Archpriest Theodore Borodin: Divorce is very rarely only the fault of the wife

Archpriest Theodore Borodin – the prior of the Moscow temple of the Holy unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian on Maroseyka in an interview expressed his opinion on the main problems of the modern family. The word priest is directed primarily to us, dear men.

The head of a large family and experienced pastor, father Theodore calls on the representatives of the stronger sex to reject self-justification and to remember the role in the family, which God had given to man...





The split of the universe

— Father, not long ago I heard two opposite opinions about the proper behavior of men in a divorce situation. Some believe that if the family broke up, the father should help financially, but in General it is better to stop communicating with the child, that the child is not torn between true father and true mother and what kind, has not learned to use the situation for self-interest, manipulating parents. Another opinion is that to achieve communication with the child, come what may. Child in any case should not forget who his father is. Is there some kind is the only correct strategy of conduct of the father in this case?

Actually, most of today's fathers after the divorce was very pleased with what they have to see a child is rare and not to waste your precious time. This is usually the result of the same dispensation, the souls of these men, which was the cause of the divorce. Divorce is very rarely only the fault of the wife.

Most of all – mutual fault, or the fault of the husband. In any case, the liability of the husband for the dissolution of a family much more, because in a Christian marriage he is the head of the family. If there was some disorganization on the ship, the first judge of the ship's captain, because he had to hold the ship between the rocks so that it does not crashed.

Main reason for divorce is the inability to love, an unwillingness to sacrifice themselves and attempt to build a whole world around yourself to me, beloved, it was convenient. The last principle applies on and in relation to children. It is very convenient to be use once a week, "Santa Claus", to bring in a McDonald's, go to a movie, to give some kind of gift. Thus the entire burden of parenting falls on the mother.

But there are fathers who are not satisfied with this. They need more. But they are facing our judicial practice, when the divorce, the child automatically stays with the mother (even for some developed in the Soviet era tradition). A certain number of hours the mother, of course, must provide to the father, but the wording of the court's judgments are slippery, that force the mother to give the child the father is almost impossible. It can keep him from communicating with his father indefinitely. And if the father will come and take the child's hand and take, it will be treated as a kidnapping.

For many fathers it is a terrible grief. The courts must make other decisions. Must be provided equal access to the child. I know many people who just killed from the inability to communicate with the child.

Can give you an example. Mother – of ethnic Muslims. Suddenly through relatives she turns to her faith, she is already baptized child brings if not a Wahhabi, then certainly as a zealous Muslim, and his father, votserkovitsya people can't do anything. For him this is a terrible misfortune. He was threatened and not allowed.

If the situation has not reached such extremes, of course, the mother and father after the divorce, you need to look for a compromise.

The baby's heart hurts, it hurts, and the wound, which is applied to his parents for their selfishness, sinfulness, can srivatsa decades and never izhitsa. My parents divorced when I was 12 years old. Now I am 45 – I have this wound is not closed till now. I'm still in pain.

Because the child cannot understand how this is so: mom and dad – the two halves of the same universe, mom and dad, whom he loves, – they don't love each other?! The child may know what it is, but cannot contain it, and his peace of mind starts to deform.

Especially deform the parts of the soul, which are associated with the perception of male. Girl, married, will face enormous difficulties to build a proper relationship with her husband. Boy, brought up by one mother and had not seen the example of his father, will experience may be much more difficult. Therefore, if the mother wants her son at least a little compensated for the losses and injuries that he has already done, it is imperative that the son communicated with the father – except, of course, in those cases where the father is the spiritual danger to the child.

If he's a drunk, rabid atheist or a drug addict, then of course it's different. Leg, where gangrene, it is useless to save since it is impossible to live: if they are not cut, you will die whole. In all other cases it is necessary to communicate, otherwise you'll have to explain to the child what daddy is bad and can not do so because, first, the child will never grow up normal if he condemns parents and he himself will never be a normal family, and, secondly, if it destroyed the authority of the father, he will be destroyed and the authority of the mother.

If the tragedy of divorce could not be avoided, you need to stop with the child to discuss, to reach agreement that neither mom or dad at the baby in any case each other not judging. And it is better to pray and look for ways to restore family, that is deliverance from this sin.

 

You need to cry and scream...

For example, the mother tells the little child, pointing to another man: "Here's your dad." A real father trying to fight for my son or daughter, but it's terribly difficult, because in a child's life has a new man that loves the mother that he loves his mother and him. How to be a father?

— Yes, unfortunately, there are such cases, and tell me how you do that, I can't. In each case a very deep need to pray, repent and seek God's answer. If you've got a maze of pride, of selfishness, of life without God and you're in the middle of the maze, then go from there, not nastojashii the wall and not into a dead end, impossible. Need a lot of work.

But I want to say again: if you're a believer, do everything first in order to avoid divorce. Step on your throat, face it "to Zela", be patient, pray.

