DY, I’ve experienced all of that devastation. I don’t know if most could be saved with enough effort, but certainly many could. But effort is not enough. If you try but don’t take personal achrayus, and make the changes only you can make, it wont work. If you try but can’t forgive or be generous the way a healthy marriage demands, it wont work. If you aren’t self aware and able to articulate what hurts, scares, confounds, confuses, angers or worries you, and you don’t bother to share what encourages you, strengthens you or makes you smile, it won’t work. But even the most selfish and self unaware individual begins with the mistake that they can make their fantasy work – that may be stupidity, but it is not criminality.
Back to those who try honestly and can not make it succeed. Even rhetorically, I take massive exception to the notion it is “criminal” It is a blanket assertion thrown at people who for the most part are already pained and damaged by their experience. In what rhetorical world is that kind of callous disregard for others anything other than a reckless disregard for our responsibilities bein odom lechaveiro? “rhetoric” can be and often is a weapon of public embarrassment. I admit I am far from perfect in this regard. I do try not to let my emotion get the best of me, and I hope that I never have nor will throw a grenade like “criminal” at someone or many who are already dealing with the pain and isolation and loss of confidence and torn relationships that a divorce brings.
I know from my own interactions with botei din, with poskim, with marriage counselors, psychologists, social workers, with other divorcees, with couples that have figured out how to hold on to their marriage, with chosson and kallah teachers, that indeed many marriages can be saved, but only with the commitment I described above. And many marriages are foolishly entered into if the participants aren’t ready, but their parents, culture, and community push them forward anyways. My experience and my interlocutors indicate to me that 95% is a ridiculous number and 99% more so. I’d concede even that a majority could possibly be saved, again with the commitment described above. I have way, way more issues with the “criminal” assertion, actual or rhetorical.