To divorce or not?- A painful decision

By Paula Taylor (JIN Magazine)
Updated: 2012-12-12

The Perils of Modern Living

One lady told me that her husband had met another woman via QQ and wanted a divorce. His behaviour to her was almost intolerable as she would not agree to divorce him, so he did everything in his power to make her hate him. He has repeatedly told her that he does not love her. Unfortunately for her she still loves him. We may think that she should just let go of him, and that once somebody does not want to stay with you, you cannot force them. However the complication is that she has a 7 year old son, and so feels that if she agrees to the divorce his future would be adversely affected. She has begged him to think about his actions and how they affect their child, but he is adamant that he wants to leave and live with his girlfriend, he has told her she can keep the child as his girlfriend is not interested in looking after someone else’s child.

The reason he has not just upped and left is that in China women have a lot of protection from the law. If he just leaves, the divorce court would look unfavourably upon it and probably the wife would get to keep the house for the sake of the child. He is willing to forsake his child, but not his house, so for the time being they are still living together. Of course I have only heard her side of the story and no doubt the husband has a totally different view of their life together, however it is a fact that they do have a young child and it is that fact that should influence their decisions.

Another lady told me that she had surreptitiously checked her husband’s messages and found that he was communicating with a young woman via QQ. She did not waste any time and told him she wanted a divorce. He got such a fright that he ceased to use his QQ account immediately. For him the prospect of divorce was too frightening to contemplate. They too have a young child that he dotes on so fortunately this marriage was saved.

The View of Chinese Men

The above opinions belonged to women so I also interviewed a couple of men. Zhou who has been married for one year said “20 years ago divorce was viewed as very shameful. Now however if people decide that they don’t love each other anymore, they can just get divorced. We all have freedom these days, everyone has the right to decide for themselves. I do know people that are divorced but their circumstances depend upon whether they live in the city or the countryside. I can give you two examples. My wife has a friend who got married to a local ruffian. They were married for 7 years and then they had a child. The man did not work and just did all kinds of things to get money, he also beat his wife all the time but because she loved him she put up with him. She then developed a serious problem. Although she had her own work and was quite busy, she would often help people such as sweeping snow away from neighbour’s doors, however she could never remember doing so. Her boss took her to the hospital to get checked out and they discovered that she was schizophrenic. Her family thought up a good reason for her to return to her hometown in the country in order to rest. Her husband eventually decided to divorce her, but because in the countryside men outnumber women, despite her problems, many men came to her door asking to marry her. If she was in the city, she would not have so many opportunities to remarry

The other people I know that are divorced come from the city. This couple both went to Japan to study and became very good friends. Because they found it difficult and struggled in Japan, they became very close and fell in love. After six years of being together the man decided to return to China to work and develop a business, whilst the woman stayed in Japan developing her business. However they continued to be a couple. After 11 years the woman came back to Tianjin and they got married. After six months of marriage they decided they were not suited and the wife flew back to Japan. So after 11 years of being a couple, it took just six months of marriage to destroy their relationship and they got divorced.

Before in China there was not much movement of people, they tended to stay in the same place all their lives. This mean that they would be very familiar with each other so if a couple got divorced it would be talked about by everybody, especially by the husband and wife’s older sisters. Also values back then were a lot more restrictive. Today people have the opportunity to travel more and live in other places, this means there will be opportunities to meet other people.

There are many people that get divorced quick as a flash, especially young people, but it is quite complicated if there are things to consider such as property, children, family business and other assets, all these things have to be taken into consideration and most of the time only the Courts can decide what to do. I don’t think it is that easy to get divorced abroad either.

