Denial of My Suffrage
Recently, Dallas County Judge Tonya Parker who is openly gay announced she is refusing to perform marriage ceremonies unless and until she can also perform same sex marriage ceremonies. I admire Justice Parker’s courage to act in accordance with her values. I would ask Justice Parker to go a step further and not perform any marriage ceremonies unless and until the entire broken marriage system is fixed.
I don't claim to know the exact answers for the gay marriage issue and I don’t claim to know the exact answers for fixing our unilateral divorce system either, but I do know that these are two broken parts of our marriage culture, and we as a society need to listen with empathy to what proponents and opponents of gay marriage feel and what proponents and opponents of unilateral divorce believe. Together we need to come up with solutions respectful of all.
In the same way Justice Parker feels disenfranchised, others have felt disenfranchised during our nation’s history, and right now so do I. Imagine being denied the right to vote in this election year. Ninety-two years ago women couldn’t vote. I still can’t imagine this, especially as the father of two daughters. I do, however, have some understanding of how women prior to 1920 must have felt, and a new appreciation for the courage of Susan B. Anthony and other brave women. Because for no good reason, I’ve lost my marriage and my family, and with unilateral divorce, I didn’t get to vote.
Before I go any farther, I want you to know I got tired of both political points of view awhile ago and have been a registered independent for many years. Let’s put aside, too, marriages where domestic violence has occurred. That’s a whole different animal, requiring protection for men, women and children.
I find one of the great problems in our society today is a lack of respect for other people’s opinions. This is true as to the issue of divorce as well. I read every day about people who both support and oppose divorce, and how each faction wants to impose its values on the other with no acknowledgement of differing points of view.
For me, I think people on both sides of this issue make some excellent points. Here’s my problem though. It’s not about how I think you should view divorce or how you think I should view it. You have no place in my marriage and I have no place in yours. Who am I to tell you how to parent and who are you to tell me how I should parent? We are too much in each other’s business in this issue.
Prior to 1969, there were too many unhappy marriages. Since 1969, when the first no-fault divorce statute was signed into law in my home state of California, there have been too many divorces. The solutions to problems are never found at the extremes and, quite frankly, I don’t understand how the solution to our out of control divorce rate can be found without putting children’s voices front and center.
The point is this. I got married and my wife and I chose to bring two children into the world. Only I no longer have a vote about their future. I don’t believe kids ever say "I’m happy mommy and daddy are not together anymore." And so how do we as a society deal with this problem so that our kids can get what they truly want and need: mommy and daddy together?
Is it possible we have accepted divorce as the answer too much and lowered the bar so much, deluding ourselves into believing that we have done everything possible to fix and continue a marriage? The larger issue though is that 92 years after we thought we gave everyone the right to vote, one group has been forgotten – our children. And with no-fault divorce, the vote taken away from another.
Several people have been credited with the saying "stand for something or you’ll fall for everything." One was Rosa Parks. There was no power in sitting in the back of the bus as the world was. She had the courage to sit in the front of the bus as the world should be. While on one hand we cannot begin to equate the gay marriage or unilateral divorce issues with racial segregation, we certainly can (and as Rosa Parks did) have the courage to stand up against discrimination, heartache and injustice, wherever and however it occurs. And in so doing, also begin a respectful dialogue.
In this regard, as we close out Black History Month, I applaud Dallas County Judge Tonya Parker for having the courage to risk her career for her beliefs. Again, I don’t know the answers to the gay marriage issue. One thing I can say for certain is that, at the very least, the heterosexual community can’t sit in judgment on the gay marriage issue while we preside over the single most broken system in our society. And just how broken is it? The marriage license itself was first instituted 83 years ago as a means to prevent whites and blacks from marrying.
The Best 2 Hours of My Divorce
Like most people, I reached age 49 never experiencing a lotto win, surgery, or fighting in a war. I have, however, experienced the painful fallout of divorce throughout my entire life.
