Recipe for Divorce

Unless you have been living under a rock, you have seen and heard what has happened in the lives of Jon and Kate Gosselin. They started as a young, happy couple that wanted to have children. After trying to achieve their dreams the natural way with no success, they resorted to fertility treatments that resulted in twins. A few years later, the couple decided that they wanted to have just one more child; they got six.

Any marriage would be strained under so much pressure, right? When a family of four transforms overnight into a family of ten a lot of changes can be expected. First, there were the obvious challenges of how to afford such a large family. Then, they were faced with the issue of space. Could you imagine having ten family members in a house that was only big enough for four or five?

Well, worry no more is what they thought when TLC offered them a reality show. Their money troubles were over. They could take the children on trips to places that they otherwise would not have seen. They could afford a bigger house where everyone could be comfortable. Both parents could stay home with the children. It sounds like a dream come true, right?

Wrong! Jon and Kate plus eight became a multi-million dollar empire but there was one key factor missing from the equation; Jon and Kate. Kate has repeatedly referred to the children as her “number one priority.” So where does that leave her husband? That’s right, number two and you know what happens to number two. It gets flushed. The couple or former couple as they are referred to now, are quick to blame the media but this divorce would have happened with or without the media.

The classic recipe for divorce is not the media. Look at the divorce rate in this country over the last ten years and look at how many of those couples have had their lives exposed on a reality television show; less than one percent.

Families with children are making one monumental mistake. You are putting the children before your spouse. When you decide as a couple that you are ready to expand your family, you have to make a commitment to yourselves. Women are notoriously guilty of husband neglect but men are not completely innocent either.

When these children that you have devoted your entire existence into nurturing go off to college or the military or whatever it is that they do when they move out, you are left with someone that you don’t know anymore because you haven’t invested enough time into the relationship. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you should neglect your children but you have got to work hard at your relationship with your spouse and it won’t be easy. You have to have a plan and a schedule and when the plan and the schedule get thrown out the window, go to plan B or plan C, but please don’t forget who you married and why you married them.

If you are still married today and have children and don’t want to be the next Jon and Kate, make time for your mate. Go out on a date, read to each other, do something that you haven’t done before and always keep sex in the relationship.

I’m not an expert but I see what’s happening around me and I don’t like it. I have made it my responsibility to blow the whistle on spousal neglect. We can end this epidemic of divorce and maybe, just maybe, get things back to where they belong. Couples getting happily married, and staying happily married.