Legalizing Divorce in the Phils., is Non-Beneficial!

Marriage is not merely a contract that binds between man and woman, instead a lifetime commitment. They both enter into marriage with high hopes and expectations that it will be a lifelong and mutually rewarding relationship. So it's not surprising that divorce is a painful experience not only on the couple but as well as their children. Families in a stable marriage tend to have a happier life and children are guided in the right way and become successful compared with those of divorced families, hence, legalizing divorce is non-beneficial.

Divorce is not a solution for any couple's  problem, instead it adds up the burden that needs an immediate action. It ruins the life of both parties. Stated by the noted marriage researchers Drs. Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, "Individuals who make the decision to divorce need to be well informed about its potential costs to themselves, to their partners, and to their children. They must be reminded of the long term investment they have when they engage into marriage." They become more brittle and easy to break for feeling of failure, purposelessness, and depression sink into their senses. Divorced women are generally less happy compared to men for they do not know what to do and say to make social contacts for these people distance themselves for they do not know what to do and say to make the divorced individual feel better. Worst, they found divorced people as a threat to the stability of theri own marriage. Some divorced women and men engaged in casual sex to find the closeness and intimacy they are longing for. At the end of the day, divorced individual seems to set in motion a process in which they end up losing everything.

We, Filipinos, value family ties but divorce terminates this bond making children as the most affected member of the family. They have greater possibility of having behavioral problems, likely to leave school and home when young and become sexually active forming a cohabiting partnership, become pregnant and parent at an early age without the benefit of marriage. They tend to be more depressed and have higher level of engagement in drinking, smoking, and using addictive drugs during adolesence. Undoubtedly, divorce brings lot of different changes in a child's life, like confusion, denial, feal which can lead to aggression, anger and depression and even suicidal thoughts and panic attacks.

Finally, divorce can be abused by people for it allows marriage to be easily disconnected. Proposing another bill would be costly and may cause disturbance to the total budget allocation of the government. In fact, annulment is already available in our country. Instead of giving emphasis with this, the government may use the time and funds for a more productive services like but not limited to the Department of Health and DepEd.

Divorce by any definition is a horrible word. There's no way to make the word sounds better or make its effect less painful. Webster's dictionary defined divorce as a legal dissolution of marriage or termination of an existing relationship or union. The definition made the word formal and does not accurately display the feeling that sweeps over a person. A better definition of the depth of the word comes from Whitney, holding a child's point of view saying, "Divorce is like a thousand knives being thrown at one's heart or a slow painful ride through a Horror Mountain." To them, divorce is more just a legal dissolution; it is their whole world being torn apart and thrown on the ground in pieces.

And now, I'm leaving you a question to ponder about, "Do you want to live a life with a broken family?"