Sorry, I don't agree that divorce is necessarily a bad thing, if it resolves a bad situation. My parents split up when I was a child of four, when I, too, was put into homes etc, though I've no idea if they, too, would be investigated by the Royal Commission I mentioned, since they have been closed down long ago. My parents never got a divorce, and stayed formally separated for over thirty years when my father died. They communicated through lawyers, they lived separate lives, except for the maintenance my father paid my mother, and even when I went to regular schools, there were custody and access issues all the time, which they had both got into the habit of insisting on, long after I had left home and had my own family.

Divorce is a very bad and very serious thing. I never said there weren't grounds for divorce. I mentioned that there are some biblical grounds for it, but not many. You and I both know that marriage shouldn't be rushed into, nor should it be treated lightly.

I know this conversation is very old now! But I would just like to add, I also don't think divorce is this super evil bad thing that a lot of people like to make it out to be.

Of course I don't think it's the most ideal situation. But life doesn't always go in our most ideal path. Mistakes are sometimes made. They are also *a lot* of disturbed people in this world. A family friend (this situation was very long ago, like decades ago) got married to a man she had been dating for nearly ten years. He was sweet and polite the entire decade. The moment they were on their honeymoon, he struck her for the first time and basically told her this was the way things were going to be like from now on. She endured this man for a year before calling it quits.

I share that story just to emphasize how sometimes, even if you don't rush and feel like you really know a person and are making the right decision, there are some people who will never show you their true colors until they feel the time is right.....whenever that time may be. Nothing she did was wrong, it was everything to do with him being a disturbing, psychotic guy. I do think part of the rise of divorces has to do with abused spouses (both men and women) being both legally able and more confident of getting a divorce rather than just being forced to grin and bear it, so to speak. I think there would have been a lot more divorces in the older days if laws reflected the well-being of spouses like it does now.

I'd much rather a person be divorced than for someone to be living a miserable life and feel trapped. I do think couples should do everything in their power to keep the marriage alive. But 1) it takes two people who both want the marriage to work for it to last, 2) Violence, which is very common, should never be tolerated in any situation, 3) People are only human and make mistakes, just like any other situation in live, 4) Divorce can be a great thing, considering the circumstances.

I think there would have been a lot more divorces in the older days if laws reflected the well-being of spouses like it does now.

You could be right. In the past, in much of Western society, not only elsewhere, marriage laws were more to do with other matters than "romance" as it is today. During Roman times, women were often considered mainly property of their husbands, and a means to an end, eg a way to cement alliances, augment fortunes and, hopefully, to produce heirs. Women were considerably less able to read and write, and were expected to learn from home how to run a household and nothing else.

I've read that, though Roman marital relations were almost obligatory, they were considered not quite nice, unlike romance outside of marriage - at least for men. Women were barred from some activities, to the extent that the Roman senate would prefer that women remained untaxed than have women speak publicly and be able to vote. And in Athens, in the cradle of Democracy, Pericles averred that “A woman’s reputation is highest when men say little about her, whether it be good or evil.”[Thucydides 22]. So when St Paul said, "I suffer not women to teach", in the Bible, he was also warning his contemporaries that to allow women to do so would expose them to breaking Roman law and consequent persecution.

Despite today's feminist theological views of both Sts Peter and Paul, if you read in Timothy and in 1 Peter to any extent, both apostles did try to get their male adherents to be less harsh with women, to get men to love their wives, and to get both partners to respect each other, both partners being "heirs to life". And Jesus, Himself, also said that "Moses allowed divorce for the hardness of your hearts", being well aware of the divorce merry-go-round, where women were discarded if they were infertile, ill, or simply "out of fashion" with their husbands.

Thus, women's rights progressed at snail's pace until the dawn of the Twentieth Century, when, from 1895 onwards, women got the vote, and the chance to stand in parliament, in many Western societies, not only in places like South Australia. Even today, in some parts of the world, girls do not get the same encouragement to get education and are still treated as "property" rather than as equal partners in marriage.

In your opinion, would that sort of attitude, that men "own" their wives, perhaps, be also a reason why that relationship you mentioned would founder so soon after marriage, despite the length of time the couple spent together beforehand?

The Build up of all these problems has made dealing with the first situation I mentioned harder. Does anyone have any ideas of how to cope? get through and move on?

IloveFauns, from the previous posts it sounds like you have already received a lot of good advice. I would say the very first thing you need to do is eliminate stress from your life. It might feel right now that you have too many obligations, jobs, and commitments and you can't juggle them all but you also can't drop any of them. But it sounds to me like you need to drop something. Cut back on your work hours, maybe even quit one of your jobs if possible.