When my wife and I got married, we had no family in our lives because of the devastation that occurred during the multiple divorces in our own upbringings. My wife’s parents had five divorces between them, all of which brought new children to the mix. My parents' divorce and complicated remarriages led to numerous broken relationships as well. Even I divorced once, in my 20’s, although thankfully I had no kids. And my sister? Well she and I got split up when our parents divorced. And then she divorced twice. There was so much divorce around us that my only sibling and I were never able to build a bond. As if all that wasn’t enough, my wife had one divorce behind her when we got married, too. That split and the ongoing legal and other battles with her ex-husband took its toll on her son as well as on us.
And so my wife and I took our time -- seven years in fact -- before having children of our own. We talked extensively about our backgrounds over the course of those early years together. I needed to be certain our marriage would be a lifelong commitment so that our children would never experience divorce. Nor did I want to relive my horrible childhood either. That's why we both vowed to break the chain and never let our children live our pasts.
I was 40 when we had the first of our two daughters. Seven years later our best friends, who were our children's godparents and the closest thing we had to family, divorced. Two years after that, after 15 years together, my wife also left our family.
With four decades of divorce-induced broken relationships in my rear view mirror, my own divorce has been incredibly difficult. I’ve lost my lifelong dream to experience what it means to have a lasting family. The pain I feel for what my daughters are going through, and the family they will never have, is much worse. And it breaks my heart. Each day brings another agonizing reminder of the beautiful memories of our wonderful family too. I haven’t slept well in two years. I know it sounds funny, but my body wouldn’t recognize a fruit or vegetable if I tripped over one. Exercise means lifting a tissue to wipe away the endless tears. Divorce, my kryptonite, has struck again.
Late August brought even more difficulties when I started losing vision in my left eye. Medication and so many doctor appointments later, I felt I should be invited to the office Christmas party. But pills and drops proved useless, and my doctor told me major surgery was necessary to try and save my sight. The fear of losing yet another part of my life took hold the week before Thanksgiving.
Prior to the surgery, my doctor explained that the required form of anesthesia caused some patients to babble while they were under. I didn’t give that a second thought. I lay on the hospital bed, the anesthesiologist put an I-V in my left arm, and that’s the last thing I remember. Two hours later I woke up in the recovery room. For two hours I was free of the misery I live with day and night.
When I woke up, my doctor was already in the operating room with another patient. I finally saw him the next morning.
“So, did I babble?” I asked.
“Let’s finish the examination first and then we’ll get to that,” he said. I didn’t need an advanced degree to know that meant; I had babbled all right.
“I told you I would let you know if I like salad, and yes, I like salad, “my doctor said after the exam.
He proceeded to tell me that I had gone on and on during the surgery about how I hadn’t had salad for two years and how much I missed it. I interrogated everyone in the operating room about salad, too, and my doctor said he told them about the painful divorce I was going through.
Without knowing any of this, a friend’s wife sent dinner over the next night, bar-b-qued chicken salad. It was good, but it wasn’t my wife’s taco salad (a California staple) that I miss so much.
I still don’t remember those two hours I spent on an operating table and I never will. But they were the best two hours I’ve had in two years. The pain was still there, of course, even though I don't remember it. The nightmare I was living before those two hours, however, continues on.
The fate of my eye is still unknown. But my daughters? Their fate is sealed. Every day they have to endure seeing other kids have what they never will. Because the vows made to them, before they were even born, the vows that were to shape and grace their lives, have simply been tossed aside.
