Relationship Hotspot

Current Focus: Whatever Happened to Commitment?

Whatever Happened to Commitment?
by Wyatt Fisher, Psy.D.

As many know, the divorce rate is roughly 50% for both Christians and non-Christians. Consequently, Christian singles are often frightened to enter marital commitment because they don’t want to become another statistic. To help ensure this doesn’t happen, it’s important to unpack our current state of divorce and what has encouraged its dramatic increase. To begin with, our culture promotes instant gratification. Our modern world encourages us to get our needs met immediately. When we are hungry, we stick a ready-made meal in the microwave, when we want information, we google it, when we want coffee, we go through a Starbucks drive through, etc.  Also, our culture encourages us to maximize our pleasure and replace whatever isn’t working with something better.  We are continually bombarded with advertisements to upgrade to the shiniest new gadgets, to take our dream vacation, to purchase the newest car with all the bells and whistles, etc. Not surprisingly, this attitude towards life has spilled over into our approach to marriage. When we enter marriage expecting our needs to be met immediately with continual happiness, we become extremely disillusioned when this doesn’t occur. Then, our immediate impulse, promoted through our culture, is to discard our spouse and replace them with someone better. Another contributing factor to the high divorce rate is the contractual approach to marriage. The contract approach says, “I’ll stay committed to this marriage as long as I’m happy and in love; however, if those feelings dissipate then divorce becomes a viable option.” This perspective, which is often unspoken, is unrealistic and problematic. To begin with, love within marriage needs to be based on a decision and not an emotion, since emotions can be fickle and... Read more