Why Is the Divorce Rate So High Now?
Divorces are at an all-time high due to human egoism, our natural desire to enjoy at the expense of others, which has reached overblown proportions in our times. It increasingly makes us intolerable of one another.
Many couples get married due to receiving great fulfillment from each other for a certain period of time. Then, the moment they feel that they no longer receive fulfillment from each other, they cast each other away.
The old idea of an initial feeling of love that we believe will remain until our dying day, and that we will do everything to sustain and grow, is childish babble. Instead, we end up facing an enemy that is more powerful than us: our nature-made egoism.
If we realize that we have an internal enemy, then we see that there is no point in stopping to make vows, because we see that it changes nothing. We can then start seeing the need for a new kind of education to what we have been raised with until now: one that teaches us how to control ourselves and how to organize our lives with people who are like us. It requires significant preparation.
Instead of making futile promises to each other, we should rather know each other very well, understanding that we — two egoists who have a natural inclination to pull toward each one’s own self — are coming together. Then, we should work on the following question: How should we behave with each other so that our egoistic desires to use each other coincide, rather than oppose each other in confrontation? We should treat this ongoing scrutiny with much importance.
We should then advance with consistent small steps. That is, we take a little step forward, something goes wrong, and then take a half step back, and so on.
When we take a step forward, we then start feeling rejection to each other. Then, we reconsider our life, our current state, our partner, and gradually draw to the conclusion that we can continue living with our partner and that we need to establish some connection between us so that we understand each other in a more positive manner.
It is possible to discuss these steps, but it is also unnecessary. We should rather somehow show our partner how we are incapable of closer connection, step aside, and then undergo such states more calmly. Then, we can approach more love and closeness. We will then develop a normal mutual understanding that will aim to foster love. That is, we will love our partners for being good partners.
A partner, in this case, is someone who understands us and builds a path from heart to heart next to us, precisely through that process of taking two steps forward and one step back, time and again. This process does not require vigilance as much as it requires forgiveness and concession. It is important when entering into such a connection that both sides know in advance that they are on a path of continuously conceding to each other.
Conceding is the golden rule of relationships. Moreover, when children enter the picture, men need to make more concessions because women then have additional and even greater responsibilities.
The root of such a relationship is our connection to the Divine source of our lives, which in Kabbalah is called “the Creator.” It describes the force of love, bestowal and connection that created and sustains all life. The extent to which we yield in our earthly life is the same extent with which we can hope for the Creator to yield to us in our spiritual life.
When we take a step back in family life, the Creator also makes His concession, because it is evident from our act that we concede in order to maintain or even progress the relationship. Therefore, we make room for the Creator to do the same with us.
It is written about such a relationship that “husband and wife, and Divinity between them.” That is, by striving for the inclusive force of the Creator to vitalize our connection and wish for our relationship to be for His sake, i.e., that we aim to connect as a means for our connection to serve as a healthily functioning part in this grand system of creation that the Creator created — understanding also that He brought us together — then we will be on a positive path to a relationship that constantly blossoms in a positive way with more and more love and understanding.