Thoughts on marriage & divorce

I just started reading a book, recommended by a friend, titled The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, by Judith S Wallerstien, Julia M. Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee. It's the results of a 25 yr study of the lives of children whose parents divorced; there are two earlier books, compiled at other times during the study. I notice a book mentioned on the flyleaf, The Good Marriage, by Sandra Blakeslee. I'll check my library to see if I can borrow it, and if I get as much from it as I'm getting from it, maybe I'll do some follow up on good marriage, rather than questions drawn from a book on divorce

Interestingly, altho my parents didn't divorce until just as I was leaving home (I'm the oldest) and I'd always thought they waited much too long to divorce, I saw myself in the first few pages of the book. Makes me wonder if truly awful, miserable marriages are no better than divorce. If so, "just" staying together "for the kids" isn't enough -- you need to figure out how to be happy where you are, too. It's an interesting read so far.

I started making notes as I read, for a later conversation with the friend who'd recommended, and before I knew it, I was composing a facebook note in my head, which I quickly decided would make a better blog post. Today, I'm feeling ambitious enough to want to have this conversation as a series of blog posts on marriage, and divorce. Because it's so much more fun to converse with the voices that originate outside my head, I'm inviting people to comment on my posts, and I'll be sharing a link for each one on facebook.

Off to write that first post!