John Trent - Breaking the Cycle of Divorce: How Your Marriage Can Succeed Even If Your Parents Didnt

If your parents were divorced, you need to read this compelling book. Breaking the Cycle of Divorce acts like an inoculation against the divorce epidemic, preventing its spread from generation to generation. It will assure you that your marriage can be for a lifetime and give you a very practical road map to get you there.

S HAUNTI F ELDHAHN , author of For Women Only

Dr. John Trent is honest. He is vulnerable, and he is right! Adult children of divorce (like me) can begin a new cycle of successful marriage in their family. I know because Ive been married 41 years! Start reading, because this book gives you practical steps to take you to a lifelong love.

L INDA D ILLOW , author of Calm My Anxious Heart and co-author of Intimate Issues

While acknowledging the detrimental influence of parental divorce on children, this book gives compelling evidence that the negative power of parental example can be broken. John Trent is living proof that the insights of this book can lead to a successful marriage.

G ARY D. C HAPMAN , Ph.D., author of The Five Love Languages and The Four Seasons of Marriage

John Trent takes the family portrait of divorce and changes the frame to one of hope. He shows us how to paint over the broken lines of divorce with brushstrokes of enduring love, gives us the tools to break the cycle, and shares how to create a legacy of love for a lifetime.

S HARON J AYNES , author of Becoming the Woman of His Dreams and Becoming a Woman Who Listens to God

Also by John Trent
The Blessing
The Gift of Honor
The Language of Love
Love Is a Decision
The Two Sides of Love
Home Remedies
The Hidden Value of a Man
Leaving the Lights On
(all with Gary Smalley)
LifeMapping
Seeking Solid Ground
A Love for All Seasons
Go the Distance
The Making of a Godly Man Workbook
Choosing to Live the Blessing
Leading from Your Strengths
Parenting from Your Strengths
The Light of Home
The Dads Everything Book for Sons
The Dads Everything Book for Daughters
Heart Shift
The Two-Degree Difference

Books for Children
The Treasure Tree
Theres a Duck in My Closet!
Id Choose You!
Spider Sisters
Two Trails
The Black & White Rainbow

Breaking the Cycle of Divorce
Copyright 2006 by John Trent, Ph.D.
All rights reserved.

A Focus on the Family book published by
Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188

TYNDALE is a registered trademark of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Tyndales quill logo is a trademark of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
(www.zondervan.com) Scripture quotations marked ( NASB ) are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Peoples names and certain details of their stories have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwisewithout prior permission of Focus on the Family.

Editors: Mick Silva, Kathy Davis
Cover design by: Stephen Vosloo. Author photograph by Hayes Button Photography.
Cover photograph of family copyright Nick Clements/Getty Images. All rights reserved.

Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc.,
7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920,
www.alivecommunications.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Trent, John T.
Breaking the cycle of divorce : how your marriage can succeed even if your
parents didnt / by John Trent, with Larry Weeden.
p. cm.
A Focus on the Family book.
978-1-58997-141-7
1. DivorceReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. MarriageReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Weeden, Larry K. II. Title.
BT707.T74 2006
646.7'8dc22

2005034854

Build: 2021-04-21 09:33:17 EPUB 3.0

In loving memory of Zoa L. Trent, beloved mother and a world-class example of someone who used Gods love to reverse the curse for her children and many others

M y thanks go to Cecil Price, professional researcher par excellence, for his help in finding statistics and other material used in this book.

Id also like to thank my friend Jim McGuire, who served as a technical go-between when my e-mail and that of my co-writer didnt want to get along with each other. Im glad Jim was up some late nights to get chapter attachments from one of us to the other.

As always, my agent, Lee Hough at Alive Communications, was a great help in pulling together the pieces of the project and looking out for my best interests.

On the personal side, my wife, Cindy, and our daughters, Kari and Laura, deserve praise for their loving support and encouragement. I couldnt do the work I do if I didnt have them all solidly in my corner. Theyre my biggest fans, and that means more to me than I can say.

My brothers, Jeff and Joe, are likewise a source of great encouragement as I work on writing projects. In this book, theyre also a part of the cast of characters.

Finally, my thanks go to the Focus on the Family team of professionals who have worked so hard to help shape, package, and present this book in an outstanding way.

Children of divorce have no idea how to create and maintain a healthy relationship themselves. Typically, therefore, the idea of getting married fills them with both joy and dread at the same time.

I magine growing up in a big city in the eastern United States, having never set foot outside the concrete jungle. One day a person you care for a great deal asks you to paint a picture of the Arizona desert in spring bloom, with flowering cacti of various kinds and a brightly colored carpet of wildflowers covering the sanda scene youve never witnessed or even viewed in photographs.

Would you be able to do it?

Almost certainly youd find it impossible, even if you had artistic talent. How could you hope to paint a landscape you had never seen? You might worry about hurting your loved ones feelings; you might wish desperately that you could satisfy the request. But youd find yourself asking, What does one kind of cactus look like, let alone a dozen different kinds? And since when do cacti bloom? And while were at it, whats a wildflower?

Adult children of divorce who are considering the possibility of marriageor who are already married and struggling to keep it togetherface a challenge that seems nearly as inconceivable. Like every human being, they want to be loved and accepted. Like most people, they long to find those things in a marriage relationship that will be strong and thriving and mutually fulfilling for as long as we both shall live.

Unfortunately, those adult children of divorce have never seen such a marriage relationship. They have no idea what it looks like. Their only experience is with a relationship that, for any of a thousand reasons, didnt last. In their experience, when the going gets tough, men and women bail out of a bad marriage.