S/O: Divorce... how to cut down?

[sam_gordon]

Does anyone else think the divorce rate is too high? According to this site, 40-50% of first marriages end in divorce and 60-67% of second marriages do so.

Can/should anything be done to make more "successful" marriages? If so, what? Or just "nope, keep things as they are"?

If you provide some kind of incentive (financial?) to be married, would people stay in bad marriages just because of the incentive?
Should there a waiting period (6 months? a year? longer?) between getting a marriage license and a wedding?

I'm torn. I don't want people to stay in bad marriages, but at the same time, I do think it's better (especially if there are kids) for couples to stay together.

Thoughts?

Oh, and this is a spin off to the Hannity thread where the bride's(?) three previous marriages were brought up.

 

[fla4fun]

Does anyone else think the divorce rate is too high? According to this site, 40-50% of first marriages end in divorce and 60-67% of second marriages do so.

Can/should anything be done to make more "successful" marriages? If so, what? Or just "nope, keep things as they are"?

If you provide some kind of incentive (financial?) to be married, would people stay in bad marriages just because of the incentive?
Should there a waiting period (6 months? a year? longer?) between getting a marriage license and a wedding?

I'm torn. I don't want people to stay in bad marriages, but at the same time, I do think it's better (especially if there are kids) for couples to stay together.

Thoughts?

Oh, and this is a spin off to the Hannity thread where the bride's(?) three previous marriages were brought up.

I agree that there seem to be fewer long term marriages these days, but I don’t know that there is anything that could be done to change that. Divorce can be about many things. Sometimes people simply grow apart and agree that staying together isn’t the best thing for both of them. I also agree that forcing people to stay in bad or abusive marriages would not be a positive thing for anyone involved. I will always advocate for people leaving abusive relationships, married or not.

I think the best we could do is require some therapy going into a marriage and when exiting a marriage, whether as a couple or individually, to make sure people understand what they are getting into and how they contributed to the outcome. But even that would not necessarily improve the statistics. I do think that some people get married without realizing that it takes work from both parties to keep the relationship going. You don’t just say I Do and everything after that is unicorns and rainbows.

 

[jimmymc]

One thing with these statistics is that perpetual divorcees drag the average up. So one person getting divorced 4 times offsets 4 couples still together.

From personal stories I've heard, staying together for the kids is never the right option. Living with two parents who should be divorced is nearly always worse than split custody. As long as people keep having kids with the wrong partner, divorces will be the least bad solution.

 

[robinb]

I don't think there is anything that can be done about divorce. It is a side effect of allowing people the freedom to make poor decisions. Therefore, I would be totally against any kind of law that makes people wait or incentives to make them stay in a bad marriage. I would also be against any kind of required counseling for marriage or divorce. The state needs to keep its nose to itself. Can divorce be hard on kids? Sure. But grown-ups can navigate that with the child in mind. If they are not grown-up to do that, they are also too immature to stay married.

 

[Buzz Rules]

I would say faith based marriages probably end less likely in divorce according to Google.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I think those percentages can be misleading. I think that, let's say 50%, that let's say there are 100,000 marriages (just a number) in a given year. In that year, there will be 50,000 divorces. But it's not actually divorces of that group only going forward. It's just 50# of the marriage number, not taking into account all the marriages from previous years and decades who are not divorcing.

Myself personally, know a lot of couples who have been married. Thinking quickly here, I can only think of one couple who got divorced.

 

[citruscurtis]

I would say faith based marriages probably end less likely in divorce according to Google.

So I followed up on the research and that was correct for faiths that penalized folks for divorce..but protestant faith was 51% rate and that could be high because after folks recognized the Glad Tidings they entered the faith having already been divorced

 

[georgina]

No, nothing should be done. Financial incentives, forcing couples to go to counseling, nope, nope, nope. One of my sisters has been divorced twice (no kids), two sisters have been married 50 and 48 years, 37 for us. If you made a mistake and are in a bad marriage, you should be able to get out of it.

I would say faith based marriages probably end less likely in divorce according to Google.

Depending on how fundamentalist they are, women could be stuck in abusive marriages with no way to get out. That is really not good for the kids at all.

 

[HeatherC]

I think maybe pre marriage counseling could help. Talking about things like faith, finances, childrearing, etc. beforehand certainly can’t hurt.

 

[robinb]

I would say faith based marriages probably end less likely in divorce according to Google.

