Why is the marriage-divorce rates so high and how can you prevent divorce?

I remember an old movie where a boy was asking his girlfriend's father for permission to marry. S first response was "Do you like her? " The boy replied "I love her?"

The father responded, "I know you do, but do you like her? " Too often we think that "love" is the next step beyond "like". Truth is that they are different emotions.

Too many people fall in love but do not like to be with that person. You must love them and like them both. Success in marraige is not in falling in love with someone but falling in love with someone you truly like to be with and do things with.

They must be interesting to be with and they should feel the same toward you.

The fact is that "forever" is a loooong time, and a lot of people get married so young that, unless they are really with someone that they can commit to 100% and are willing to continually work very hard to make the marriage a success, staying in a marriage can be very difficult, particularly if someone is unhappy. Divorce is on the rise in more recent decades likely because it is more socially acceptable these days to be divorced, a single parent, etc. Marriage can work, but it's tough. I think a lot of divorces are simply due to people growing apart over time or folks that didn't plan ahead when choosing to get married in the first place.

The answer is simple. Date your spouse... EVERY week. Isn't that WHY you got married?

Really, this boils down to both people giving 100% at least and being committed. Both should live together before marriage, and be accepting of marriage counseling when needed.

I don't have any proof for the below, but I think a lot of the divorce rate is related to the amount of time that couples spend together before getting married. I think far too many don't spend a year at least getting to know the other. So, being an "old fart"(tm), I think people should spend a lot of time together before getting married.

I've seen a lot of couples over the years that fight all the time, but they have remained married for whatever the reasons for many decades. So, I am not convinced that you can't have a good marriage and still have arguments. Also, there are so many people that think they can "change" their partner after the marriage.

I haven't seen a single instance of this actually happening. I think it only happens on the Lifetime Network.

I think too many people get married too soon in their lives. People change, and if people don't know who they are, let alone their partner, as time goes on they might grow apart. I think a lot of this could be prevented I think if people make sure they know themselves before contemplating getting hitched.

I actually wrote a summary of some recent research in this area for a class. I'm including an excerpt below along with a link to the source material. You can sign up for free to view the entire article, if you like.

- - - - - - - - - - Conventional wisdom and a myriad of self-help books in the vein of “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, assert that strong interpersonal communication skills form the foundation of any successful marriage. To try to determine exactly how much impact good communication has on the health of a marriage, Rogge and Bradbury (2006) analyzed research data from a five-year community sample gathered at the Technische Universitat Braunschweig, and attempted to replicate and expand on its findings. The initial research recruited engaged couples via newspaper ads and churches in the Munich area and asked them to complete the Locke and Wallace Marital Adjustment Test (MAT) and several other tools used to assess and quantify marital satisfaction, hostility and neuroticism of the participants.

The tests were completed independently by both spouses and administered five times over five years. Of the 85 couples that completed the original study, at least one spouse in 21 of the couples scored low enough on the MAT to be considered “martially dissatisfied,� And 15 couples were divorced or separated at the end of the study.

Rogge and Bradbury hypothesized that while “communicative behaviors predict the quality of intact marriages over the first 4 years of marriage� (p.156), it is “aggression and hostility� That more accurately predict if a marriage will survive that same four-year run.

What this research suggests is that while much of marital counseling efforts and self-help media focuses on communication issues between partners, the approach toward stabilizing and strengthening marriages might achieve better results if the emphasis was placed on dealing with hostile and aggressive tendencies on the part of the spouses. Rogge and Bradbury list a number of interesting reasons for this type of marital discord to enter into a marriage in the first place, all of which appear to place the burden of martial success upon the individuals involved, rather than on the couple as a unit. For example, a lack of impulse control that triggers aggressive outbursts, might carry with it an inability to control other impulses as well, leading to substance abuse or infidelity.

Another suggestion is that people who express themselves more negatively might have a “riskier pool of possible mates,� Ones less likely to work capably toward making a marriage last. In the end, one would be well advised to have one’s own psychological and behavioral house in order before entering into marriage.

Of the couples that I see that are contemplating divorce, I mostly work on communication skills. Being able to talk clearly about what is going on for you is key. Especially when it is connected to how you are emotionally triggered.

I also thing that blame is another big problem. When someone comes in and says I want to change the other person, I launch into a big talk about ownership of problems. In a relationship, BOTH people own a part of the problem (yes, including infidelity... but that's a longer discussion).Finally... I think that people fall "in love" and think that marriage is right for them at that time.