Are you ready to get a divorce because I believe that the universe revolves around you. Remember that Christ "did not come to be served, but to serve" (Мк10:45). And you humble yourself and serve – a child, a wife. Yes, there are many women who are younger and prettier than your wife, ready to create a family with you. So what? And God gave you this, He rescues you through it. So be patient.

Remember on the day of your wedding. Or prepare for the wedding. And the Lord will give grace to save his small Church. After all, there is the Temple of Christ the Savior, and there is a crooked wooden Church in the North. But there there is equally the grace of God, and no one knows where more of her people will feel, because "not by measure God gives the spirit" (Jn 3:34). If you're building a family as sacred as an icon, as the continuing sacrament of marriage, you will be able to overcome.

Usually the divorce is the result of the fact that no one wants to concede.

I had a long conversation with one man, whose family began to fall apart. No matter what side I come all the time, it turned out that the fault of the wife. And could not manage to make it somehow be moved to this point of view, even just to get to talk. And only at the end of the conversation, when I asked him: "And you do, when married, wanted to make her happy?" – he looked at me. "I – said – it somehow didn't think".

But with this and need to start, not to seek some sort of Church recipes and blessings when everything is destroyed. Blessing – "the good word". What could be the good word when broken family? You need to cry and scream. And because most families is not for canonical reasons.

— And for those that are denoted as "not together"?

— Absolutely. And if mutual fault and both people did not want to keep the family together – that is the Canon of seven years they could be left without the Sacrament. That is, in fact, seven years outside the Church, because the separation from Communion is excommunication. Imagine what it's like for a person?





The work of understanding the other person

Several times I came across this saying: "when you are married, the man hopes the woman will remain the same as in the beginning of the relationship, and the woman tries to remake a man." Is it really so? And if so, what to do with it?

— The man who wants his wife remained the same as it was, is a sad man. In this sense, the position of the wife, which you have outlined is much closer to the Christian understanding of marriage.

Frequent divorces in age from 40 to 50 years and marrying young is just a relapse, that a man never grew up. Having with the woman the way in 15-20 years, he hasn't changed a bit and waiting for her, so she is still the same as it was. And he ends with love for her. It's just flat and not growing spiritually.

The family is the constant development and deepening of love to each other. And if a man lives with his wife Christian, loves her Christian, it is impossible now to love her like you loved her 5 years ago. You love her always more you reveal deeper. Through the love it offers you a stereoscopic view of the world. You look at the world surrounding you, and in God – through her eyes.

Therefore, a person who builds a truly Christian marriage, would never change for someone fifty years his wife, even if it is faded outside. What he has discovered in her years of marriage, many times what he has gained, when they were both twenty. This spiritual luxury, this beauty is another personality that is known only in long-term labor of love – they will not replace the body young.

 

To the second marriage the Church is with indulgence. Still, before even widowers who marry a second time, previously carried epithemiou not received communion for some time. Because the wife is waiting for you there, and you are cheated. Yes, your weakness, the Church you were married, but still there is a fall. The priest has no right, widowed, to marry again, because he must meet committed requirements. In principle, they are for any Christian, but the priest should be a model, and another human can be applied economy*.

Love is the great work of the understanding of the human condition, which may last years.

  Whether in the family criticism?

Often, couples argue because of the reluctance to accept criticism. May spouses it is better to refrain from criticism?

— Mutual criticism is very important and necessary, just we really do not know how to react. We immediately take offense. But criticism must be taken from the child and from his wife and from mother-in-law, and from anyone. Christian in General should be able to hear what he said regardless of who was talking to him and what tone of voice. And if the other person tells him the truth, you should do it.

The husband, as head of the family has the responsibility of final decision on the most complex issues. If the wife knows that the husband will make the right decision, even if offered he, she, and it is easier to obey him. If a child sees that mom and dad listen carefully to him, despite the fact that it's small, I apologize if they are guilty before him, it is much easier to obey their parents.

But if he sees the controversy, he would not listen never. Because all the authority for it from collapsing. Similarly, if the child hears the mother yelling at the grandmother, the mother, hold on: you will be the same. You child did not explain, because by your own example you all the explanations destroyed.

— I have heard, like men, sometimes jokingly and sometimes seriously, to say: "You, my dear, not listened to at the wedding the Apostolic message, which says: "the Wife fear her husband"". If this is true?

— You've got to understand that the Apostle Paul likens the husband to Christ. Christ is the One Who goes to the cross for the Church and dies for her. Therefore, husband and father "to be afraid" can be when he truly serves others selflessly doing their part of building a Christian family. Then the man has the right to demand to be heard, "feared." And my wife will be very easy to obey a husband. Easy to listen to a man who knows how to apologize, ready to accept good advice, normally takes criticism. By his example, the husband will teach the same and wife, and children. You can't cling to the phrase of the Apostle, pulling it out of context.

