Parting Ways
KEY IDEAS
→ Roughly half of all divorces are “good divorces”—relatively amicable and positive.
→ Parenting is the primary source of challenges in a divorce.
→ Any positive parenting agreements reached about religion/irreligion during the marriage should continue to be respected.
→ Children should never be put in the middle of a “religious war.” Continue to protect their right to reach their own conclusions.
→ Their relationship with the other parent should be preserved in part by refusing to denigrate that parent’s worldview.
No aspect of marriage is more mangled and mythologized than divorce. Start with the common belief that every new marriage has a 50% chance of ending in divorce. The actual percentage, never that high, has been steadily declining since 1981 and is currently estimated to be closer to 33%—the lowest rate since 1970.1
But the overall percentage is much less meaningful than the percentages that correlate to real risk factors. Age at marriage is perhaps the most crucial factor in predicting the risk of eventual divorce. The strong tendency in recent generations to wait longer before getting married has paralleled the drop in the divorce rate. The median age of first marriage in 1960 was 21 for women and 24 for men, in 1990 it was 24.5 for women and 26 for men, and today it is 27 for women and 29 for men.2
That’s an encouraging trend, since the risk of divorce drops sharply if both partners are 25 or older at the time of marriage. Women who marry before age 18 face a 48% chance of divorce within 10 years. The risk is 40% if they wait until 18–19 and drops to 29% if they are 20–24. And if women wait until age 25 or older, their risk of divorce for any reason drops to 24%.3 The reason for this drop is likely the fact that interpersonal and relationship skills are better developed at age 25 than 18, and we tend to have a better idea of what we want and what makes for a healthy relationship.
The mixed-belief marriage rate has more than doubled since the 1950s, from 20% to 45% of all new marriages.4 If it really did lead to a higher divorce rate, it would temper or even cancel out the declining divorce rate. But as the studies cited in the Introduction make clear, having mixed beliefs will usually have little or no impact on your likelihood of divorce.
Whatever the odds, it will happen for some couples, and in some cases religious difference is among the aggravating circumstances.
Divorce is an incredibly complicated event, one that a single book chapter can’t even begin to capture. Fortunately, this chapter is about only one thing: the way worldview difference plays out in the divorce of a secular/religious couple, and a few ways to improve the odds of having it play out well.
A Typology of Divorce
Divorce isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it ends a relationship that made one or both partners miserable. Other marriages are less dramatic but still driven to end due to incompatibility or “irreconcilable difference” of one kind or another. And the divorce itself is less often a stereotypic stew of hatred and resentment than movies and television would have us believe. Constance Ahrons, author of The Good Divorce, estimates that roughly half of all divorces are “good divorces,” meaning a marriage ends with a relative lack of acrimony and inflicted emotional harm, and children continue to have two parents.5
In her classic study of divorced families,6 Ahrons identified five different outcomes (with cute names you’ll have to forgive):
1. “Perfect Pals”—12% of couples in the study.
PPs are former couples who continue to interact frequently and communicate well. The disappointments of the failed marriage don’t overshadow the positive elements of a longstanding relationship. They still call themselves good friends, speak with each other once or twice a week, and are still interested in each other’s lives. Trust is high, and each remains connected to the other’s extended family. All PPs with children in the Ahrons study had joint custody. Many PPs slide into one of the other categories over time.
2. “Cooperative Colleagues”—38%.
CCs interact less often but still communicate effectively when they do. They don’t call themselves friends but cooperate very well around issues concerning the kids. They occasionally cross paths at events like family birthdays or teacher conferences without trouble. Ahrons says they “compartmentalize their relationship,” separating out issues related to marriage from those related to parenting. “What’s best for the kids” takes precedence over everything else. Within five years, about one in four CCs deteriorate to Angry Associates. The rest (75%) remain cooperative for the long haul.
3. “Angry Associates”—25%.
Here’s where it starts to heat up a bit. AAs interact moderately, just like CCs, but they communicate seldom and poorly. All AAs with children in the Ahrons study had some form of sole custody with the noncustodial parent spending some arranged time with the kids. After five years, one-third of AAs are still AAs, one-third improve to Cooperative Colleagues, and onethird decline to Fiery Foes.
4. “Fiery Foes”—25%.
Now we’ve arrived at the stereotypic “War of the Roses” divorced couple. They rarely interact or communicate, and when they do, they tend to fight. Divorces are often highly litigious, and they cling to resentments, unable to move on. They have the most polarizing arrangements with kids, either exchanging them at the door without a word or including no visitation at all. Two-thirds in this category are still in it after five years.
5. “Dissolved Duos”—0% (in the Ahrons study).
Even though the Ahrons study had no couples in this category, they do exist. DDs are couples who split so completely that there is no remaining interaction, communication, or relationship to describe. In most cases, these will be childless couples.
Parenting After Divorce
You’ll notice that children are mentioned in almost every category, and for good reason. A couple can come to agreement (with or without legal assistance) about the division of their property and finances, but children are an ongoing, nonnegotiable link between them. If there are no kids, the secular/religious difference usually ceases to matter after the split. If there are kids, it can often intensify—especially if either parent feels his or her religious differences were part of the reason for the split. In those cases it’s often tempting for each parent to “purge” the influence of the other parent’s views from the lives of their children.
