His Children Caused Our Divorce

Belinda married a man when she was in her twenties, and it didn’t work out. He told her she was smarter than he was; she made him feel inferior. Belinda was smart, talented, and beautiful. For some men, that’s a threat.

By her mid-thirties, Belinda married again. This time she picked an older man, Frank, who was a senior executive at the company where she worked. He had also been married before and had three sons—two who were teenagers and the third of college age. Belinda had no children, and she had originally worried how well she might be accepted by Frank’s children. As it turned out, they seemed to love her and she blended in well with his family. All went fine until the couple began to squabble. In these instances, Frank would drag his sons into the fight, and they took sides with him. It got so bad that Belinda demanded that the three boys not be allowed in their home. The friction was aggravating an already deteriorating situation. This angered Frank and brought everything to a head. Eventually Frank and Belinda divorced. She told all her friends that she would never again marry a man with children. In fact, she felt so strongly about this that she would not even consider dating someone who was divorced with kids.

Mark had recently moved to town and joined the church where Belinda attended. Mark had never been married and was a little younger than Belinda. When she met him, she set her sights on him as the next “Mr. Belinda.” Nothing would get in her way. He was the perfect candidate. Never married, no children, and no baggage—she thought. They were married, and Belinda found out differently after the wedding. She had never asked if he had children and only found out when she accidentally opened an envelope from one of his past live-ins asking for child support money. Mark had (intentionally) failed to mention that he had lived with two women and had fathered a child with one. He had been too ashamed to tell her this during their short courtship.

Belinda “learned” from her first marriage that a man who has children is not a good husband. She, therefore, concluded that if she could find a man who has no children, she should seriously consider marrying him. This so-called “learning” came about from not allowing enough time to understand what really went wrong in her first marriage and, instead, blaming the presence of her husband’s children for the breakup.

The One-Dimensional Match

What do these stories have in common? They may seem very different, but they are all examples of having one dimension in mind as a trigger for concluding, “I have found the right one. I am ready to remarry.” Sheila was searching for the illusive soul mate. This thinking focused her on a limited dimension of a prospective spouse—someone whom she would immediately “recognize” as her soul mate. This kept her from examining all aspects of her relationship with Phil. How could she be aware of any negative factors with him after concluding from the start “he’s the one”? When you jump to a conclusion that fast, you are assuming all other aspects are irrelevant or will magically work out.