The best marriage is that which the couples are best friends to each other. It is a grave irony to be married to someone and have another person as a best friend. Such outside-friendships destroy marriages silently and they always create room for temptations to infidelity. Sometimes, we maintain such friendship in the name of seeking advice but even as our first reading says, “Let your advisers be one in a thousand.”
As the book of Ecclesiasticus explains, there are different types of friends and somehow even in marriage, these types of friends exist. There is a friend who is there only for convenience and will not stand by you in the day of trouble. Ask yourself, if your spouse gets locked up in prison, will you still stay and remain faithful in the marriage? There is also a friend who changes into an enemy and will disclose a quarrel to your disgrace. How often do spouses go about narrating issues before the world? You cannot be fighting your spouse in the name of seeking for justice; that would mean transforming yourself from lover to enemy. Again, there is a friend who is only faithful in the time of prosperity but walks away when poverty comes. It is sad to say that many have married for the sake of money only to end the marriage when money was no longer forth coming.
“A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he that has found one has found a treasure; there is nothing as precious as a faithful friend.” The question of divorce will never arise if couples decide to be faithful friends to one another through thick and thin; remaining deeply committed to each other for better for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer till death do them apart. By His very nature, God is against divorce. This is because to divorce a person means to give up on a person and despite our sinfulness and unworthiness, God does not give up on us. Since God never gives up on anyone, He does not expect us to give up on our spouses no matter how bad they are or become.
I understand that what I am saying is very difficult to practice, in fact, in Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus preached it, even his disciples were shocked and exclaimed: “if that is the case, then it is better not to marry at all.” Dear friends, with God all things are possible. Nothing is beyond repair when God is involved. God will never give up on your marriage as long you yourself refuse to give up. Hang on there even when things are difficult. Divorce is not a solution.
Fr. Evaristus Abu.
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