The Custody Question
One of the central pillars of child custody law in the United States is the primacy of the “best interests of the child.” Family courts are given wide latitude in deciding when those best interests are threatened, and this principle is sometimes invoked in denying or restricting custody of children to a nonreligious parent.
This violates the free speech clause of the Constitution, says UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, but happens nonetheless, especially in certain states. “Mississippi is the most serious offender, though I’ve seen cases since 1990 in Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas.”7
Even religious parents aren’t entirely in the clear if their practice is deemed less intensive than their ex-partner’s. In 2001, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld an order giving a mother custody partly because she took the child to church more often than the father did, thus providing a better “future religious example.” In 2000, the same court ordered a father to take the child to church each week, citing a 1966 decision in a similar case which reasoned that “it is certainly to the best interests of [the child] to receive regular and systematic spiritual training.”8
Fortunately, such cases are much less common than they once were because attorneys are increasingly successful in challenging such decisions on constitutional grounds.
“Our religious difference was really not a big deal when we were married,” says Laurie, a Christian mother of three with an atheist ex. “We had an agreement that the kids would explore both of our views and make up their own minds. But since the divorce there’s this new dynamic, like we’re both trying to ‘win’ the religion thing. I hate it, but I feel like I’m also doing it myself.” It’s a common theme—once the two worldviews are no longer sharing a home, the kids can become pawns in a religious war between their parents, yet another way of becoming the “right” one in the divorce.
Divorce experts are clear on this one. Couples with a genuine concern for their kids should make a special effort not to denigrate the other parent. In the case of mixed-belief parents, that also means a special effort not to denigrate the other parent’s worldview.
Continuity is also crucial for kids. Rules and agreements that held sway in a mixed-belief household should be maintained to the best of the parents’ ability after a separation. Allowing kids to come to their own religious conclusions is a best practice for married couples, and it’s a best practice for divorced couples.
Of course it’s harder to monitor and enforce, and ex-partners on both sides of the divide can start to feel a creeping sense that the other is indoctrinating the kids. “It seems like every time they came back from Mom’s house, there was a new joke or criticism of religion,” says Brian, a Catholic father of two. But he says his relationship with his agnostic ex-wife is positive enough that they could sit down and discuss it. “I reminded her about the agreement we had before the divorce, and she was very receptive. She’s been much more careful and respectful since then.”
Lynette is an atheist divorced from a Christian. “Being divorced and raising children in two separate households with two different worldviews is more difficult than raising children in one household in which the parents agree to compromise,” she says. “My ex is spending far more time and effort emphasizing religion with our children now than he ever did when we lived together. They sometimes ask about why I don’t pray or go to church, and I simply tell them that everyone has different beliefs about God. I don’t want to set myself up in opposition to religion and tell them these things are wrong because I don’t want it to become something that we fight about as they grow older.”
Recently, her six-year-old son came back from Dad’s house and said something that broke her heart. “He said, ‘Every day when I’m with Papa I pray for you that you will believe in God so that you don’t have to die.’ This was the most heartbreaking moment of my life, seeing the pain and worry that my lack of belief is causing him. I had no idea how to respond to this, and still don’t. I do not want him to spend the rest of his life, or even the next few years, worrying about me or trying to convert me. My biggest fear right now is that he and I will always have different beliefs, and that at some point he may not be able to accept or be close to me because my beliefs are different than his.” But she is committed to giving her kids a balanced message so they can make their own choices.
Wayne, a secular humanist dad in Kansas, realized that he didn’t have to be as careful talking to his kids about religion after his divorce—he had to be more careful. “Before we had a home with mixed beliefs,” he says, “but now there’s ‘the Christian home’ and ‘the humanist home.’ So when I criticize Christian beliefs, it feels much more like I’m criticizing their mom directly. I know it’s important for them to keep a positive relationship with her, so I really don’t want to do that, and things that I think were really fair game before just aren’t now.” He also developed a litmus test for anything he says about his ex-wife’s religion: “I just flip it around: How would I feel if I heard her saying the same kind of thing about my humanism? It’s amazing what that does.”
If the relationship between exes is good—either “Perfect Pals” or “Cooperative Colleagues”—they might agree on that litmus test on both ends. And if fairness for the kids isn’t enough incentive, many couples report that a heavy-handed approach often backfires in divorce situations. When one parent demands a single way of thinking and being, whether religious or nonreligious, and the other parent encourages openness and free exploration without negative consequences, kids often gravitate toward the more open and relaxed environment.
The Bottom Line
Divorce plays out in countless ways depending on the people and circumstances. But when it comes to divorces between religious and nonreligious partners, parenting is the usual point of contention, and a small number of vital principles apply across the board:
1. Half of all divorces are “good divorces” with healthy ongoing communication and cooperation. You should make use of whatever positive assets your relationship retains after a split, especially for the sake of the kids.
2. Kids should never be put in the middle of a religious conflict between their parents.
3. Best practices during a marriage are also best practices after divorce. Couples should redouble their efforts to preserve the free exploration of religious and nonreligious ideas by their kids.
4. Religious differences are made more visible by the split, so criticism of the other parent’s worldview can feel more personal and wounding than before. More care is needed at exactly the time many ex-partners feel less is needed.