We have probably all heard the statistic that one half of
all marriages will end in divorce. That is a huge percentage, and not at all
encouraging for those of us who are married or looking forward to marriage. So,
is that statistic true? The prospects might not be as glum as we have been told.
Here’s the story.
Between the years of 1970 and 1980, there was a large spike
in number of divorces. What caused this? Well, one of the contributing factors is
often overlooked. You see, another less well-known spike in divorce rate occurred
after World War 2. The war placed distance between many couples, as well as
increasing likelihood of infidelity. Wives learned to get along by themselves with
their husbands gone, and many of them entered the workforce, which perhaps led
them to become less inclined to stay married when they could provide for
themselves. So what does this have to do with the 1970-1980 spike in divorce rate?
Research tells us that children of parents who divorce are more likely to experience
divorce themselves. The people involved in the second spike in divorce rate was
the generation of children of those involved in the earlier spike.
As the divorce rate climbed, people grew increasingly concerned.
The saying that “50% of all marriages will end in divorce” was actually just a
projection of what the rate of divorce would be if the trend continued. But it didn’t. The real statistic currently
is closer to 26% of marriages end in divorce. This number is more encouraging
that 50%, but still raises a healthy level of concern.
Whatever statistic we hear about divorce, we know there is
an inherent risk in marriage. Two people with agency who decide to get married
could also decide to end the marriage. But there is much still within our
control that we can do to safeguard our marriage. It is important to keep in
mind that we shouldn’t wait until things get bad before handling problems.
Instead, we should seek continually to address things appropriately as they
arise, working together with our spouse to fix things rather than working
against each other to get what we individually want. We should do all we can to
proactively promote a healthy, close, strong relationship with our spouse—help things
to go right—rather than only getting involved when things start to go wrong. (For
more about safeguarding our marriage and promoting healthy relationships, see
the previous blog posts: Marriage:
Adjustments Don't Mean Arguments, Multiple
Dimensions of Intimacy, Family
Crisis: Divide OR Conquer, Communication:
Empathetic = Effective.)
What kind of an effect does a divorce really have? Of course,
divorce influences more than the couple. Children, extended relatives, and even
friends are often pushed into a position where they must pick sides and risk
damaging their relationship with one divorcee if they try to maintain a
relationship with the other. One partner may be painted as the “villain” to the
rest of the family, especially when children and other relatives have contact with
only the other partner. Additionally, children of divorced couples may have increased
difficulty in forming their own intimate relationships later in life. This may
be related to a heightened fear of divorce from their firsthand experience growing
up in a broken family, or a distrust of men (or women) because of their own
father (or mother) who left, or a lack of positive role models to exemplify a stable
marriage relationship.
As we have seen, popular belief is that marriages are at a
higher risk of divorce than reality demonstrates. While the risk is not
non-existent, we can take confidence in our ability to promote a healthy
marriage by doing all we can to build our relationship and demonstrate total commitment
to our spouse.
