Is the institution defunct?

[hoosiermama]

There are those who see the realities of their spouse along with their own many faults in stark light too. Somehow they see it all and yet, still, they choose to love. They choose to focus on the good, and to compliment it, and strongly favor it. As for the bad, and not so good, they learn to compensate, overlook, accept, or work around....they try hard to do what is the goal; to see their spouses as God sees them. Through His eyes...

And there are many of us who did just that. We entered marriage with a lot of prayer, with counseling, with right attitude after finding someone with whom we share appropriate values and views. We went to church regularly; we, in fact, built our family life around our church community. We continued to hold our marriages in prayer. We prayed together as a couple, then as a family. As changes occurred, we tried to look with eyes of love. We may not have been perfect, but we tried hard. And our spouses decided we were too old, too "immobile," we breathed, sat, chewed, slept too loudly or otherwise incorrectly--and something "better" came along, and we and our marriages and our families were cast off like "coats that no longer fit" (to quote my H). Where is the covenant we made then? When one spouse decides to jump ship, the other can be just as godly, faith-centered, prayer-filled and appropriate as can be--but the marriage is over if they both don't want it.