Comments about ‘Group suggests 1-year wait to get divorced’

Why is this what people are having an issue with? I think they should make it much more difficult to get married than it is to get divorced-- people make far more snap decisions about weddings than they do about getting divorced. You already have to wait 90 days without kids, and a year and a half if you have children or debt together. I've yet to meet a couple that waiting it out worked for. This is a ridiculous law to try and force on everyone.

"people in the throes of a divorce might be amenable to reconciliation if they could slow things down and address some troubling issues in their marriage."

So... if people slowed down to listen to each other AND tried to work through their difficulties... they could likely save their marriage?

Was this really that hard to figure out? Yes, there are very legitimate causes for divorce- but like 'abortion' and all other moral issues that people justify based on pretended good intentions... most divorces are not the result of legitimate necessity.

Many aren't honest with themselves and do very little self-reflecting. People say 'I have tried' all the time; saying "I don't have time to get things I want done". Meanwhile they watch 5 hours of T.V. each day and wonder where the time went and why nothing got done. Likewise, I believe a great deal of divorce comes from a lack of commitment to each other. People want the idea of marriage, the idea of a nice house, nice family, nice things... yet never want to work for them.

We are only entitled to the fruits of our labor. Marriage IS work, but GOOD work.

I find this proposal completely offensive. There are many reasons why some get divorced, to assume most are "fixable" is completely ignorant. I really dont think someone needs a year to finalize a divorce if infedelity, abuse of spouse/children, serious crimes of spouse, or many other toxic environments that end in divorce. The extent some want to go to regulate other people's lives is downright scary... And offensive.

Somethings that happen just cannot be set aside and the situation left to just work through it and move on.

Lats just say for here, when a Trust Issue is Broken.

When one person hurts another or both people hurt each other. Some times the 3rd partys like kids an relatives will NOT shut up.

Somethings are just hard to over come. If you do not want a repeat then you have to get rid of the stressors.

Bill get paid, stay paid, and are not run up.

Conception by the wife is only from the husband. Husbands Name is Tom, not Tom Cat.

The Yoke stays equal, the Religious commitment stays equal.

The Baby fat is mostly lost not 100 more pounds gained in 2 years. The Husband does not become a big belly glutton looking about 7 months along himseelf.

The P word which I believe is vastly overrated unless personal contact is made.

Both people remaining interested and keeping the Vows, and remembering what the Vows where in the first place.

Telling the Relatives to shut up and making oneself happy.

Some marriages can and are worth saving both people have to work hard on it.

Maryland already has a mandatory year waiting period; two years if both parties don't sign the separation agreement. It certainly didn't entice me to change my mind. All it did was put me in limbo. I was living alone and wanted to move on with my life, but I was technically still married so I couldn't date, being a strict Mormon. Tack on the six months it took to get a court date after filing and the length of most divorces is at least 1 1/2 years. Is Maryland's divorce rate somehow lower because of the waiting period??? Not a chance! Most people I know didn't make the decision to get divorced lightly. Making them wait just prolongs the anguish of being tied to someone they know they don't want to be with. The waiting period should be before getting married, not once someone wants to leave.

If you want to lower divorces, efforts on the back end will have minimal success. Put the effort into the front end, including premarital counseling, encouraging longer engagements, discouraging marriage under a certain age, and initiatives like that. My observation is that marriage decisions are made my young people, driven by factors that are poor predictors (like hormones or living a romantic dream), and they do not know the person well enough. How many marriages do we see, especially in LDS culture, where a couple meet (especially just after a mission) and get married in the course of just a few months or even weeks? Pre-mature marriages are the root of the largest number of divorces, including those that come after 30 or 40 years. The rush to marriage is as bad, if not worse, than the delay to marry that is so decried.

Or lock them up in jail until they reconcile.

I'm not sure that legislation of this kind is always appropriate, as stated in one opinion, when grounds for divorce are centered around abuse and so forth. However, if my understanding is correct, the majority of divorces are not resulting from such extreme situations, but more from boredom, not wanting to work through fixable issues, seeing greener pastures elsewhere and so forth.

Nor do I think a statement of waiting to get married can be equally applied to every situation. I know some marriages that began within a month or two, or even weeks of first meeting that have lasted for decades, and continue to thrive and others that fell apart after a few months.

There is no easy fix for anything. Anything worth while takes work, and some situations hit without warning and must be remedied immediately. People need to learn the skills to make better decisions for any and all choices.

glad to see the proposal includes and exception for situations of abuse - I'm surprised to see those comments saying you shouldn't have to wait a year in abusive situations. Makes me wonder if the commenters read the entire article.

