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Hollie Atkinson's column appears in the
Marshall
News Messenger every Saturday morning.
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December 7, 2002
Remarriage after death of a spouse or divorce continues to have considerable popular support. Studies show that a tremendous percentage of women age 30 and under remarry after divorce or death of their spouse. One study indicated the numbers to be as high as 94%. The percentage drops as women grow older, but few men under 70 years of age remain single.
In a strange sort of way, this statistic sounds a good note for the institution of marriage. One would think that a person traumatized by divorce or freed from a bad marriage by the death of a spouse might give up on the idea of marriage---just live with someone. Overwhelmingly this is not the case. Many couples who try living together eventually contract a remarriage. When they do this, they affirm that "becoming one with another person" cannot be achieved under other circumstances than marriage.
Since most who find themselves single again, do in fact remarry, the following are some of the issues that need to be faced to insure that the next marriage has a good chance of being a fulfilling one. The fact is, the average duration of remarriages after divorce is shorter than the previous marriage. This fact is true for second, third, fourth, marriages, etc. Why is this so?
TIMING is a big factor in a remarriage whether it follows a divorce or a death. It is simply impossible to establish a marriage relationship until the previous marriage has been put aside. So, how long does it take? That is a bit like asking, "how long does a person grieve the loss of a mate?" I am more comfortable with talking about completion of tasks than months and days.
One task that must be completed before a person is likely to make a good marriage choice is the RESOLUTION OF ANGER toward the former mate. This is true whether the former mate is absented by death or divorce. Anger is often the emotion a person experiences when their mate dies and leaves them lonely, burdened with child rearing responsibilities, or financial shortages. Anger requires huge amounts of energy. As long as a person is heavily involved with his/her former spouse through anger, he/she will be a very poor remarriage risk. The only way I know to resolve anger toward someone is to forgive them. Until you forgive your former spouse, you will spend enormous amounts of your energy being entangled with him/her.
Another task that needs to be completed before the timing would be right for remarriage is ASSESSMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR FAILURE. As long as I am blaming my mate for the failure of the previous marriage there has not been enough time elapse. There must be enough time for me to face squarely my part in the marriage failure and to consider ways to keep from playing that same part in a future marriage. Blaming the failure on the other person or on the bad luck of my choice of partners are indicators that more time is needed for the completion of this task.
For the widow or widower, the above task might be paralleled by the task of AVOIDING THE REPLACEMENT SYNDROME. As long as the surviving spouse is trying to replace their deceased mate, they are not sufficiently through the grieving process to think about establishing a new relationship. It takes time to emotionally bury the deceased.
The above tasks need to be completed before dating begins. Once you become emotionally involved with someone, it is too late to discern if you have progressed through the tasks related to putting the former marriage aside. Entering a relationship with needs attendant to not having completely closed the door on the previous marriage will severely handicap a remarriage.
Our subject has been WHEN YOU CHOOSE TO REMARRY. We have not said anything about blending families. If children are still living at home - or even if they have established families of their own, the issues are even more complicated. Next week, join me and we will talk about WHEN YOU ATTEMPT TO BLEND FAMILIES.
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