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"I have written previously about Beverly Willett, a writer and lawyer whose essay in The Daily Beast a few year ago detailed very vocal opposition to her own divorce. Her case was litigated before New York had no-fault divorce laws, and Ms. Willett fought her husband&amp;#039;s request for divorce with every resource she could find. The divorce dragged on for five years, and cost her tremendously in money and emotion. She now co-chairs the Coalition for Divorce Reform. The reason I&amp;#039;m remembering her today is that I came across a debate over Divorce in The New York Times co-authored by Ms. Willett and Vicki Larson, a fellow divorcee, author and blogger. Both of them agree that divorce is hard, but their viewpoints differ on whether it should be made harder or not. I agree with Beverly Willett when she says: &amp;quot;If there&amp;#039;s a sadness greater than stripping children of their rightful childhood, I can&amp;#039;t think of one. I have faith parents can do better. With courage and compassion, we can give our most important commitment the respect it deserves.&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s right, every kid deserves and intact marriage. And in a perfect world, spouses would always respect each other and do what&amp;#039;s best for their kids. But, as Vicki Larson points out, we don&amp;#039;t live in that world. She points out: &amp;quot;Marriage isn&amp;#039;t always the answer and divorce isn&amp;#039;t always the problem. I&amp;#039;ve stopped saying, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m sorry&amp;#039; when someone tells me he or she is divorcing because too often the response has been, &amp;#039;No, it&amp;#039;s a good thing.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; I like the way she puts that. Divorce isn&amp;#039;t always the problem. The problem is all the years of underlying issues that lead to that divorce, and those aren&amp;#039;t easily solved and often, aren&amp;#039;t even easily addressed if only one spouse is willing to do so. That was certainly the case for me. Peter wasn&amp;#039;t interested in working things out, and a court ordering him to give it a try would have only prolonged the misery for us both. I can&amp;#039;t help but believe we would have revisited that misery in some form or another on our children. What do you think - would it be better if we made it harder to divorce, and required people to try to work it through? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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