I have to agree with the issue of too many young people getting married too young and without a proper courtship. What's the rush? Girls just fresh out of high school marry some rm and when the kids arrive and real problems start to show up, they are not mature enough to know how to handle the usual and normal problems in life. They believe in the "happily ever after" but they don't want to acknowledge that comes after hard work like everything else. I know of a girl who start dating when she was 18 1/2 years old. They started to talk about marriage 3 months later. Her dad's response was "are you having troubles with your hormones? otherwise, be strong, and wait". She is almost 21 and very much appreciates her dad's advise. She said it would had been a mistake getting married that young and now (still dating same boy), they are more mature and ready to get married.

L Kaiser, to assume that people making such statements are without reason is as ignorant as you suggest others like myself are.

You couldn't possibly know my experiences, knowledge, expertise, or lack thereof on any issue relating to divorce.

I recently commented regarding the poll that showed Utahn's having a higher rate of people who have thought about suicide. I commented on a couple problems with such statistics, then I made a point that an individual potentially is far more capable of knowing what a survey can easily miss. Human interaction and experience will teach you far more than polls will. If you want that full argument, you can find it.

In the meantime, my point is this- MY experiences have shown what my comment suggested. My religious leaders have made statements that I believe share some common ground there.

I don't believe that there aren't marriages that legitimately call for divorce. I simply believe there are far more marriages that could be fixed if people were committed enough. On a side note, that doesn't mean I think such a law is a good idea either. I simply believe if everyone ACTUALLY committed to their marriage, less would divorce.

All that will do is encourage more States to reap the profits of people traveling to another State with little to no divorce waiting period.

Marriage is very hard work for couples. I married at an older age but don't regret that decision. We have had our ups and downs but I sure wouldn't want to be single again. I don't think having a waiting period is going to make a differance; it may prolong the inevitable. Maybe some marriages should have never been.

I am divorced and remarried with a happy second marriage lasting 20+ years now. With my first marriage I had tried to work it out for years. It took a lot of courage to finally call it quits even though my ex was unfaithful on more than one occasion. My ex had hurt our family financially, using and selling drugs and putting my children and I in danger. I think if had not been for a timely divorse, I might have foolishly returned to the verbally abusive situation. It took courage to get out of there even though I was not being physically abused. I think a longer waiting time would have made things worse.

As a young woman growing up in the 60s and 70s in Utah I felt a great deal of social pressure to get married and have children as soon as possible. Yes, I was married to a rm in the temple. A longer engagement and a closer look into his family background would have helped. I wish I had taken things a little slower.

Well, we all know the number 1 cause of divorce?..... Marriage! I think the poster who said that it should be harder to get married has the better idea. It's easy to rush into something, but hard most times to get out of, and this would only make it harder. I dont' like more laws that are unnecessary.

Laws, laws, and more laws! As if forcing people to do things using laws is the solution to everything. I don't believe that one size fitting all in this kind of situation is any more valid than requiring people to live together for a year before they can get married---sort of to check for compatibility before they make the leap. Both of these extremes are kind of silly, when you think about it. Such a solutions as this group is suggesting is tantamount to requiring people to remain married---or tied or chained---to each other for at least one year, whether they honestly want to or not. In many cases, such a situation could become excruciating or worse---and often does in jurisdictions where the waiting period (to get on with one's life) is unreasonable.

My daughter tried to fix her marriage for 7 years. He did drugs, drank, and abused her. I don't want her to wait any longer to end this "marriage."

Perhaps we should just do away with marriage. If we do this, there will be no divorce, and, if we do away with marriage we will not have to entertain issues of gay marriage anymore, for the issue will be moot. Yup, that's the solution, no more marriage. Sounds good to me, what do you think?

I am not so sure that a longer waiting period to obtain a divorce is going to make much of a difference once people have set their minds to split up. Why is it that no one seems to address the immense pressure that is placed on the RM's here to practically get married ASAP from their missions. Stating this is not to discount the importance of marriage itself, I mean quite the contrary. I strongly opine that people should be allowed to grow up at least enough to be able to discern what is compatible for them instead of running to the altar with the first girl who accepts the proposal and then wondering what her name is the morning after. Why is it considered to be overly picky for a woman to simply want to make a wise choice and stick with it?This mad rush to the altar is just that; madness.

Take it from a guy who has been married 5 times which includes 1 annulment and only two marriages which have lasted over 11 months! First lasted 17 years, I busted my tail to make it work! It was a dead end every time, I left when the kids saw her hit, something I refused to participate in! 2nd was a 3 day marriage which ended in anullment, 3rd we were together for 3 months, divorced in 6. 4th lasted 11 months, and this last one We lived the Law of Chastity, dated appropriately, and married after 6 months from meeting in the TEMPLE in 2006! We are best friends and this relationship is on a much higher plain than any of the others! We are BEST FRIENDS and we put one another first only after CHRIST! We sacrifice for one another, and we constantly serve one another and do things to make the other happy in ALL aspects of Life, and FULLY support one another! We make decisions TOGETHER! We have alone time too! I can tell you personally that ALL DIVORCE IS BASED ON SELFISHNESS by one or both parties for one reason or another! "I WANT!"