Before marriage we should make sure we are mature enough and symbolically ‘separate’ from our family. Usually people change after marriage because they try to bring in their new family the old customs that they feel obliged to maintain: ‘this is what my mother or father used to do.’

If before marriage, your husband had been acting kind, and after that he became proud that he made you fall in love with him, became weird and faulty, saying that you need to endure all, what is it to be done? Should you endure this treatment to the end of your life or you can divorce him? Is divorce allowed by church in this case?

“You know what the Church and Christ say: divorce is allowed for lust and adultery, but my dear, this is a situation that you need to understand: he didn’t lie to you. People, before marriage and when they are in love, try to offer their best. But you are naive to think they have only virtues! Look at yourself: do you think you have only virtues? Each of us has hidden flaws that we do not want the other person to know, not because we are lying, but because we are afraid to show them…”

When someone brings you flowers, you won’t speak bad to him, do you? No. But then, when he is no longer interested to bring you flowers, will start revealing his flaws. Or he will put his egoistic wishes first rather than fulfilling your equally egoistic wishes … These things happen because you marry each other without fully knowing one another. Or, because you deny the obvious, hoping that “the devil is not so dark!” But the devil is dark even when fully dressed in light!

Before marriage we should make sure we are mature enough and symbolically ‘separate’ from our family. Usually people change after marriage because they try to bring in their new family the old customs that they feel obliged to maintain: ‘this is what my mother or father used to do.’

We know that the man needs to leave his mother and father – meaning not to forget about them, to stop visiting them or help them in need, but to let go to their influence – so that the two spouses may form a new home, a single body. This is the reason why, in Church, the parents of the newly wed are the godfathers and not their own parents.

Thus, my children, we should learn to say what is bothering us, to say ‘no’ when we do not want to accept an abuse, to talk with love and prayer, to ask for advice, to forgive and pray, to avoid judging, or seeking revenge and then you will be able to discover again the man you were in love with in this ‘evil’ man, and so that he wishes to be with you. When we say mean words to each other, we are unable to see us the way we are.”

(Translation from: Monahia Siluana Vlad, Deschide Cerul cu lucrul mărunt, Editura Doxologia, Iași, 2013, pp. 189-191)