Therefore, the husband, ask yourself first, are you in the family of Christ, or do you live according to the "TV – Slippers – Internet" does the house not do it and just go around yapping at all?

  Criminal joy at the expense of loved ones

— Once you said that alcoholism is a form of adultery. In the minds of most people, these sins are still not identical. Why do you equate them to each other? As a man to fight this misery?

It's terrible that the majority of men is not something that I do not want to fight this misery, and even refuse to recognize it as such. One of the problems with alcoholism is that the person does not consider himself an alcoholic. For its internal mechanism alcoholism, indeed, is equated to treason and therefore is a sufficient reason for the fact, that the injured party can count as marriage is destroyed.

Because it's like cheating, criminal joy on the side at the expense of the tears of loved ones. With a person who will allow herself is a slow suicide, to create a family temple of the impossible, just as it is impossible to create a parish, if the priest is an alcoholic.

So as soon as you receive this issue, the wife must fight by any means: scandals, treatments, feeds for divorce. Because if the first time to show gentleness, then, from this swamp the person not to pull out. A man must know: "Or – or". Or family or alcohol.

— Where is the line between so-called moderate drinking and alcoholism?

— If a person regularly feels the need, at least in a small amount of alcohol and not able to relax without it – so had to be rebuild in the chemistry of the body, and already need a feat and a miracle to be overcome.

One of those who was Boniface, a man who was an alcoholic and a great libertine, and became a great Holy Martyr. Every Thursday in our Church, served a moleben about alcoholics and drug addicts.

— Today is becoming more common another way to "relax" is marijuana. "Grass" is almost no longer considered a drug. The image of the "smoke-filled" has become a common phenomenon of mass culture. Moreover, many argue that "thanks to the" grass "got off" with alcohol and comparing it to alcohol and discover the benefits: no hangovers, no aggression and getting into "history", there is no phenomena similar to sing... Also, these people argue that depending on there's no pot and there is no danger to go to hard drugs. How to look at this phenomenon? Is it possible to replace one evil by another?

— The main evil here – the inability to relax and irritation in this regard, at close. To fight this evil with the help of any substance – it is wickedness. Mechanisms of leisure inherent in man by the Lord.

At least one day a week, a person needs to devote to God and rest. If you go to the Liturgy and the second part of Sunday to spend with family, read books to children, and ride with them on sleds or bikes – so you can rest. And when you can't relax without some kind of narcotic drug (which, incidentally, can be not only a drug but also computer games, Internet) – then it's time to sound the alarm and to go to confession, to go to the doctor.

And the danger go on to the next level is always there. People who have moved from soft drugs to hard, much more than those who started using hard drugs at once. That is, first, there is not physiological, and emotional habituation to altered consciousness. And at some point want it all in large doses. The beer: like not a hard drink, and beer drinking is much heavier than the vodka.

To avoid such temptations, in the family it is necessary to restore public prayer, at least the evening, or at least a short with the kids. Every day you need to restore the small Church, after all, what is a Church without prayer? This prayer unites people of God. Let your child see that family is the Church, that the father is the priest in this Church.

 

"The watchful eye"

— By the way, about children and the Church. As simple words to explain what you believe are his parents. How to make him serious and not a formal attitude to the Church and to God?

— I think the question is not quite right. It is necessary not to convince, but to reveal to the child by their example reverence for God in my life. The child must see that the mother and father do not deduct a rule, and pray. Then it's a completely natural way it opens. To explain can and should be, and the Lord will answer all the questions. Sometimes the child himself will offer him a clear answer.

To give a child faith – not the main problem. The most important and difficult part is to show in ordinary life, fear of God, humility before each other.

A simple example. Dad said, "Mom, go rest," – and he stayed to wash the dishes. And the child learns to help. And if the father, no matter what mom or they were tired, they said, "Hey, why are the dishes dirty?" – and while he goes in the room to watch TV or "play tank battle", then talk to the child about what love is, it is useless.

Read Saint Silouan The Athonite. All his life he's returning to the example of his meek, illiterate father, who he and instructions special not given, but those small, gave the Holy remembered and honored all my life.

But the dialogue in one parish the family: "Go, children, to the temple." – "Let's go". – "What are you doing under the table anyway?" "And I'm dad, I'm not going to the temple." It's all clear. Can not explain anything.

Never forget that you are being followed, and very intense, the eyes of your children. They analyse and very clearly feel when you act in faith, and when you go against what you declare. After all, the person should discover not some theory, but the living Christ.published

Author: Denis Sobur

P. S. And remember, only by changing their consumption — together we change the world! ©

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Source: www.dar-rogdeniya.ru/2013/10/31/papina-rubrika/sdelat-zhenu-schastlivoy-ya-kak-to-ob-etom-ne-dumal

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