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Marital Dissolution (Divorce)

On New Year’s Day 2004, pop singer Britney Spears married her high school friend, Jason Alexander. Less than two days later the marriage was annulled. While this is undoubtedly an unusually brief period of wedlock, quickie marriages and quickie divorces have become commonplace among celebrity couples. Although most ordinary Americans do not marry and divorce so swiftly, the divorce rate remains high, with just over half of all marriages ending in divorce, according to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics. Although the divorce rate has slightly decreased since the 1980s, divorce remains all too common. While many experts have offered multiple explanations for the high divorce rate - including increased societal acceptance of divorce, larger numbers of women entering the workforce, and overall loss of religious beliefs - the divorce rate shows no sign of further decrease.

Given the high rate of marital dissolution, the rate of remarriage is on the rise as well. Along with these new marriages often come children from previous marriages. In fact, these new families, or stepfamilies, now make up more than 50 percent of U.S. families, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Demographer Jon Larson has found that one out of every three Americans is now a stepparent, a stepchild, a stepsibling, or some other member of a stepfamily. Demographer Joshua R. Goldstein notes that the odds are stacked against these newly created families because the divorce rate is even higher for second, third, and subsequent marriages. While the risks of failure are high for stepfamilies, the rewards of success can be even higher. If the family can stay together beyond the first few years of adjustment, then they can actually be stronger than most intact families.

Marriages that follow divorce are filled with challenges that are difficult to predict and even harder to manage. Remarried couples run the risk of repeating the same destructive behaviors they engaged in during their previous marriages. Also, newly remarried couples often face the financial consequences of their previous marriages along with dealing with difficult ex-spouses. In addition, couples who remarry typically have high hopes for their second marriages, and when these unrealistic expectations go unmet, it can be a serious letdown for both parties. In fact, some researchers claim that remarried spouses sometimes see their new husband or wife as some form of compensation for their ex-partner. The new spouse is expected to be everything that the ex-wife or exhusband was not. Unfortunately, argues family psychologist E. Mavis Hetherington, "besides setting a person up for disillusionment, since the new mate may have different but as many foibles as the old, the expectation can also produce marital conflict via shoehorning." In other words, by trying to force the new spouse into a preconceived mold (like using a shoehorn to force a foot into an ill-fitting shoe), he or she will likely become angry and frustrated, which can lead to marital strife and eventual dissolution.

Indeed, it is these fantasies, or unrealistic expectations, that often lead to the break up of remarriages, experts say. More troubling, however, is that tensions can be exacerbated by the presence of children from previous marriages. Many researchers agree that the presence of children from previous marriages is the number one reason why remarriages fail. Newly remarried couples with children who expect the near utopia of the Brady Bunch and other blended-families sitcoms are often shocked to learn just how hard it is to make their new families successful for everyone involved. As journalist Jane L. Mickelson writes, "Stereotypes, preconceptions, and dreams of the perfect family ... can lead directly to disappointment and failure." In those first few years following the remarriage, Mickelson has found that "the family quickly learns that love and respect do not automatically spring into being merely because a living area is shared.” When reality hits, it can increase the possibility that the new marriage will end in divorce.

The risks of failure are especially high for remarriages with children because the relationships between family members are not secure. For example, many children of newly formed stepfamilies are often unsure of how to react to their new stepmother or stepfather. Often they wonder what they should call her or him and if this new marriage will interrupt their relationship with their biological mother or father. The situation becomes further complicated when the new couple has a child of their own. Acclaimed pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton states that "the new baby becomes a symbol of the parents' commitment to their new marriage. Meanwhile, the other children may feel as if they were reminders of mistakes and marriages left behind.” Without an open dialogue about these evolving relationships, the children's reactions put the new marriage at risk of failure. According to Hetherington, "Children can be the make or break issue for many second marriages."

Despite these challenges, if a stepfamily can work through the struggles, then they can be successful. Psychology researcher Virginia Rutter found that "after five years, stepfamilies are more stable than first-marriage families, because second-marriages are happier than first marriages." Researchers and therapists alike have recommended many ways for stepfamilies to survive these daunting challenges, including accepting that their new families are not perfect. By looking beyond the fantasies, stepfamilies can assess their own unique challenges and meet them head on. Mickelson, who was a child of remarriage and has raised two stepchildren, argues that these new couples need to "acknowledge the ways in which they are different from the unbroken family.... Only then can family members take full advantage of their unique ability to establish an exciting new type of kinship."

