“Honor and keep,” “cherish and love,” “in sickness and in health,” “for better or for worse,” “’til death do us part.”

What do these phrases mean to us? I’m beginning to believe that they mean nothing. Call me a cynic, call me faithless, but the growing trend in the world around us seems to be a wholesale rejection of everything permanent and committal about marriage. The trappings and vows of the American wedding—glorious and expensive though they are—seem to fade more and more quickly with each passing year. Perhaps it’s Hollywood’s fault. Maybe feminism is partly to blame. But regardless of the reason, it has become painfully clear to me: marriage is meaningless and defunct in the United States of America.

It’s anyone’s guess how we got to this point. Only a matter of decades ago, divorce or “dissolution of marriage” as our beloved attorneys at law refer to it, was unheard of. In 1816, one in every one-hundred marriages ended in divorce. At the beginning of the 20^th century, that number had only climbed to about six. By the end of the 1980s however, marriages ending in divorce had soared to about fifty percent. And although the nationwide average has fallen slightly since then, divorce rates have skyrocketed for one demographic in particular: conservative Christians. That’s right. According to the most recent statistics, “born-again” Protestant Christians are more likely to split up than Catholics, Mormons, or even Atheists. And to be honest, it doesn’t surprise me.

It seems everywhere I look these days, whether it’s among the members of my church, my friends or my high school classmates, divorce is rampant. Hardly a week goes by when I don’t hear about another family splitting up, another husband caught in an affair, or another wife who “just can’t take it anymore.” Having never been married myself (eighteen-year-olds don’t typically do that these days), I cannot speak from experience. But honestly, is marriage really that miserable?

Nowadays practically all I hear from wedded couples are complaints, arguments and vitriol. Even marriages that hold together for decades seem to end with little more than squabbling, cranky spouses who merely tolerate one another. Where is the love to which the Bible alludes? Are we incapable of anything but temporary infatuation? Is there no such thing as commitment? Are we just expected to accept this fickle and fleshly attitude toward marriage? If so, I didn’t get the memo.

I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic. Perhaps I should welcome this cold, bitter dose of reality. Maybe it’s true that marriage is a broken and fallen institution, just as marred by the Curse of Adam as anything else. Maybe we really are incapable of permanent, unconditional love. Far be it from me to declare a victory for Satan, but when the “devout” families of my closest friends begin to disintegrate before my very eyes, I start to wonder. Could it happen here? How strong is the marriage at the core of my family?

I wish I could finish this by writing an encouraging message. I wish I could say something like “stick to it!” or “it’s all worth it!” But right now, those phrases sound horribly corny and hollow. When twenty-year-old marriages suddenly fall to pieces, crushing the hearts of my dearest friends, how can I help but despair? When the diseases of adultery and breakup start to infect the families I have considered strong and devoted for years, who can blame me for losing hope? My only prayer at this point is that God would spare my family from that kind of agony and that I would never inflict it upon another. If that means relinquishing my own faint hope for real love, then so be it. I cannot continue to believe in the bonds which “God hath joined together,” when they snap on a daily basis. And despite all the happy fairy-tales we ignorantly believed as children, it’s beginning to seem like hate really is stronger than love.