![\"friendship-422247_1920\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2019\/02\/friendship-422247_1920-300x200.jpg\")
The Chinese are concerned about the state of marriage in their country. As\u00a0divorce rates rise, they decided to do a few things to see if they could\u00a0curb the rate of divorce. In 2016, one attempt was through China’s Supreme Court. They made a recommendation aimed at helping couples\u00a0distinguish the difference\u00a0between “marital death” and “marital crisis.”<\/p>\n
The Court recommended that couples considering divorce take a 3-month cooling off period. This cooling off period was\u00a0implemented on a case by case hearing and aimed at couples who had solvable problems. The idea was\u00a0to help\u00a0couples through marital crises rather than have them divorce\u00a0impulsively or simple consider the marriage over. They noticed that young couples were especially prone to quick divorce when marital expectations were not being met.<\/p>\n
The concern with rising divorce rates was because\u00a0divorce leads to a number of social problems, crimes and isolated elderly people. In China, the break up of the family has led to rising suicide rates among the elderly. Thus, the government is trying to support couples and keep families together, asking them to take a step back and work through marital conflicts. More\u00a0focus is also being placed on the process of mediation when divorce looms. The\u00a0hope is that slowing down the process of divorce may help some couples work through problems and stay married.<\/p>\n
In 2017, the results of the cooling off period were positive when tried in the\u00a0Southwest China province of \u00a0Sichuan. Chinanews. com reported that nine of\u00a0\u00a010 couples reconciled due to\u00a0the cooling off period. Most of them realized they had minor problems that could be solved.<\/p>\n
In 2018, the courts imposed the cooling off period for a number of weeks to months. After a period of reflection, the\u00a0couple can still decide to divorce, but the cooling off period is used to slow down impulsive decisions and fixable problems.<\/p>\n
There is a lesson here for all. Marriage is a covenant, entered into with the promise that you will stay with the person through good and bad times. In American culture, too many couple divorce over fixable problems. Many couples could benefit from basic relationships skills and conflict resolution.<\/p>\n
While many states in the U.S. require couples to wait six months to a year for a divorce, the use\u00a0of the waiting period is not necessarily to work through problems.\u00a0Cooling off periods are often\u00a0used to.postpone the inevitable, not\u00a0to work on couple problems. Marital training on fair fighting, the use of empathy, listening, compromise and forgiveness would be helpful\u00a0to\u00a0move couples into more satisfying relationships.\u00a0I can’t tell you how many times I hear couples wish they had done more work on their first marriage\u00a0because they see the same problems repeat in their new relationships.<\/p>\n
Now, not all couple problems can be solved with a cooling off period.\u00a0Certainly problems of abuse and abandonment would not be included. But\u00a0many problems that lead to divorce are\u00a0fixable when\u00a0\u00a0couples are willing to work on their issues. So the lesson here is to use the cooling off period to address the issues of the marriage, not as a waiting period to sign papers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Chinese are concerned about the state of marriage in their country. As\u00a0divorce rates rise, they decided to do a few things to see if they could\u00a0curb the rate of divorce. In 2016, one attempt was through China’s Supreme Court. They made a recommendation aimed at helping couples\u00a0distinguish the difference\u00a0between “marital death” and “marital crisis.”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[913],"tags":[4374,132,125],"class_list":["post-10534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-couple-relationships","tag-cooling-off-period-presenting-divorce","tag-divorce","tag-marriage"],"yoast_head":"\n