In addition to discarding the perfect-family fantasy, stepfamilies can excel if they work together towards establishing a functional, if not ideal, family unit. Researchers Jaelline Jaffe, Jeanne Segal, and Sheila Hutman have found that parents can improve the odds of maintaining their new stepfamilies by tending to four key aspects of stepfamily life: (1) agreeing on financial and living arrangements for the new family, (2) resolving feelings and concerns about the previous marriages, (3) anticipating parenting changes and decisions, and (4) maintaining new marriage quality. Although these tasks might seem daunting, the authors contend that focusing on them even before the remarriage occurs will help ensure that the new family gets started on the path to success.

Even if the newly created family is functioning well, there are still social pressures that may invite tension. For example, Essence magazine parenting editor Ylonda Gault Caviness says that American society has not done enough to help stepfamilies survive. She states, "Given the inherent difficulties, stepfamilies sorely need communal support, something that most families take for granted. But the fact is, stepfamilies often don't get the same kind of respect or support from society as their more traditional counterparts." In Caviness's view, society does not view stepfamilies as "real" or "serious" families and are often considered the broken remnants of traditional, intact families. Unfortunately, without community support, these families have a harder time succeeding past those first five years of adjustment. With the assistance of clergy, friends, counselors, teachers, and other community members, stepfamilies can have an easier time making the transition.

In an age when the number of stepfamilies has exceeded the number of intact families, it is essential that the dialogue about marriage and divorce continue. Some of these issues, such as whether ending an unhappy marriage is better than trying to make it work, whether divorce is irrevocably damaging to children, and whether the family court system is biased, have been a part of the divorce debate for decades and exemplify how significant and contentious an issue divorce remains in modern society.

While divorce remains a very limited option for members of the Catholic Church, more and more Catholics are seeking annulments. An annulment, or a "declaration of nullity," is not the same as a legal or civil divorce; it is a church-sanctioned marriage dissolution. The church tribunal decrees that the marriage was never valid according to church doctrine. There are many ways in which prior marriages can be seen as invalid, including if the couple was wed under false pretenses and if one or both partners were previously married. Thought by some critics to be a sign of church hypocrisy, given its usually firm stance against divorce.

The church seeks ways to have divorced and remarried Catholics fully integrated and to permit them to marry within the church. Fully understanding - or the capability of understanding - all the rights and obligations of marriage at the time you wed is important.

The annulment process is not adversarial. What is sought is healing. An effort is always made to contact the other spouse. If your wife wants to testify, the judge will hear her privately, but she is not obligated. After testimony is taken the tribunal would consider the matter and make a decision. The tribunal consisted of a judge; a defender of the bond, who was responsible for marshalling and presenting the arguments against annulment; an advocate to present a case for annulment; and one for the former spouse, if she wished to participate.

Normally there is a charge, $600, to cover the tribunal's costs, For those who cannot pay all at once, they can work out installment payments. And if the parish priest tells us that an individual - say a single parent - cannot afford to pay anything, there is no charge.

For years the Catholic Church in the United States had considered psychological factors in determining the validity of the bond (and granted thousands of annulments on these grounds). Out of Pope John XXIII's Second Vatican Council came a revised Code of Canon Law, which included among those considered incapable of "matrimonial consent" individuals who "suffer from a grave lack of discretionary judgment concerning the essential matrimonial rights and obligations to be mutually given and accepted:" The ability to grasp fully-not just intellectually, but emotionally and spiritually-and to assume the real obligations of a mature, lifelong commitment was a prerequisite to valid matrimonial consent. In the absence of such full understanding, the church could find that no valid marriage ever existed.

There is a stigma attached to annulments: that they were granted only to the biggest donors or most famous members of the church. In fact, during 1991 Catholic marriage tribunals in the United States heard nearly 40,000 cases and approved more than 90 percent of the petitions. In 1997, when Sheila Rauch Kennedy published a scalding book, Shattered Faith, about the annulment of her marriage to Massachusetts congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II. She recounts a conversation in which she says she will oppose the annulment, and Joe Kennedy responds, "I don't believe this stuff. Nobody actually believes it. It's just Catholic gobbledygook, Sheila. But you just have to say it this way because, well, because that's the way the church is." It may be impossible for those outside the Catholic tradition - and for many within it - to understand.

Most Catholics, think of the church's annulment process as some kind of mumbo jumbo, a sop to the large number of Catholics who have divorced and remarried, especially those with money or contacts in the church hierarchy. To be sure, Catholic marriage tribunals and the annulment process they adjudicate are institutions set up by human beings, not by God, with the limitations and imperfections that attend any institution that seeks to accommodate human frailty. But they fill a real need of divorced and remarried Catholics committed to their faith.

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