Q: For a long time I have realized that the spark has gone out of my marriage. My wife and I have little in common and basically spend our lives like married singles. I go my way, she goes hers. We have been "emotionally divorced" for many years now. While God frowns upon divorce, wouldn't he want me to be happy and get out rather than continue in this empty state? A: From the tone of your letter, I find it hard to believe that you will be happy in any marriage relationship. While you may find a fleeting happiness which springs from the excitement and newness of a fresh relationship, if you do not change your outlook, you are unlikely to develop the level of bonding which you so desperately crave. Your search for a "soul mate" will send you from one woman to another, seeking for that perfect someone who can meet your deepest needs. In the end, you will always come out disappointed. My intention here is not to sound like a prophet of doom. However, your letter is full of clues which indicate to me that your strongest need right now is not a new woman, but a new heart. Your letter is all about you. Your needs are not being met. You are frustrated. You feel empty. You are tired of being bored, alone, emotionally single. You would do anything just to have a "soul-mate." Do you really want a soul-mate? Start sharing from the deepest levels of your soul. Do you want a woman who will meet the desires of your heart? Start meeting the desires of hers. Spark gone out of the marriage? Light it, by all means, light it! You see, the simple principle of relationships is this -- the more you put in, the more you get out. You don't need a new woman, you need a paradigm shift. To put it bluntly, it is time to take yourself out of the center of your world and put your wife in the place of honor. Your dilemma is not a new one. The divorce courts are crowded with men and women who have decided that is time for a change. However, statistics show that many of these disillusioned individuals have no better luck the second time around than the first. Undoing a marriage is like taking a large frayed rope and unraveling it, fiber by fiber. The pull of each fiber is painful and incredibly complex. When you are finished, you are left with nothing but a pile of hemp. How much easier to take a rope that needs mending and put all efforts into the repair job, rather than the unraveling! When you are finished, you will be left with something intact. Think about it. How much will it cost to bring about this divorce that you crave? How much time will you spend on the telephone, in lawyers' offices, filling out paperwork, negotiating the fine points, trying to get your teenaged children to understand, waiting in the hall of the courthouse? How much energy will you have expended by the time it is over? And will it ever really be all over? Won't there always be some part of you connected to this life that you lived for the past twenty years? I have a challenge for you. Before entering into a process which will cause irreparable damage to yourself, your wife, and your children, make a commitment to invest an equal amount of time and money towards repairing what you already have. Considering the fact that your wife is not anxious to divorce and there are children involved, you are probably looking at a figure of approximately $20,000 to end your marriage. In terms of time, it is difficult to estimate how many hundreds of hours you will spend seeking to unravel the collective accumulation of twenty years of shared living. It would probably be safe to say that you will be totally consumed by this process for the next year. Here's my challenge. Over the next year, put $20,000 towards saving your marriage. Be creative. You can use the money for counselors, dinner dates, new shared hobbies, a trip abroad….But remember, you have to invest $20,000 over a period of one year directly into your marriage. After the year is over, contact me again and let me know if you still need a soul-mate. I'll be waiting to hear from you. Sandra Doran, Ed.D. is associate superintendent of education for the Florida Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. She posts her monthly columns on her web site. Read them on-line at www.tagnet.org/powerlines.

Sandra Finley Doran, Ed.D. 2028 Bluff Oak St. Apopka, FL 32712-3945 (407) 889-5524 email powerlines@juno.com

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