[Utah Girl]

Sheesh, I am sitting here reading an article from Newsweek (I know, I know). It is about marriage and divorce, and how divorce doesn't affect the children nearly as much as has been portrayed in the media. And the article tells the story of this family, the woman who says she is a better mother since she left...And here was the reason for their divorce:
"Eli was more than 50 percent of this marriage, in terms of dealing with the kids," Debbie says, and as a father, "he couldn't have been more wonderful." Yet there were signs of trouble between them that she saw, but didn't know how to read.

Even now, it's hard to describe precisely what was wrong. You could call it a lack of connection, she says, which was a word she used in counseling a few years before the separation, but "what does that mean?" She understood "on a primal level" that there was something missing in her marriage, a kind of emotional understanding and support that she hadn't, at first, even known that she needed. She tried to get the message through to Eli.

But they could never get to the part where change occurred.

"I think when she first brought it up, I had inklings of 'Maybe she's right,' " Eli says. "But I didn't want to admit it. Because I didn't want to be divorced." Since then, he's developed kind of a shorthand for explaining the problem: They never learned how to be best friends. "I can't give Debbie what she's looking for," he says. "She's looking for a connection, a feeling of knowing exactly what the person needs and wants, and I--I don't know if I'll ever have that with anybody. But I don't have it with Debbie."

For years, she wrestled with the idea of leaving. She worried about "the selfishness of it--could I put myself before the girls?"--and after eight or nine months of not very helpful counseling sessions, first on her own and then with Eli, she decided to stick it out. But as the ensuing months went by, she found herself wondering, "Can I do this forever?" And she asked herself what she'd say to a grown-up daughter in a similarly unhappy situation. "I would never want their children to suffer," she says. "But I think people have one shot at life."

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I'm just sitting here shaking my head. The precipitating factor in their divorce is when a friend's teenage son dies, and Eli can't comfort Debbie properly. And I'm sitting here thinking "Come on, Debbie, Eli does not read minds, nor does any other man out there. Get a clue!!!" This is one of the more depressing articles I have read in awhile.

[Miss Marple]

Oh, well, yuck. That is why I quit going to a lot of women's groups. They are self-selecting for whiners who don't have a clue. (Not all women, of course. In fact, I daresay not even most women. But it does seem like I run into women like this at women's Bible studies and such.)

[Northern Yankee]

Hey UG...

I read the same article.

I thought the woman was incredibly selfish. Marriage, and parenthood is about sacrificing your needs and wants for the good of your family. That's where you really grow up, and learn about giving to others is more important than the things you want for yourself.

She commented how its now nice because her grown up daughter and she are now friends. Howe nice, but when children are young they need committed parents.

It was just stunning to me.