Outside Interests Blamed For

(Editor's Note: Statistics on the increasing rate of divorce are just a small part of the divorce picture. Behind the statistics are persons who thought marriage, for them, would be a permanent The following is the _SLLojhI inathreearl_aLries_of interviews with persons who have been divorced.) By Mary Jo Staples íNews Stafí Reporter) Life is most difficult for Mrs. Betty Warren when she sees other couples enjoying their children and grandchildren together. . Although Mrs. Warren (not her real name) spends a great deal of time with her children and grandchildren, she does it as a single woman. Mrs. Warren, 57, and her husband were divorced seven years ago following 30 years of marriage. "If I had known what I know now, I _X O-' f y f f would have put Bill first," she explains. "I wouldn't have been so aggressive to do it my way." Mrs. Warren says the couple had endured times of disappointment, infidelity and financial pinches but they separated for the final time after outside interests became more important to both than the marriage. "More and more my concerns were divergent from his. A rivalry began to develop. We were each working for social justice in our own way. And we never had any time or quiet to work through these things - to see what was happening to us," Mrs. Warren says. The Warrens met while they were in college. He was four years older than she. They married one month after they met. "It was a secret marriage because i had a teaching contract. You couldn't HHMMHI be married and teach. And at that time I people just didn't live together I out being married," Mrs. Warren says. "It was a bad start," she recalls. Warren had to give up his education to j port their first child who was born during the first year. "When we were married - there was a commitment. This was the kind of I age I had," she says. The Warrens' second of three children I was born several years later while Bill I was trying to complete the requirements I for a master's degree. During Mrs. Warren's pregnancy, they I were separated for one month. "This I was the first time he got involved with I someone else," Mrs. Warren says. r While a student he struck up a I ship with a woman-in his class. "He thought it would be great if she J mMBBBBÜI