Exposing DivorceCare: Session eight: Financial Survival

Eph 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

This is part eight of a series of posts exposing the popular divorce recovery ministry of DivorceCare.

DivorceCare claims to be a Christ-centered support ministry established for people who have experienced, or who about to experience divorce. They claim that their goal is to help find help for the hurts of divorce, discover hope for the future, and experience God’s blessing. The founder of DivorceCare, Steve Grissom, is a product of divorce and remarriage. He started DivorceCare based on his experience of divorce and the experience of healing from this divorce to remarry. He claims it was God’s calling to start this ministry.

In this session, DivorceCare (DC) offers advice on the financial difficulties surrounding divorce. Budgets and financial decisions are important in everyday life and DC offers three areas to start heading on the right track to financial stability after divorce.

• Common financial mistakes divorced people make.
• How to get out of debt.
• The importance of creating a budget (and how to do it)

Even though these are very good concepts, it leaves nothing to the fact that a divorce does not end a marriage. If the evangelical church would repent of false teaching on marriage divorce and remarriage, there would be zero talk of financial woos caused by divorce. These financial problems most often escalate with overspending and living outside your means during marriage. Combine this “worldly” living with divorce, and the cost will be significant.

I thought it would be wise to offer the financial statistics of divorce. DC offers some financial statistics on the cost of divorce, but I thought it wise to share outside statistics surrounding divorce. The Huffington Post ran an article on the cost of divorce. How Much Does the Average Divorce Really Cost?

Bruce Cameron of Cameron Law PLLC in Rochester, Minn. says the generally accepted figure is anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000. "Basically it costs as much to get unmarried as it does to get married," says Cameron. Here are just a few of the fees and costs divorcing couples can expect to pay:

• Attorney's fees (which can vary by state)
• Court costs (also varies by state)
• Costs for parent education classes
• Fees for early neutral evaluations
• Mediation costs

And if there is real estate involved, you can also expect to pay:

• Refinancing costs
• Record deed fees
• Added hourly attorney's fees

Divorce is costly. No matter how you look at it, divorce will have a deep financial impact on both spouses. DC makes it perfectly clear that the cost of divorce is enough to make one or both spouses struggling to survive. DC does a great job of offering tips on how to gain financial freedom, yet they do so with an understanding that the marriage should never ended in the first place.

There are staggering financial statistics of divorce. According to one article by Citzenlink “How much does divorce costtaxpayers?” the average annual cost of divorce to taxpayers is 112 billion dollars. Divorcecorp exposes the deception and deceit behind the family court system. They estimate that the family court system makes over 50 billion dollars a year on divorce litigation. DivorceCorp’s tag line is “Marriage is an institution. Divorce is big business.”  Then there is the cost of childcare. Babycenter.com’s article “How much you’ll spend onchildcare” quotes: 

The average cost of center-based daycare in the United States is $11,666 per year ($972 a month), but prices range from $3,582 to $18,773 a year ($300 to $1,564 monthly), according to the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA).

The estimated combined yearly total of all statistics (This is just using a quarter of the US population 75 million people with the lowest childcare price of $3,582 a year) is a whopping 440 billion dollars a year. It most likely much more than this…

A common web search on the reasons for divorce always include financial problems. In fact, money is most often the issue in all divorce cases, whether it is the inability to agree on financial matters, or whether it has more to do with living beyond what you can afford. If a couple would work together to maintain a stable budget, very few spouses would divorce.

In conclusion, DC offers good financial advice and options. This is not an issue, the issue is ever believing divorce can end a marriage in the first place. Should DC repent of their position on divorce and remarriage, they could funnel their resources into preserving marriages, and not telling us how to deal with divorce. Yet, it is clear that the only reason the world loves marriage is the fact that divorce is big business. That alone should help you understand why God hates divorce.


Exposing DivorceCare-Kidcare
 

In Christ’s love,

Neil