Involuntarily Disabled
I had planned on making my way east on or before Thanksgiving, but my trip has been delayed. I’m still busy making preparations, and hope to leave soon. I've also been busy helping a family that has helped me. My wife and I spent a lot of time volunteering at a hippotherapy center while planning our family. It was beautiful to watch the joy these children experienced while their bodies were being helped. In hippotherapy, physical therapists use a horse’s gait to treat all sorts of medical conditions, including cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, impaired mobility, etc. It broke our hearts hearing the stories of frustrated parents, who would have given anything for their sons and daughters to be fully healed. It warmed our hearts, however, how much they loved their imperfect children, who were nevertheless perfect to them. And so my wife and I were so grateful when our daughters were born with ten fingers and ten toes and as they progressed from crawling to walking to talking. We pictured ourselves growing old together in the same giving spirit as the older horses used in hippotherapy. Over the years, one of the physical therapists at the center and her family became our good friends. While out on her horse the other day, the horse spooked as workers were clearing brush nearby. It reared up and did a back flip over on her. Four surgeries followed within the week and she will be in the hospital for another three months. It will take about a year for a full recovery. I’m sitting at her dining room table now writing this. Two nights before the accident, her family and I ate dinner and talked about my difficult divorce they've been helping me through. Nothing is the same in their home right now. Mommy is living somewhere else, the hospital. Daddy is functioning as a single parent. Their two beautiful children ‘visit" Mommy every so often. The kids don’t understand what is going on and they want everything back the way it was. They had Thanksgiving with one parent and not the other. They’ll wake up Christmas morning with one parent and not the other. The list goes on. These kids are lucky though. A helicopter picked up their Mommy and brought her broken body to the hospital. A trauma surgeon was waiting to examine and fix her. Friends and family sprang into action, taking care of the family at the hospital and at home. When the sun sets on this story in a year or so, the surgeon will have fixed the broken body, friends and family will have helped them endure, they will all heal from their physical and emotional wounds, and life will return to what will be a new normal. My friend’s husband remarked to me how great it would be if my family had gotten the same kind of united support a year ago his was getting now. I started imagining what our life would have looked like during this past year if a helicopter had picked up our broken marriage and brought it to a waiting trauma surgeon. What if friends and family had then sprung into action; all of them caring for all four of us during this difficult time? What if the family court system my wife flung us into had turned us away and told us they first wanted to help us fix our marriage before they would deal with a divorce? Unfortunately, none of this happened precisely because our society simply doesn't much value the life of a marriage. And when friends and families swoop in to help, most help us learn how to divide, not reunite, or encourage us to get over it and move on whether we’re ready or able to or not. Sadly, like my friend’s physical injuries, I’m convinced my marriage’s emotional injuries could have been fixed, that my wife and I could have healed, and in a year or so, about now, our life could have returned to a new normal, with a marriage even stronger than it was before. Unilateral divorce has also involuntarily disabled my daughters. The undeniable fact is that children suffer when a marriage doesn't get the life saving treatment it needs. And while they will still have the opportunity to accomplish many things over the course of their lives, they have forever been stripped of the enormous benefits that an intact family provides and will forever be at risk for the number of problems faced by children of divorce. Involuntarily disabled for life because our friends, families, communities and legal system did nothing to stop and help.
Pre-Existing Condition In A Marriage
Applications and tests tell things. Job applications and interviews determine if someone is qualified to do a particular job. A school application and SAT score determine if someone is qualified to attend a particular school. Several times in my career as a life insurance agent I’ve given a client news that their blood test showed a pre-existing condition requiring immediate attention. This was a good part of my job. While it was difficult to tell a client that a policy would cost more than anticipated, I was able to help them get preventative care so the problem didn’t turn into something bigger down the road.
Since my wife and I separated, I’ve been talking about the history of divorce in our lives. Recently I constructed my daughters’ family tree which looks more like the dissolution of a family tree. As I was discussing the need for divorce reform legislation, and in particular the Parental Divorce Reduction Act, I remembered back to the 80-hour classroom education the state required me to undergo before I could even submit an application for my insurance licenses.
And a light bulb went off. I suddenly realized that my wife and I had a pre-existing condition when we got married. And, therefore, - a high risk marriage!
Given our history, for fifteen years I’d thought we had a low risk marriage. After all, my parents’ had divorced, my wife’s parents divorced five times, and my wife already had one divorce with a child behind her. To me, that meant we stood no chance of splitting up. No one more than us knew how awful divorce was on children and parents. Now I know it was the inverse; we were at the highest risk possible. I hadn’t known that the divorce rate for second marriages was higher than for first marriages either. Or that third marriages fared even worse. Who would want to go through that again? As Vince Lombardi said, "Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit."
Why hadn’t someone told me this six months before we got married rather than six months after we separated? My wife’s OB/GYN asked lots of questions, did tests, determined we would have a "normal" pregnancy and advised us accordingly. Had he determined we would have a "high risk" pregnancy he would have advised us differently. Why couldn’t our marriage license have been stamped "high risk"? My driving license is stamped "corrective lenses "so I don’t drive into a tree. I’m not saying we should have been restricted from marrying. I am saying it would have been helpful if we’d known we had a pre-existing condition that required our immediate and ongoing vigilance.
