Many readers come to this question through their own wounds, or those of someone they love. The Church speaks honestly about both the ideal and the mercy.
What Jesus said
Matt. 19:3–9: marriage was instituted by God; "what God has joined together, let no one separate." Moses permitted divorce because of hardness of heart, but it was never God's design. Jesus' "exception clause" allows divorce for porneia — sexual immorality, marital unfaithfulness.
Paul adds (1 Cor. 7:15) that abandonment by an unbelieving spouse also dissolves the bond. The early Church received both.
How different traditions handle it
Roman Catholic: a valid sacramental marriage is indissoluble. Civil divorce may be necessary in some cases, but remarriage is not permitted. Annulment is the Church's recognition that a marriage was never sacramentally valid in the first place.
Eastern Orthodox: marriage is meant to be lifelong. Divorce is always a tragedy. But the Orthodox Church, recognizing human weakness and reading Christ's words pastorally, permits divorce in cases of adultery, abandonment, serious abuse, or grave incompatibility — and permits up to three marriages total. The second and third are blessed with a penitential rather than celebratory rite, acknowledging the wound while extending Christ's healing.
Protestant: positions vary, but the historic mainstream allows divorce and remarriage for adultery (Matt. 19:9) or abandonment (1 Cor. 7:15).
What about abuse?
The Church has too often told women to stay in violent marriages "because Jesus said so." That is a misreading, and no responsible bishop or priest today defends it. If you are being abused, your first obligation is safety — yours and your children's. Get out. Then talk to a priest who understands trauma. Christ does not require you to be killed at home.
St. John Chrysostom, who held divorce to be a tragedy, also wrote ferociously against husbands who abused wives.
For the divorced
You are not a second-class Christian. Many saints had complicated family lives. If you have remarried, the Orthodox Church can bless that marriage with a penitential rite that honors both the loss and the hope. If you have not remarried, the Church's life is fully open to you.
Do not let shame keep you from communion. The Eucharist is for sinners on the road to healing — which is all of us.
The Orthodox lens
Marriage is an icon of Christ and the Church (Eph. 5). When that icon is broken, the Church does not pretend it isn't. But the Church also does not condemn the broken to a life without sacramental hope. Oikonomia — the pastoral application of the canons in mercy — is one of the gifts of the Eastern tradition.
Fr. John Meyendorff's Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective is the standard treatment, honest about both rigor and mercy.
If your marriage is struggling now
Fight for it with everything you have. Counseling. Prayer. Sacraments. Hard, honest conversations. A wise priest. Many marriages that felt dead have been raised. The God of resurrection works in homes too.
A pastoral word
If your marriage has ended, the Church is not done with you. Christ is not done with you. The path forward is real. The community is real. The Father who is patient with all of us is patient with you.