OP-ED: I’m Saving Divorce Until Marriage

These days, the pressure to conform is suffocating. Left and right we are bombarded to do this, try that, buy this — nothing is sacred. I’m tired of being asked to stray from my values. Compromising my integrity just to get a thrill is deadening, and I refuse to partake any longer. I’m saving divorce until marriage. Deal with it. 

My great aunt Agatha always told me, “there are two things worth fighting for in life — happiness and freedom.” Great aunt Agatha had six husbands and a ketamine prescription. “Your right to divorce is your right to life,” she would continue. “Protect your virtue. The satisfaction is worth waiting for.”  

Not everyone understands my decision. My parents largely stay out of it. Sometimes they ask, “Did we do something wrong? Were we not a good enough example of love?” to which I sometimes reply “Yes.” They don’t like that much though, so I usually chalk it up to my third grade best friend Sarah who had divorced parents and two birthday parties. 

My friend Maya says her parents’ divorce ruined her life. One day she got pretty sad about it and said: “I just don’t get why you would marry someone with the explicit purpose of setting your relationship on fire and watching it burn.” Typical Maya. Some people just can’t hang. 

My religion says divorce is punishable by an eternity in hell. If hell is a bunch of elegant spinsters who pawned their wedding rings to buy a fleet of luxury sedans, count me the hell in. There is something so special about abandoning all that you know to start anew, and I am willing to wait for it. God said patience is a virtue.