Divorce

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.