I was talking to a friend the other day about the church. She is a church convert and participates actively. Somehow we got onto the topic of church members who get divorced, and she mentioned a particular couple she knows in the church who recently got divorced. Everyone was perplexed over how they got divorced because both of them were active, and from all appearances worthy, obedient, church members, both before and after the split.
Many might wonder why anyone would be perplexed over a couple divorcing. That happens all the time, right? True, but in the Mormon church, people are taught that as long as spouses are faithful to their church covenants and follow the church's rules, then they will have happy and successful marriages.
I told my friend that I didn't find the divorce surprising or perplexing in the slightest. My own parents got divorced even though they were always faithful and compliant with the church's rules, and they remain so today in their new marriages. (However, now they are both much happier, being married to spouses respectively far more compatible with each of them.) Many other divorced couples can undoubtedly attest to similar experiences. Clearly, then, the church's prescription for marital bliss isn't that reliable. It's kind of like advising someone that as long as they exercise at least five days a week, they will be successful in their chosen career. Without a doubt, such frequent exercise would bestow numerous benefits, but it would not necessarily result in career success. And if it did contribute to career success, the contribution would be merely indirect (unless, of course, you're a fitness instructor or something similar). The church's prescription for marital success is only effective to the extent it results in the parties doing things together or maintaining similar attitudes regarding various social/moral issues. That kind of forced compatibility could also be produced if the couple became equally involved in a political party, fitness club, or community organization. Except that in those scenarios, the parties will most likely have affiliated voluntarily, and not as a result of simply being raised in a particular religion.
The church's prescription ignores many other material relationship issues that could contribute to divorce. It does nothing for sexual incompatibility, personality differences, financial stress, communication failures, inequality, or being unprepared for the marital commitment in the first place, all of which can create the type of tension that leads to divorce. Sometimes people just aren't good together, and there is no amount of obedience to arbitrary rules and guidelines that will change that. It also doesn't help that many church members base their decision of whom and when to marry on a highly subjective "good" feeling they either get or don't get while praying on the subject. It hardly needs to be stated that such a decision-making method is an even more useless recipe for marital bliss than that of "just follow the commandments."
The things that make for a happy, successful relationship are many, and I don't pretend to know what they all are. What seems clear, however, is that the church promise of marital happiness as long as both parties are faithfully living the commandments does not encapsulate all, or perhaps even most, of such issues. Admittedly, I have never been married or divorced, so a lot of this is just idle pontification on my part. Feel free to chime in and disagree. :)