My wife is a beautiful person and we had a genuine love story that I hoped would be the greatest gift we ever gave our daughters. We also had some of the same money, health and family problems most marriages have. There are couples with bigger problems than ours though whose marriages survive, and couples with smaller problems whose marriages fail. Sure our problems were relevant but it was also about who we were – a couple with no idea they were living with a pre-existing condition.
I don’t know exactly what we would have done differently, but just as someone with high cholesterol, or diabetes, or a heart condition in their history deals with daily living in a different way than someone who doesn’t, we might have altered the course of our marriage too. At the very least, we might have done less diagnosing and treating of ourselves. Reached out for help with the complicated condition we inherited. We might have gone to counseling from day one. We didn’t even know about marriage education. I’ve since learned that it also has a great track record of helping couples with marital problems.
Right now my marriage is on extreme life support in the hospice that is family court. In another two months the " waiting " period will be over and even though my advance directive says to do everything possible to resuscitate our marriage, the plug neither my daughters nor I want pulled will be yanked from the wall. Forget doing everything possible to help us fix our marriage. The family court will have done nothing, and has no interest in helping treat our pre-existing condition. In this hospice there’s no pain control or emotional support either. Unfortunately, one spouse can’t attend marriage counseling alone, and -- it only takes one hand to pull the marital cord. As a result, our marriage will lose its life, and our children a better childhood than we had.
Dissolution of Family Tree
My perspective about marriage and divorce is deeply personal. When my wife and I got married, we had no family in our lives because of the devastation that occurred during the multiple divorces in our own upbringings. My wife’s parents had five divorces between them, all of which brought new children to the mix. My parents' divorce when I was 7 and complicated remarriages led to numerous broken relationships as well. Even I divorced once, in my 20’s, although thankfully I had no kids. And my sister? Well she and I got split up when our parents divorced. And then she divorced twice. There was so much divorce around us that my only sibling and I were never able to build a bond. As if all that wasn’t enough, my wife had one divorce behind her when we got married, too. That split and the ongoing legal and other battles with her ex-husband took its toll on her son as well as on us.
This is the legacy my wife and I both inherited And so we took our time -- seven years in fact -- before having children of our own. We talked extensively about our backgrounds over the course of those early years together. I needed to be certain our marriage would be a lifelong commitment so that our children would never experience divorce. Nor did I want to relive my horrible childhood either. And so we vowed to break the chain and never let our children live our pasts.
I was 40 when we had the first of our two daughters. Seven years later our best friends, who were our children's godparents and the closest thing we had to family, divorced. Two years after that, after 15 years together, history repeated itself when my wife filed an action for divorce. My two children and I have no say in the dissolution of our family and they and their descendants will pay the greatest price.
With four decades of divorce-induced broken relationships in my rear view mirror, my own divorce has been incredibly difficult. I’ve lost my lifelong dream to experience what it means to have a lasting family. The pain I feel for what my daughters are going through, and the family they will never have, is much worse. And it breaks my heart. Each day brings another agonizing reminder of the beautiful memories of our wonderful family too. Divorce, my kryptonite, has struck again.
I founded Kids Against Divorce because there’s no place children deserve a voice more than in their parents’ marriage. After all, they’re the ones who suffer the most if it ends. Founding K.A.D. is one way I’m honoring the promise I made to my daughters. Each leaf on their family tree contains stories of pain and suffering caused by divorce. To rephrase Joni Mitchell, I’ve seen divorce from all sides now. While I can’t prevent my own divorce, through Kids Against Divorce, however, I’ve pledged to help break that chain to create a chorus of children’s voices across America, and a healthy family tree for every American so that when my daughters have children of their own; a culture of happy, healthy marriages will surround them on the family tree of the world in which they live.
Please consider working with us to create a chorus of children’s voices across America, and a healthy family tree for every American.
Sincerely,
David Schel
Founder, Kids Against Divorce