Then, once they're out of the honeymoon stage, they recognize that this isn't the right person for them. Take your time 1-2+ years to be with someone before you decide to get married. Just a few of my thoughts... There are many more...

I am going to take a different approach here. First, consider some good news. Divorce rates have been on a downward trend for quite a while.

This page has a bunch of interesting statistics: divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml Next, consider whether a divorce is a bad thing or not. I am not trying to suggest that a couples' goal should be to get divorced. Of course it shouldn't!

I am saying that one needs to separate the concept of one couple getting a divorce for a specific reason, and divorce rates as a whole. I'd relate it slightly to unemployment. An unemployment of 0% is not ideal for an economy.4% is far closer to that ideal.

First, we need to look at what caused the divorce rate to rise in the first place - and for that, the answer is actually rather plain and simple. As women have become more financially independent, divorce rates rose. In a bygone age, when people got married when they were twenty, and divorces were rare, it was an age of inequality.An age of locked doors, for women.

If a woman was in an abusive relationship then, there was a far higher chance she'd suck it up and live a miserable life, because she had no real options outside of the marriage she had. In more recent years, yeah, things might be rough, but women frequently have careers, and are more frequently capable of living on their own.In the 1950s, this was not the case. She may or may not have family - if she did not have close family, what was there to do?

Today, most women work. They have jobs and careers. This gives them financial flexibility.

The reason why divorces shot up so quickly was because it was co-related with the number of women working. amazon.com/Logic-Life-Rational-Economics... Here's a book that lightly touches on that. Divorce rates may drop a bit more, but, really, they aren't going to fall through the floor.

Marriage rates are dropping, which is not really a surprise, so we'll see fewer divorces, too. Many of the couples that get divorced do so because the marriage wasn't going to work between them, and they rushed in, but many divorces are also from marriages where the woman may have been locked in to a bad situation, but due to the financial/work realities of today, women have significantly more freedom from sour marriages, which is going to keep divorce rates relatively high if you're comparing eras.

There are a number of reasons for the high rate of divorce, some of them more subtle than others. I'll try to go through the most significant factors: 1. Social mores and taboos regarding marriage have eroded to the point that divorce is acceptable.

While it may not quite be "popular," it is looked at in a not particularly negative light at this point. My wife's grandmother on the other hand (50+ years ago) refused to have her husband step out on her, and so she got a divorce. She had no support from him, or from most of her community, because there was a significant taboo against divorce.

Despite being unpleasant, in practice her community (good Midwestern values mind you) said to her that it was better to be married to an adulterer than divorced, period. Regardless of your evaluation of the rightness or wrongness of that judgment on the part of the community, it definitely shows the amount of social pressure that was once exerted to PREVENT divorce. Now, other than the possible issues between the two parties, their is little external stigma or pressure to hold people together.2.

We are living in an increasingly entitled society concerned with and delivering immediate gratification. I might get some argument on that as simply being a matter of opinion, so let me highlight the gratification systems that did not exist 30 or 50 years ago: Communication, a highly desirable social stimulus, is unprecedented in availability via cell phone, text messaging, instant messaging, etc. All of this makes instance access to communication. Entertainment, in the form of highly stimulating video games, movies, music, etc (and the ability to carry all of it in your pocket) makes that again immediate.

While it does not explain all divorces from short marriages, there is a much greater tendency to "impulse" marriage, because many more people are conditioned to act impulsively and without a view of the long term of larger ramifications for their choices.3. Similar to the social mores statement above, the definition of marriage has changed within the context of society.An old-fashioned (Christian? ) definition of marriage was for life ("till death do us part"), and was an unbreakable union in the eyes of God.

Now, if it is more regularly construed as a civil union, a tax shelter, or another sort of legal arrangement, then it is thought of as a contact that can be broken, rather than an endless spirital covenant. How to avoid it? Work at it, renew your commitment to the other person as often as possible.

Spend time specifically together, even evenings or single nights away without family/friends/kids. Spend time specifically apart, absence does help, every so often, to remind you what you're missing. I sleep terribly when I'm away from home and my wife, and that helps remind me where I want to be and why.

Create traditions to share. Maintain inside jokes. Build, and relive, memories together.

Too many people take photos, and never look at their albums (digital or otherwise). They never rehash the good and bad old times. Guard against taking the other person for granted.

Guard against forgetting important events, and not so important ones.

I can't prevent divorce but, if I and other gay people were able to be legally married, it might improve the marriage-divorce rate, since so many of us WANT to be together, even though we don't have that magical piece of paper called a license.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.