So I followed up on the research and that was correct for faiths that penalized folks for divorce..but protestant faith was 51% rate and that could be high because after folks recognized the Glad Tidings they entered the faith having already been divorced

I know of at least two people who were members of a religion that penalized divorce. One had to prove the her ex-husband had died after their divorce so she could be a "widow" when marrying her husband. Otherwise, she would have had to ask him for an annulment to remarry in the church. The other refused to give her husband a divorce because she thought that marriage was forever ... until she met her current husband. Then that divorce was done tootsuite! Both women are very, very happy with their new spouses.

I'm trying not to get too deep in the religious weeds in the OG Community Board, but I do think that religious rules and mores about premarital sex and children out of wedlock sometimes force two people to marry when they should not have.

 

[Buzz Rules]

No, nothing should be done. Financial incentives, forcing couples to go to counseling, nope, nope, nope. One of my sisters has been divorced twice (no kids), two sisters have been married 50 and 48 years, 37 for us. If you made a mistake and are in a bad marriage, you should be able to get out of it.


Depending on how fundamentalist they are, women could be stuck in abusive marriages with no way to get out. That is really not good for the kids at all.

True. I was thinking more of Jewish and Catholic marriages.

 

[sam_gordon]

I would say faith based marriages probably end less likely in divorce according to Google.

Can you post your findings? The couple of website that I found don't really make sense.

 

[sam_gordon]

I think those percentages can be misleading. I think that, let's say 50%, that let's say there are 100,000 marriages (just a number) in a given year. In that year, there will be 50,000 divorces. But it's not actually divorces of that group only going forward. It's just 50# of the marriage number, not taking into account all the marriages from previous years and decades who are not divorcing.

Myself personally, know a lot of couples who have been married. Thinking quickly here, I can only think of one couple who got divorced.

I don't think your example fits @Dan Murphy. Let's say there's 100,000 marriages. To hit 50%, 50,000 of those marriages end in divorce. But you don't know if it's within the first year, the first five years, 10 years, etc.

My uncle divorced my aunt after their youngest graduated (college I think). So figure that was ~20 years.

 

[Buzz Rules]

Can you post your findings? The couple of website that I found don't really make sense.

https://www.ncregister.com/news/div...-catholic-couples-are-less-likely-to-break-up

https://sacksandsackslaw.com/religious-demographics-divorce-united-states/

 

[Dug720]

Honestly I think it's probably worse for kids whose parents stay in a bad marriage "for the kids" than a divorce would be. I'm fortunate that my parents have been married for 56 years, but I've had friends both whose parents divorced when they were kids and whose parents divorced once the kids were out of the house though they should have done it years prior, and the ones whose parents "stuck it out for the kids" have all said they wish their parents had just gone ahead and split.

 

[citruscurtis]

Can you post your findings? The couple of website that I found don't really make sense.

Use words... marriage divorce statistics faith...many sites

 

[mi*vida*loca]

The only way to cut down on divorce is to remove the power of choice.

Women have choices now. We don’t have to stay in horrible marriages anymore.

I know too many elders who stayed married because the woman had no money, no bank account, no credit, her religion was against it, she would lose her family and/or kids over it etc. so they stayed married.

 

[citruscurtis]

I think maybe pre marriage counseling could help. Talking about things like faith, finances, childrearing, etc. beforehand certainly can’t hurt.

....or taking advice from the older generation...I was told by 4 older family members to not marry her...but ghezz...I was 30 years old and what point in my life can I make decisions....20 years after our divorce she apologized for marrying me... this after finding her high school sweetheart

 

[sam_gordon]

Use words... marriage divorce statistics faith...many sites

One of the sites I found was @Buzz Rules second link. Here's the stats...

First, why would Jehovah's Witnesses and Atheists be 9 & 10 if they're at 12 & 11%?
Second, this would show Atheists have a lower divorce rate than Catholics & Protestant Christians.

And, does this mean (for example) 19% of all divorces happen to Catholics or that 19% of Catholic marriages end in divorce? To me, those are different stats. That's why I was saying the websites I found don't make sense.

To Buzz's first article, the stats are good, but I wonder how many couples DON'T divorce because the church doesn't allow it/would frown upon it vs actually having "happy" marriages.

Just my random thoughts.

 

[sam_gordon]

The only way to cut down on divorce is to remove the power of choice.

Women have choices now. We don’t have to stay in horrible marriages anymore.

I know too many elders who stayed married because the woman had no money, no bank account, no credit, her religion was against it, she would lose her family and/or kids over it etc. so they stayed married.

Really? That's the only way? I disagree with that. I've heard somewhere you should date someone for at least a year before marriage. This way you've gone through all of the birthdays, holidays, vacations, and other stressful times before committing to a "life time" arrangement.

Some people choose to live together before marriage. You find out what kind of person you're "attaching to".

I think those things could help also.