Lost a lease...Saved a marriage...Or Not...

Divorce is a touchy subject in America. With some rates estimating that 1 in every 2 marriages ending in divorce is easy to see why. Every one of us knows at least one person affected by divorce. Maybe they were the child of divorced parents or even have been divorced themselves. I remember laughing with my mom not too long ago about an episode of “Leave it to Beaver”. Beaver had a friend who spent the night but was dropped off by his uncle. When the parents of Beaver asked the young boy why his uncle dropped him off the boy responded “I live with them now, you see my parents are divorced.” This then created to awkward situation of how to explain to their children the idea of divorce. I remember just laughing and joking with my mom “Will you explain divorce to me mom?”. You see my parents are still married but I was just like everyone else growing up having best friends with divorced parents. This idea seems odd that divorce would need to be explained to anyone anymore. Odd and very sad. The reason I write about this topic is because I had a recent experience at work with a women who was leaving her husband. She was literally crying as she read the lease and was explaining to me that once she signed this it for sure meant that she was done with him as she would be finally moving away [read: uncomfortable moment for the 22 year old newly married leasing agent aka … me]. I just simply said if she was comfortable signing the lease and had any doubt certainly do not sign it. She read on and eventually told me she could not sign it and she had to call and talk with her husband one last time to make sure that this was not going to work. I was thinking I would gladly loose a lease and a commission if it saved yet another married on the rocks. I encouraged her to talk with her husband and take any means necessary to reconcile. She left and I felt strongly that for some reason her marriage might work out. Unfortunately I will for sure be moving in that same young women tomorrow. I obviously did not ask for details but apparently that conversation did not go well. It really broke my heart. Here is a woman who obviously still has strong feelings for this man [other wise she would not have had so much anguish over signing the lease] but yet she is still leaving him. I know I have only been married for 4 months now. I claim to be no expert and I realize Becca and I are really just getting into marriage. But I still don’t understand divorce. This post is more just about my heart breaking over the issue. There are so many men and women that have massive amounts of hurt and anger as well as baggage that they are forced to take with them from relationship to relationship because of divorce. This blog has no answer to divorce and I am not going to sit here on a high horse and claim no divorce is warranted. I just had to write it down my thoughs as I have not been able to stop thinking about the women who sat and cried in my office because she was now leaving her husband. Because of this my heart breaks...