This country is in such bad shape because most people have no morals and values any more. They sleep around with anything and anyone with no thought of the children that it might bring about. They meet and marry people left and right with no real thought put into it..heck there's always divorce, is what you always hear! And then when they do have children they come last to the peoples jobs and social life. It's no wonder the country is in shambles! How can we run a country if we can't run our own lives properly? I mean for real!

Cindy..Ga.

I'm so very sorry for the loss of your brother. No good dad should ever be denied seeing his children. This is one great tragedy of divorce. The children are usually used as pawns and the dad usually is the one who misses out. I feel awful though, that he though suicide was not going to harm his children as well. I'm sure they will be left wondering if they were part of the reason for his death and that could hurt them just as much. I feel very strongly that marriage should not be made harder to get out of. I lived with an abusive dad and a mother who was too afraid to leave him. When she finally got up the nerve to leave, believe me she would have never done it if there were many obstacles in her way. In my opinion, if they had gotten divorced many years earlier we children would have been so much better off in our lives, but society did not make it easy for women to do that then. I can understand that your feelings come partly from the grief over your loss, but society is much better off now that women and men do not have to be stuck in abusive situations. Coming from a child who knows, the children only suffer and learn to live with relationships like that in their adulthood. Perhaps we should make it harder to get into marriage, but not harder to get out of.

Marriage is never disposable and its never easy to do so, no matter what some people like to think.

The number of people who use marriage as something disposable (like Brittney Spears) is very small.

The rest of us view marriage as a lifetime committment. But sometimes it doesn't work out.

For example, I will not, EVER put up with an abusive man. Not in this lifetime, not in the next. I stayed with the first one for too long as it was. My first marriage was not disposable like a garbage bag, it was disposed of like a lost limb being ripped off by a tractor.

Though I am in a very happy marriage now that I expect will last the rest of my life, I find it quite insulting that any closed minded person would ever dare to tell me I viewed my first marriage as disposable.

Please stop generalizing.

Being a single divorced parent is challenging, and I do not know anyone with children who enters into that casually. I think that there should put more emphasis on finding the right situation and marrying the right person. Divorce is a costly mistake.

disposable marriage, boomers got it off the ground, but the me generation let it really take flight. why try to work out what cant just be dummped? because its well worth it. Growing old "aint for sissys" married 17 yrs. & counting, my parrents going on 57yrs. ooohya

Getting married is easy. Find someone to officiate,have a witness and all sign the marriage license. Now getting divorced. That's the hard painful part. You need a really good lawyer you can afford. Your marriage is now a legal procedure and the process is both legal and business. If theirs children involved they are treated like property. They have no say and no concept of what's going on or what's ahead. I am the product of divorce and all I can say is never rush into to marriage. Its the easiest part of relationship. If a person doesn't want to get married and their partner does, then they should not be pushed. If you aren't ready, its for a reason. I wish more people would trust their gut instincts. Divorce is not pleasant but in some cases necessary. I think some people are in denial of how bad things are and think children will make it better. Only to find out it will make it worse. There's is nothing disposable about marriage unless you have disposable income to move on really fast with a lawyer and you have disposable feelings and memories. A good marriage is from hard work every day to take two people who might have been brought up differently come together to make a home and share a life in a reasonable way. Comprimise and sacrifice and understand. My marriage is not disposable. I think the people out thee whop think it is, are the very people who are not mature enough for marriage or even a committed relationship. Thanks for the story.

The problem is between economy and psychology. People marry for money, not for love, thus there are more divorces and subsequent unhappy children who might grow up to become unbalanced adults. Those adults then attract empty relationships and might use sex to fill a void, which in turn creates more unhappy children who might grow up to feel even more emotionally unbalanced, so on and so forth. People need to become more financially independent and emotionally independent. People should marry for the God-given reason: to create emotional balance and stability and to set an example to the next generation so that we can have a better world. It's not hard, it just takes focus. I hate divorce by the way but I hate the reason why people go into failed realtionships even more-so.

Marriages are becoming disposables. It is assuming a use and throw away syndrome. It has assumed the role of plastics, I mean that cannot be recycled or reused , whatever it is. This marriage of convenience , makes the life of children risky and unwarranted. The concept needs to be reconsidered with full vigour.

First off, I am very sorry for the loss of your brother.

I completely disagree with your point on no-fault divorce. I take issue with your point that it ended marriage as a legal contract, since now it is just too easy to get divorced and it has left people with divorces they didn't want. If the other party in the marriage does not want to be married anymore, you should not be able to force them into marriage. If one party wants out of the contract, it is void. I don't understand the problem with this.

I don't see the divorce rate as a problem, for many people it means leaving situations in which they are unhappy and unsatisfied. A single parent does not equate to a bad parent, and there are many children scarred by being brought up by parents who "stayed together for the children" resulting in a home full of anger and fighting.

There is nothing wrong with people being raised in single parent households or by parents who are unwed. Nothing. The institution of marriage legally privileges married couples with children over single parents (and couples who choose not to get married). We should be focusing on ways to protect parents and children and understand that families come in all shapes and sizes before we worry about marriage–and respect the people who make the difficult decision to divorce.

Let's add to Cindy's list. Ethics, both business and personal are sadly lacking too. What happened to the fundemental do to others as you would others to do to you? David H, Manhattan NY

Marriage is not parenthood. The two are confused by people and the courts. The courts can dissolve the marriage contract but they have no real authority, only assumed authority, to mess with parentage. The gift of parenthood is granted by a higher authority than mere judges–people in black robes need to respect more than their myopic thoughts. Judicial decrees pale in the face of that other authority.

A country that has the motto, "In God we trust" mocks that belief and heritage when its courts pretend to change who are parents and who has the right to be a parent or to parent. Look with wide open eyes if you want to see who is really destroying the American dream.

Marriage in US has become about financial advancement, not love or the desire to make a life together. Getting married is easy enough–you pay an unwarranted tax (license fee) and someone with a state authorized license marries the people. The implications which are never explained beforehand are tremendous–because the government wants to control marital finances. They really have no standing in that private issue and should not be involved. The courts are destroying the concepts of self-sufficiency and self-determination.

Getting unmarried should as easy going to the courthouse and erasing your name. If it were, the compulsion to make a life together would have to be strong and true; otherwise you have the merry-go-round revolving door marriages that exists in USA today.

As with everything great about this country, choice without government involvement is the way it was designed. Anything short of that destroys the dream, destroys hope and destroys the country.

You are unlucky observer of the fall of the second empire...

Short measured marriages,and pre-nuptial's have been the norm for the past thirty years,and now are the future for the american housewife? Where else can you get two kids,a beautiful house,and a paycheck for twenty-five years,where? The guy lives in a cardboard shanty,and his ex',moves in his best friend to help pay the bills! But,if this poor devil of a man,even gets visitations,this vixon will eventually put an end to that by whatever means posible, [ie.) poisoning the kid's minds] to make his life a living hell! The court's are rigged,the female wins,uncontested,and the children rot with all the other one-parent children. This is why the rest of the world doesn't want our type of "Democracy",shoved down their throat!