Imagine two people whom you love sitting on opposite ends of a table, their lawyers between them. Neither saying a word, nor even making eye contact. Their “counselors”—and I use that term loosely—speak for them to a judge who neither knows, nor cares to know, their personalities, fears, or concerns. Two lovers who vowed to keep their covenant ‘til death did part them, now experiencing a horribly premature and untimely death.

Now imagine a love that was so precious and unique that many modeled their own relationships after it. Romance, passion, fun, laughter, oneness; then the joy of their first child, the confidence that they had beaten the odds and theirs wouldn’t be a broken home or a fragmented family. Shared hopes and grand dreams. And in the end… it all boiled down to a detached judge, two hired hands, and a stack of irrelevant papers.

For Better or For Worse: The worst part had come, but the promise had gone. Both parties blind and mute, unable to see the depth of what was happening, or unwilling to speak it, in the empty courtroom. No, this wasn’t a murder trial or highly publicized political drama. It would have no impact on the viewers of the nightly news and would not go viral on social media. After all, no one was arrested, no blood spilled, no child killed, no natural disaster, and most of all, no celebrity or athlete scandal.

I watched the casualties of marital war sit silently in the room… not seeing, hearing, or voicing the newsworthy “case.” No reporters to warn the world. No one to witness that both had been robbed: of a loving partner, trust, security, self-confidence, and so much more. No one to speak of the blood that ran from their broken hearts and spilled down their faces in tears. And sadly, no one to hear the cry of the child whose happy home has burned down.

This is the foundation for our children.

And although the media didn’t cover it, and you won’t find it on the front or even the last page of your local or national paper, something of grave importance happened today. Something just like it happens every day.

Another brick has been removed from the formerly sound structure we call “family,” and there are currently three victims (with more to surely come); three devastated lives left in shambles by our nation’s most prominent, but least feared, epidemic…

divorce