If I could instantly dissolve every marriage in this country with the snap of my fingers, I would do it without hesitation.

That seems like a pretty extreme thing to say, but I truly believe that starting over from square one, with no existing marriages to “learn from”, would be the only way to make any real progress towards improving the mediocrity that is apparent across the entire institution of marriage today. It is the only way to help our society understand that the way we currently define what constitutes a “good marriage” is horribly flawed.

Marriages in our society today are defined using longevity, not quality. A marriage of 50 years is something people believe you should be proud of even if every day was a constant struggle for happiness. When people speak of a “good” or “normal” marriage, their definition includes good times and bad. Others describe marriage as “healthy” if people can forgive infidelity or other hurtful actions and attempt to rebuild trust. In other words, we as a society think a marriage can still be described as good and healthy even if it includes recurring hard times, broken trust and constant incompatibility.

That mindset will never change as long as there are mediocre marriages for people to observe. Right now, the vast majority of marriages in our country fall into that category.

Assuming I had the power to snap my fingers and dissolve every marriage, it isn’t a far stretch to say I would also be able to lay down some ground rules for how they were dissolved.

I’ve had many conversations with married people who know their marriage is mediocre but they choose to stay married. They defend that choice by pointing out that all the marriages they observe now and in the past have also included the type of dysfunction and struggle they deal with. They also don’t want to get divorced because of worries about money, bills, where to live, who gets the kids, and how to start the process.

The snap of my fingers would answer all of those concerns for them. Both spouses would retain exactly the same proportion of bills as the proportion of income they brought into their joint household. They would have a reasonable place to live. They would have an established schedule allowing them to spend time with their children. It would also erase all memories of the mediocre relationships people have observed over the course of their lives and all the flawed advice and opinions they’ve been given telling them to stay in incompatible relationships and compromise their desires in order to make them last.

Here’s what would happen if I could do all that…

1. 3% of couples would get remarried as soon as humanly possible. They wouldn’t have to think twice about it. They wouldn’t even care that their marriage was dissolved because none of the decisions they make or the desire to be together would be changed at all by the fact that they were no longer legally bound to each other. These are couples that actually have the type of marriage that we should all strive for.

2. Another 12 to 17% of couples would get back together after a short period of time. These are the couples that are actually correct when they say they “have it better than” most other couples. While they’re may be some slight incompatibilities to their personalities that have a small effect on their relationship, those things haven’t been bothersome enough that they’ve ever truly doubted whether or not they wanted to be in it. Some of them might look around for a short period of time to see if they could find someone more compatible, but the small increase in compatibility that they could find, wouldn’t be enough to overcome their desires to get their family back together.

3. The rest of the couples in the country would stay divorced.

4. With only healthy relationships to observe and learn from, the bar would be raised for everyone else who was looking for someone to marry. The positive influence from observing only good marriages would help those people strive for a marriage that would actually be worth entering into.

Here’s what I’m saying in layman’s terms. Approximately 15 to 20% of the marriages in this country are actually worth maintaining. Of those marriages, approximately 3% are what I would define as perfect.

You might scoff at those numbers and wonder where I am getting them. Let’s discuss that for a moment. The actual divorce rate is over 40% annually in our country. Of the remaining 60% of people who stay married, how many of them should? Nobody with an ounce of common sense would say all of them.

I guarantee you can list people in your mind right now that you believe should get divorced. You also know people who are cheating or have cheated. You know people who fight incessantly. You know people who talk about getting divorced all the time, but don’t have the courage to do it.

Think of all the married couples you know, and the number of them that have gotten divorced. I would be willing to bet you can list more couples who you believe should get divorced, than couples who actually have.

The 40% divorce rate in this country doesn’t take come close to eliminating all of the bad marriages out there. That’s because the way we look at marriage in this country right now convinces people in bad marriages that they should stay together. It is a sad but true fact.

Relationship experts tell us that ALL marriages involve difficulties and fights. As a result, people who have constant fights and difficulties believe they should stay married and find ways to deal with those things. Those same relationship experts tell us to stay married even if we have to work through infidelity or other negative experiences in our marriages. As a result, people stay in marriages fraught with distrust, sadness, and pain. Those same experts with also tell you to compromise your own desires and give up things you want because you committed to another person and no two people will ever be compatible enough to agree on everything. As a result, people don’t believe they can live the exact life they want to live and resign themselves to spending their lives frustrated by the limitations imposed upon them in a marriage to someone they are not compatible with.

I’m here today and will be here tomorrow and the day after and the day after because I am proof that all those experts are wrong. I lived that kind of life full of compromise, anger and frustration because I listened to them and stayed in a bad marriage for 12 years.

I changed my expectations, got divorced, found someone compatible with me in every way, and now I have one of those perfect marriages in the 3% I mentioned earlier.

Looking back now, dealing with the money, the house, the kids and all the other line items that needed to be checked off the list during my divorce was uncomfortable, but it was temporary. Had someone snapped their fingers and dissolved my marriage back then, they would have been doing me the biggest favor anyone has ever done for me in my life. In reality, now that I’m able to live the life that I’ve always wanted, the memory of that period of my life while I was going through my divorce doesn’t seem like anything more than a snap of my fingers anyway.

Staying in a bad marriage will make you unhappy forever! It will also set the example that will more than likely teach your children and your friends to strive for the same type of unhappy relationship you’ve taught them is normal.

It won’t feel like a snap of your fingers if you decide to start the divorce process, but when you’re able to finally live the life you really want to live, you’ll look back later wishing you could snap your fingers and help all the other people you care about find that same kind of life too!

I realized all of that, I got through it, and I found perfect!

You can find it too.