Although it is not that simple to get involved in someone else’s household matters, friends should mediate and advise them not to divorce, people should definitely think twice before deciding to go down this route, because if they decide after that they have made a mistake and want to get back together again, it will never be the same, just like if a mirror is broken and people try to fix it, it would always have cracks. Chinese people think that if everything in the family and home is going well, naturally everything else in life will be ok. However if there really is no way for a couple to get along then there is no choice but to divorce. I don’t really know what kind of reasons are not good reasons to divorce. Regarding life being easier for one party than the other, my feelings are that life is not easy anyway. I think we have to look after each other and encourage each other, if people get divorced and don’t marry again, life will definitely be harder. At the moment in the media, some reports are saying that at least in the city 2nd hand men are very popular, they are bestsellers! If a divorced woman has no children she should be able to find another partner.

As family is so important to Chinese people, the family home should be a sanctuary for children. If their parents get divorced then the love that they experience is halved, it is not complete so I think it would bring about an extreme change in their personality”.

Zhang who has been married for four years says “The word ‘divorce’ is never far from my wife’s mouth. Every time we argue her response is that we should get divorced. However I think we are far from divorce, it will not happen. At the moment I don’t have any friends that are divorced, but many of them have a bad relationship with their wives and they always call me up and invite me out just so they can grumble about them.

I think there has been a change in Chinese thinking regarding divorce, however China is still very traditional and divorce is not thought to be a good solution. If a couple want to divorce there really is a lot for them to consider, for instance will their parents accept it? If they have children what kind of influence will it have on them? To put it simply, in the past Chinese people lived for other people, not for themselves, so they had to consider what everybody else wanted. Nowadays people have moved on from that way of life and they live more for themselves, so if a couple are not suited they can divorce. It is not a simple thing to get divorced in China because of the problems of sorting out the family assets and how to bring up the children.

As far as giving advice is concerned, if the person giving the advice knows the couple well and they ask for advice, that is ok. If a friend of mine asked me for advice I would help him to analyse the problem deeply to see whether or not there is another way to handle the problem other than divorce. If he has thoroughly explored every other avenue but still wanted to get divorced then I wouldn’t oppose him, after all everyone has the right to decide for themselves.

Many people get divorced because they don’t love each other anymore, but I don’t agree with this. I think that marriage is sacred, so if people get divorced for this reason both sides are not facing up to their responsibilities. When two people get divorced maybe it is the man who has it easier but I am not too sure.

In China bringing up children in single parent families will definitely present problems, I think the children will have issues in their hearts and minds. They will lose the feeling of both parents loving and taking care of them together. They will also suffer discrimination and they will lose their own identity and not know their place in society”.

Not The Only Solution

Well there you have it, I have spoken to many Chinese people about divorce and the responses presented here really do reflect an accurate view of how Chinese people view divorce at the moment. The statistics are rising ever higher as already mentioned, which is worrying many people, as the family has always been at the very heart of Chinese society. As the family arrangement is breaking down, many people feel that the very fabric of society is being threatened.

Insidious TV and radio programmes that give the harmful advice to please oneself and get out of a marriage on a whim do nothing to help society. Of course it is easy for me to talk, but for a couple whose marriage is in crisis, surely the last thing they need is to consult complete strangers on air, whose sole motive is to increase the viewing or listening figures, as to the best way to resolve their problems. I admit I used to be one of those people who watched these shows and I acted as an armchair judge, jury and mediator. I feel very foolish when I think about my responses, shouting at the TV urging the wife to leave her “no good husband”. Thank goodness I saw sense and banished those harmful manipulative programmes from my life.

Communication is essential to maintaining a good marriage, and doing this through the media is not a good way. A marriage in trouble can be saved if both parties are willing to work at it. Chinese parents who object to their children divorcing do so for good reasons, but sometimes it can have negative results. Sometimes the parents are just worried about what the neighbours think. Providing there are no big reasons for the cause of trouble in the marriage, like wife/husband beating, alcoholism/drug/gambling problems or a third party, sometimes a marriage can be saved. Some advice suggested that such couples take the time to sit down and work out what went wrong, and if they felt they didn’t love each other anymore, to ask themselves at which point this started to happen. They could also try to fall in love with each again by reminding themselves of why they got together in the first place. No-one ever said marriage was easy and a husband who has been married for a very long time said “A good marriage is a union of two good forgivers”.