular, based on the number of marriage ministries/books/seminars out there) is that if you have a good marriage, your children will see that and will tend to have a good marriage. I still think that assumption is a decent one. However, I was reading a fiction book called Let the Great World Spin, which is a compilation of many short stories all woven together. One of the characters comments on her parent's marriage and how happy it was and how she never felt that she could attain that level of happiness, so married the first boy that showed interest in her and divorced him shortly after.
Now, this is a fictional account, but it has got me thinking. I consider myself to be in a happy marriage. My children almost never see us in conflict (we don't have very much, admittedly, but what we do, we talk through after the kids are in bed). But, is that really the best thing for them? Are we not showing them conflict resolution skills or what unconditional love looks like because we don't fight or bicker? Will their expectation of their own marriage be unreasonable because they don't have that modeled for them? Now, I'm not suggesting that I manufacture conflict just to prove a point, but it does have me wondering. My kids don't like to see us even play fighting, it tends to really upset them.
I think my parent's divorce made me extra cautious about who I chose to marry and what kind of person *I* wanted to be. Will my kids be that introspective because they think that marriage is easy based on what they've experienced in ours?
Thoughts? Was your parent's marriage happy (happy does not mean perfect -- but overall, was it conflict-ridden or did they enjoy each other's company?) and how has that affected your own, or your thoughts about marriage?
