Divorce: When Friends aren't Friends Forever
How Divorce Affects Relationships in the Church
Being unfriended after divorce wasn’t in the cards. Sure, the in-laws would wave goodbye (or good riddance), the kids are gonna need counseling, and major holidays might be less political. Church family? They’re solid.
Solidly split that is.
Both were embedded in ministry, intertwined in marriage groups, and closely knit with the pastor and his wife. Severing ties wouldn’t remain unnoticed. People have opinions. Deeply held ones. Who knew?! They discipled couples. Championed marriage. Now who’s going to coordinate the Marriage Ministry?
Sixty missing Facebook friends later, and they’re beginning to wonder if everyone picked a side.
The Hebrew word for divorce is k’rithuth; meaning ‘cutting off’. One life now split and people choose sides. Game nights are cancelled. Coffee meetings vanish. Except that same person thirsty for some spilt tea.
The Marriage small group collapses. Men sit on one side, women on the other, shooting red hot glances across the snack table. The last time anyone saw this seating arrangement was in children’s church, and way less hostile.
She’s parked in the same seat on Sunday. His is empty. He was supposed to take the offering this week as repeated calls go straight to voicemail. Men retreat to caves in silence. Women process it on Facebook. Both unhealthy. Both attract fans. The Marriage class seating arrangement slowly bleeds into the pews on Sundays.
Suddenly single, friends aren’t comfortable having them near their spouse. Everything was fine with the four of them in the text group and now laugh emojis feel like flirting. Maybe even an innocent threat.
Sound farfetched? It’s coming to a church near you.
Divorce smells toxic. They’re the biohazard. Highly contagious. Friends cordon them off for fear of spouses catching the disease. Researchers call it the Contagion Effect.
“This would never happen in our church!” Until it does.
“Christians would never do this!” Not according to the research. Dr. Bruce Fisher, author of “Rebuilding When Your Relationship Ends”, touches on the above scenarios. Each dripping in reality.
LifeWay Research found that 31% of divorces end up deeply fracturing other relationships within the church. Divorce doesn’t stay locked in a box.
Every Divorce has a box named ‘Bob.’
Bob was a Christian who liked music, art, and wearing trench coats. Bob lived in the nineties. One day Bob wanted to show his friend Chuck his favorite painting at the local Christian bookstore. It sat on top of two other paintings on the wall. When Bob spun around to point at the top painting, his arm caught inside the trench coat, thrusting the hem into one of the bottom corners of the top painting. The force jarred it off the wall mount, crashing into the one below it, and smashing into the bottom one. Shattered glass and splintered wood frames covered the carpet. Three paintings destroyed. Bob was banned from the Christian bookstore.
One poor decision initiates a series of destructive events they never see coming. Friendships forever changed. Relationships fractured. Wounds left untreated. A church shaken. All thanks to Bob.
The real tragedy is broken covenant. Who mourns the fabric of a culture ripped to shreds? Jesus hated divorce. We forget that. Friends peddle advice having no clue the fallout. Be careful what you clap for. We dress up spouse bashing as loyalty with little regard for how it affects family trees. A child’s future hangs in the balance from words we speak into their marriage. Choose wisely.
Instead of promoting forgiveness, we reenact the Revolutionary war.
We form allegiances instead of calling for prayer. We quietly cheer on our cause, unfazed by its casualties and the smell of burning lead. We’re hardwired this way. There must be a villain and a victim. Tents are pitched on two ends of the church with mobs camping in both. It’s Battle of the Sexes: Church Edition. Nobody wins.
Wars never end well in pews. This is where leadership steps up for unity and prayer. Or it doesn’t. Simply ignore it and it will go away or fade out. This tends to be company policy. This approach has always aged well…
“Divorce is just messy, and I don’t want to deal with messy.” One pastor admitted. This is the default strategy. Another just flat out said “We just love them both, but we’re not getting involved.”
Oh pastor, people are getting involved despite your lack of a stance. While you’re intent on imitating Switzerland, powers and principalities fuel war.
Saying nothing speaks volumes.
Friends fade when war ends. Adrenaline runs out and the damage has been done. Nowhere to be found when silence is deafening. When life goes dark.
It was supposed to be a simple dissolution with each quietly going their separate ways. Divorce had other plans, it always does.
Friends aren’t always friends forever.
References
Andersen, J. (2026, April 22). Men grieve divorce in silence: And it’s making it worse. Substack. https://substack.com/home/post/p-194974208
DC4K [DivorceCare for Kids]. (2015, April 13). Question of the week: How does divorce hurt the church family? https://blog.dc4k.org/archives/3708
Fisher, B. (1981). Rebuilding: When your relationship ends. Impact Publishers.
LifeWay Research. (2015, October 29). Divorce threat hard to detect for churches. https://research.lifeway.com/2015/10/29/divorce-threat-hard-to-detect-for-churches/
Pew Research Center. (2013, October 21). Is divorce contagious? https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/10/21/is-divorce-contagious/
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. (n.d.). Gender differences in the grieving process. Together by St. Jude. https://together.stjude.org/en-us/emotional-support-daily-life/bereavement/gender-differences-in-grieving.html
Waterloo, S. F., Baumgartner, S. E., Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2018). Norms of online expressions of emotion: Comparing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp. New Media & Society, 20(5), 1813–1831. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6256717/
Thank you for reading! If you know of someone going through divorce or considering it, I would be honored if you shared this.
Today’s world is all about image. We want to look and sound the part but keep everyone at arms length. Not get too tangled in their mess.💔
It is interesting that there are some 45,000 denominations of christiantiy in the world... all often carried out like a divorce. Malachi 2 is a message pointed at priests. Now after all those divorces they do try to get along and profess unity with words but perhaps not their hearts.