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Divorce should be an option

By: Anna Cristina Tuazon - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:04 AM September 01, 2021

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The House of Representatives committee on population and family relations

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people to determine their own lives.

Not allowing divorce as a legal option is like not allowing emergency exits
in a building. Imagine there’s a fire but the building owner didn’t put in
emergency exits because he “does not believe in it” and that you were
expected to keep managing the fire, not escape it. Imagine still a building
infested with toxic mold but that you were not permitted to evacuate
because others couldn’t fathom why you don’t have the willpower to tough
it out. Most people hopefully will not need to use emergency exits in their
lifetime. And you’ll be glad it’s there when you need it.

Divorce can also be a protective tool against domestic violence, which is the
strongest reason why it should exist. In other countries, they found a
significant reduction of spousal conflict and extreme partner violence once
divorce was an accessible option. When you know that your spouse has
legal rights to leave, you are disabused of the notion of your spouse as
property and less likely to mistreat them. Domestic violence also takes up a
significant portion of reasons for divorce, around 25-50 percent in other
countries. By refusing to provide this option, you are condemning victims of
domestic violence to a lifetime of hell. Not having access to options can also
turn into desperation—leading some individuals to consider a lethal option.

Even without the threat of domestic violence, we should consider the

natural course of intimate relationships. You can only realistically commit
to a set of behaviors, not a set of feelings. You cannot genuinely promise to
make someone happy. You can, however, promise to not have sex with
anyone else (you can still break this promise, of course, but it is more than
possible to keep). Feelings, by nature, are temporary. They can be lost and
regained. They can strengthen and fade.

Love is both a feeling and an act. Love, as a feeling, can change. I do not
know which Hallmark writer decided that love should be forever. The act of
loving, however, is within your control and something you can choose to
commit to. By accepting the nature of feelings, we must accept the
possibility that we might lose the feeling of love for our spouse despite our
best intentions. The act that follows this loss—whether it be active efforts to
rekindle the lost feeling, redefining the marriage as platonic mutual respect,
or acknowledging that the marriage is over—can still be done in a loving
way. The best way to shield children from the harmful effects of separation
or divorce is for both parents to commit to respecting each other and to still
care for each other as co-parents. Ironically, couples who do acknowledge
the wax and wane of romantic feeling are much more likely to stay together
because they do not take each other for granted and make repeated
intentions to stay. They also tend to be more generous and less calculative
during separation and genuinely wishing each other happiness.

Divorce is not the killer of happy marriages. It is simply a life raft for people
drowning in a marriage that’s already long dead. If you want to ensure the
success of a marriage, we should be providing couples with resources and
support to help them better adapt and not simply mandate them to stay
together. If you love someone, you don’t chain them to you; them choosing
to stay is a greater sense of emotional security than locking them in a
divorce-less marriage.

aatuazon@up.edu.ph

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