Just thinking

Today I was doing some thinking about marriage and relationships. It occured to me-and maybe I'm wrong, or maybe it's just the group that I "hang with" that has skewed my perspective-anyway, it occured to me that in our society, when our parents treat us poorly, we tend to say things like "well, that's just the way he/she is, I'm used to it" but if our spouse treats us similarly we jump to divorce.  I've never been in that type of situation in my marriage (thank the Lord), but I have been there with my parents.  Often I find myself reading about marriage and divorce in the Bible and trying to fit my parental relationship into the directives that God has given for marriage and I'm realizing that that just doesn't work.  I could be wrong on this one, but the thing that stares back at me the most is that I took no oath to my parents, but I did take one to my husband...and they tried to come between that on many occasions.

I see the same thing happen to many other people too (what is with these parents?!) and they either defend their parents, or just put up with it because they think they have to.

Then I see people struggling in their marriage relationship because their spouse is unloving or "unfair" and everyone jumps to say "Oh if my husband treated me like that, I'd walk right out the door".  And many of them do.

Does anyone else see this?  Am I crazy?  It just seems so backwards to me to cling to parents who are unloving, unkind, and unfair, but to quickly flee from a husband who is the same.  People looked at me like I had 3 eyes when I "divorced" my parents...and our decision was not an easy one.  It was one we had been thinking about for almost 4 years...well, it's one I had personally been thinking about since I was a child-I used to daydream that I had been kidnapped and that someday my REAL parents would find me...but as a couple, we'd been considering ending that relationship since our now 5yo was a baby.  Is it just uncommon to draw a boundary with family and stick to your bottom line?  Divorce IS common, I know that.

I don't know where I'm going with all this...maybe I just need to process it.  I certainly didn't articulate how I feel very well here, but I tried.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?  I can't wait until my husband gets home and the kids are in bed so I can talk through this.  It's like a traffic jam in my brain right now.

And I just wanted to add that I'm not saying anyone whose parents ever mistreated them SHOULD end the relationship.  I think it's very individual and you have to decide if continuing a relationship with parents will threaten the sanctity of your family...my relationship with my parents was erroding away at my family, my marriage relationship, and my ability to parent properly.  I was recently told to "be Jesus" to my parents...but at what cost?