Itโs anniversary weekend for us. Weโve now been married for 19 yearsโ14 years since the death of our son.
Thereโs a statistic floating around that 90% of marriages end in divorce after the death of a child.
Especially in that first year after Lachlan died, anytime David and I were having a hard time aligning in what we needed from each other in our grief, it always made me worry that this was the beginning of the end for usโฆ after all, they say most marriages donโt survive thisโฆ
This worry added pain and stress to what was already indescribably hard.
Newer data shows that only about 16% of marriages end in divorce after the death of the child, and only 4% of those say it was due to the death.
If 50% of all marriages end in divorce, the low rate of 16% for bereaved parents is quite remarkable.
Highly stressful life events can be polarizing for a couple. The strong get stronger, and the marriages that are really struggling might be stretched to the point of breaking.
It still takes an extraordinary amount of grace, communication, forgiveness, and humility to get through such a stressful life event, but ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ซ๐ข๐๐ ๐ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ง๐จ๐ญ ๐๐จ๐จ๐ฆ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐๐ก๐ข๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ข๐๐. In fact, you have every reason to believe you will be stronger as a couple for having weathered this storm together.