Lemon Marriages Made In The USA: Why Americans Beat The World In Divorce And How To Reverse That Trend

Marriage, Divorce, Self Help, Personal Growth, Family Not too long ago, I was in a small gathering in Atlanta, Georgia, which consisted of seven women and four men. The speaker talked about the alarming divorce rate in the United States. After she had dazzled us with facts and figures for almost two hours, I asked a question that was tantamount to tossing a gallon of gasoline into a naked fire. The question I asked was, “What is the number one reason why Americans even bother to still get married?” Six of the seven women in that gathering took my question by the horns, and they all started by saying something like this: “ There’s really no one reason why Americans get married…” But when you listened to all their stories, it was obvious they all married “this wonderful guy they fell in love with.” And yes, they’re divorced, all six of them, or at least at one point in time they were divorced. Love is a wonderful thing. Life would have no meaning without the ability to experience love – ask Adam, Eve had to come along before he became a lively living soul! But as sweet as love can be, love is a tsunami that destroys our sense of reasoning. No wonder the saying ‘to be in love and be wise, is scarce, granted even unto the gods!’ If love is such a wonderful thing, and most of us get married to the ones we love, why such a large percentage of marriages fail? The United States of America has the highest rate of divorce in the world today! Back to our Atlanta gathering. I then asked if we should marry for love or for shared values and compatibility. Speaker after speaker cast their ballot in support of love! Remember what they say about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? The chef who wants to cook a great pot of soup needs more than one ingredient in his or her pot; the same is true with marriage. For marriage to turn out right, we need more than one ingredient – love – in that marriage. If we can identify those other ingredients that will make a marriage work and last, and those that will certainly ruin it, then our job in this book is done. In carrying out our task, we will have to look at marriages made in America, and marriages made elsewhere. We will have to compare and contrast, and then analyze why some marriages work and why some don’t. A note of warning: for us to attain our goal and benefit from our journey through the pages of this book, we must have an open heart. Embarking on this journey with convictions and certainties will lead us to a date at the Greek Calends! We won’t make this an academic exercise, thus, we won’t throw data and statistics at ourselves – we already know the stats are nothing to write home about. What we will look at is real life stories – butwe will do everything humanly possible to protect the real identities of those whose stories we will learn from. Lastly, I hate books with never ending chapters filled with flowery, vain words intended only to markup the page count. Let me assure you that there is no space in this book for that. So sit back and put on your seatbelt as we go through the chapters of this book via the great circle route – no hype, no sizzle, just the real thing! OLISA OKANIME