Recently Shaunti Feldhahn wrote an article called Everything We Think We Know about Marriage and Divorce is Wrong. .That's a sweeping claim, and I admit put me off at first. I have put a decade of trust in researchers like Scott Stanley and Scott Haltzman, and feel defensive about including their work in the expired category. But Shaunti seems to have done her homework too and her punch line is a keeper. 

"Divorce isn't the greatest threat to marriage. Discouragement is."

She claims that the divorce rate is no where near fifty per cent, and that church goers have a lower divorce rate still. That got my attention. I have, like many people, quoted the Half Will Fail gloom and doom stats which Shaunti says are part of the problem. Oops. 

Years ago I knew of a minister who met with a couple who had suffered infidelity. He gave them no hope. 

"I have never known a couple to survive adultery. I am sorry."

I wanted to scream.

There are auditoriums full of couples who have indeed survived, and all it takes is a google search to find a BAN or Retrouville or Third Option or Divorce Busting event near you. Telling a couple the recovery rate is zero is like dooming someone with cancer to dig a grave and jump in. Hopeful odds are what keep chemo patients fighting, and they hang on to those numbers like the door jam in a tornado.