When Beverly Willett’s husband filed for divorce she did what is considered absurd, if not unthinkable, in our culture: she refused to divorce him .
One night when I was up reluctantly working on the divorce papers, my eldest daughter appeared by my side. “I don’t want you to get a divorce,” she said. I didn’t either. Yet until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that I had the power to stop this from happening. I realized perhaps the break-up of my marriage wasn’t inevitable and that by standing up, maybe I could also help others.
While the law gave me the right to try to save my marriage, however, the deck was stacked against me. If parties didn’t agree on a divorce in New York, the only way to exit a marriage was to prove the other spouse committed an actionable wrong like cruelty, sexual abandonment, or adultery. But spouses wrongfully accused rarely exercised their right to fight. “Divorce is about money,” Saul said. No one cared about right and wrong.
My husband said he’d fight me tooth and nail if I didn’t give in. And there were times I nearly did. He kept a tight rein on the purse strings, said he’d seek sole custody, and had his lawyers pound me with paper. Crippling weight loss and the task of adjusting to life as a single mom nearly wore me to a nub. Nearly five years I fought to keep our bond from being broken.
(Via: Family Scholar’s Blog )
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