For Better, For Worse, Forever...

Published in The Post-Star (A1)
11/20/06

Thomas DeVol does not believe in divorce, ever.

Not even if a couple has stopped loving each other. ("What about for better or worse?") Not even if a spouse cheats. ("Adultery can be forgiven.") Not even if a husband beats his wife. ("If he committed assault, he can go to jail, but don't get a divorce.")

DeVol, 62, is a Christian minister with a Ph.D. in counseling psychology who specializes in what he calls "no divorce" marriage counseling.

"The way that our society is coming apart is all about the breakdown of the family," he said. "I'm zealous about keeping families together at all costs."

DeVol grew up in Glens Falls and recently returned to the area after his license to practice psychology was revoked by the state of Missouri, although he says that wasn't his motivation for
moving. *(next-day correction: he moved after the state filed charges against him, but before his license was revoked in March 2006).

"The Adirondacks are my idea of paradise, and I always wanted to retire here," he said. "But I can't just sit on my hands in my retirement."

While some retirees are content to take up gardening or shuffleboard, DeVol's endeavor is a bit more ambitious: He wants to eliminate divorce from American society.

"The default setting in our society now is to be single. It's countercultural to be married," he said. "It's almost like divorce is in the drinking water here!"

He speaks from experience -- his first marriage ended in divorce after 10 turbulent years. Although it was turbulent from the start -- "my wife started running off with other men five weeks after the wedding," he said -- he now thinks there was no excuse for divorcing and splitting their young daughter's life between two households.

"If I'd had a lot more maturity back then, I could have made the marriage work," he said. "Couldn't I have forgiven her for adultery? When I think of the pain that caused my poor little girl ..."

He fell silent, looking at a framed portrait of his daughter, who is now married and living in Cleveland, Ohio.

"The breakup of that marriage was really the impetus for the no-divorce clinics," he explained. "I don't know if I would say it's God's plan, but I think I made a bad choice and God made something good out of it."

His church denomination, the Assemblies of God, does not ordain divorced individuals, so his ministerial credentials are with a group called New Covenant Community Church, based in Tennessee. It is not registered as a nonprofit organization.

"They're the same folks that ordained Jim Bakker after he got in trouble," DeVol explained, referring to a formerly popular television evangelist whose career and marriage were destroyed by a sex and accounting scandal in the 1980s. (Bakker remarried and began a new ministry after spending 5 years in prison for accounting fraud.)

DeVol met his second wife, Vangie, while serving as a medical missionary for seven years in the Philippines. Divorce is illegal there, and DeVol said he wishes America would follow suit.

"We don't talk of divorce in our country," Vangie said. "When I get married ... to me, I'm married, you know?"

Hearing this, her husband gave a delighted sigh.

"Isn't that precious?" he said. "The cultural shock was coming back from the Philippines, not the other way around -- I told people it was like I left heaven and went to hell."

DeVol -- whose name is "loved" spelled backward, as he likes to point out -- started his first "no divorce counseling" practice in Springfield, Missouri in 1994, inspired by a picture drawn by the 10-year-old daughter of a couple he was counseling. The words were misspelled, but the message was clear: "No Devorice Alowed!"

"Little kids hate divorce, and they shouldn't have to go through it," he said. "But most people just don't realize there's an alternative."

He believes couples are too quick to give up on marriage when they encounter conflict, and that no-fault divorce laws have made it too easy to renege on a lifetime committment.

"It's like, 'I don't like the way he opened the cereal box, I'm getting a divorce!' " he said, throwing his hands up in frustration.

DeVol left Missouri two years ago, after losing his psychology license in a court fight that he views as a spiritual battle.

The state attorney general's office lodged a complaint against him for praying and discussing demon possession with clients. Those charges were dropped, but several others were not, including issues like overbilling patients and using outdated diagnostic tools.

"We see this as a conflict between the secular and sacred priesthood," DeVol said. "We prevailed on all the religious charges, but ended up with technical charges against me."

The State Committee of Psychologists found him subject to disciplinary action for "incompetency, misconduct and gross negligence" in November 2005, and revoked his license.

DeVol said his license was then temporarily reinstated because his misconduct involved no physical harm to clients, but his request for permanent reinstatement was denied last month. He is appealing that decision. In the meantime, he is operating legally in New York state as a Christian counselor, not claiming to be a licensed psychologist.

In Glens Falls, he advertises in the family counseling section of the Yellow Pages with the words "NO DIVORCE" underlined in bold beneath his name. He currently works one day a week from a small office on Glen Street, and has another small office near his home in Pottersville, but hopes to inspire a larger effort.

"I started an idea, and the idea worked. So I'm hankering to get it going in the rest of New York state, and maybe franchise it nationally," he said, still sounding like a Southerner.

Dr. Paul Etu, a licensed psychologist who practices marriage and family counseling in Glens Falls, said he thinks DeVol's idea is "a laudable concept in most situations," but that he believes divorce still has a place in this society.

"Early in my career, we kind of had that drilled into us, too -- that you try to keep marriages together at all costs," he said. "But I also realize that marriages sometimes happen for the wrong reason ... and I think there are good reasons to have a divorce, especially if there is significant abuse in the family."

In DeVol's view, marriage is an inherently Judeo-Christian concept, because it relies on the principle of forgiveness. When both partners share similar moral values, he sees no reason they can't work things out. Even homosexuality, he believes, is a spirit that can be cast out with prayer.

"I worked with a transvestite minister once," he said. "I told his wife to tell him she loved him. She said, 'I don't.' I said, 'Well, the Bible tells you to.' So she looked in his eyes and said it over and over, and golly, it worked. I had to leave them alone after a while, they got so wrapped up in each other!"

DeVol occasionally works with non-Christian clients, and even counseled one unmarried couple seeking to salvage a committed live-in relationship, he said.

"A lot of it is just traditional marriage counseling, getting people to look at each other, tune in and get connected to what the other is feeling," he said. "It's so gratifying to see people kiss and make up."
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