You need to give yourself time to heal, physically and emotionally, and that should be your first priority. If you have other plans or obligations, well maybe this would be a good time to put those on hold for a while.

As for recovering from a break-up, especially one that kind of blind-sided you, all I can say is to give it time. It's going to hurt for a while and that's unfortunately the sad reality of relationships that fall through. In the meantime, make sure you take care of yourself physically.

My response to these kinds of circumstances is to 1) pray and ask God for help while making sure I am trusting HIM with this situation 2) read God's Word, the Bible, and remind myself that my identity is secure in Jesus Christ and not in anyone or anything else 3) go to worship and hear God's truth preached 4) fellowship and spend time with God's people, the church, to gain encouragement 5) talk to a trusted friend or mentor about what I am going through and gain some wisdom and encouragement from them.

Other practical remedies include 1) drinking lots of hot herbal tea 2) listening to music 3) going for long walks / exercising 4) journaling and writing down all of your feelings and thought-processes in a diary.

I hope this was helpful. You will definitely be in my prayers and thoughts and I hope things are starting to look up and you are feeling better!! *hugs*

Ruby xoxo

I have been thinking about marriage proposals off and on for a while. Not because I have any hope of ever getting one (never been on a date and know very few single men) but because of their prominence in media. Jane Austen writes some disagreeable (and thus unaccepted) proposals in Pride and Prejudice. I read a news story in the paper where a man called his girlfriend and said his car had broken down. He knew she would speed to come pick him up so he enlisted the police to pull her over so he could propose. I've seen people hold up signs (one letter each) at a parade. I thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss. What do you think about public proposals? What kind of proposal would you like / did you get? Should proposals be recorded? Is elaborate or simple better?

This is purely academic for me but I do know that if a man every tries to propose to me in a public way I will NOT be saying yes or at the very least I will be saying No later. I don't like being put on the spot and am often uncomfortable in groups. I believe proposals should be intimate and private. I don't think public proposals are fair because they put the person being asked on the spot. There is a lot of pressure from the audience to say "Yes." Not to mention that the person doing the asking will be very embarrassed if the answer is "No."

I came across this article and video.

I have similar thoughts to you, Twig's. I could foresee a slight caveat, though, in that if the couple (as they hopefully have?) has talked about their desire to get married and the girl would like a big, public proposal, then a big, public proposal probably wouldn't have the pressure you talked about and would be quite special. But I do think big, public proposals do have the pressure you mentioned, so...

As far as recording goes, I know at least two couples that photographed their proposals. I believe in the one instance, the guy was a photographer and set up a camera to automatically take photos from a far enough distance that the girl didn't see it. In the other, the girl was out with a friend who was doing a trial run with the camera when they "ran into" the guy; the friend (being in the know) stepped back a bit and photographed it. In both cases, I think those worked pretty well and there were some nice photos. In general, though, I think it would be hard to record the proposal without giving the surprise away.

I kind of understand the idea of having an elaborate proposal that is tailor-made for the girl/the couple. However, if the proposal starts getting too elaborate, the same pressure possible in a public proposal can also potentially occur here. And, at the same time, I don't get it: what's wrong with one person just asking the other straight-out?

That's an interesting question, Twigs! I've never given much thought to what I would like, aside from perhaps being out in nature, but I've seen those viral videos of very elaborate, public, flash mob proposals and have always thought that it would not be a very good way to propose to me, but it would be a very memorable way to break up with me. For some couples I'm sure it's the perfect way to propose, but it wouldn't suit me.

The video you linked got a laugh out of me. I do look at "social media proposals" with a slightly cynical eye, wondering how much of it is a performance for the audience. That said, last week a YouTuber I follow (some might recognize him from Blimey Cow) uploaded a video of his proposal to his girlfriend. It surprised me a little because I would have thought he'd want to keep that sort of thing more personal and he doesn't really make videos based on what is likely to go viral, but the video was actually well done and I could understand why he felt comfortable sharing it online. It showed the story (which was cute and personal without being a big show), but you didn't hear what he said to her when he proposed. It was a way of sharing the proposal with his family, friends, and online community while still preserving some degree of privacy. So I thought that was a nice compromise for people who have a social media presence.

(I also noticed that, in the comments, he said he was hoping the video got enough views so he could rent the venue he wanted for the wedding, so I guess uploading the video may have been motivated by money to some degree. )