Question: Dr. Dobson, some of my friends got married with the mutual understanding that they could bail out if it didn't work. In nearly every one of those families, they are divorced today. From what you say, I guess that doesn't surprise you.

Answer: Not at all. Marriage succeeds only as a lifetime commitment with no escape clauses. That kind of determination was common for earlier generations. Let me share how my father felt about my mother when they married in 1935. Forty years later, he and I were walking in a park and talking about the meaning of commitment between a husband and wife. With that, he reached into his pocket and took out a worn piece of paper. On it was written a promise he had made to my mother when she agreed to become his wife. This is what he had said to her:

I want you to understand and be fully aware of my feelings concerning the marriage covenant which we are about to enter. I have been taught at my mother's knee, and in harmony with the Word of God, that the marriage vows are inviolable, and by entering into them I am binding myself absolutely and for life. The idea of estrangement from you through divorce for any reason at all (although God allows one—infidelity) will never at any time be permitted to enter into my thinking. I'm not naive in this. On the contrary, I'm fully aware of the possibility, unlikely as it now appears, that mutual incompatibility or other unforeseen circumstances could result in extreme mental suffering. If such becomes the case, I am resolved for my part to accept it as a consequence of the commitment I am now making, and to bear it, if necessary, to the end of our lives together.

I have loved you dearly as a sweetheart and will continue to love you as my wife. But over and above that, I love you with a Christian love that demands that I never react in any way toward you that would jeopardize our prospects of entering heaven, which is the supreme objective of both our lives. And I pray that God Himself will make our affection for one another perfect and eternal.

If that is the way you approach the commitment of marriage, your probabilities of living happily together are vastly improved. Again, the Scriptures endorse the permanence of the marital relationship: "Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate" (Mark 10:9).

From Dr. Dobson's book Complete Marriage and Family Home Reference Guide.