Divorce has become a part of American society. And reports found that approximately 40% to 50% of marriages in the United States end in divorce. In fact, every marriage has more or fewer problems and potential problems that can put the relationship at risk; and yet divorce happens more often to those couples who constantly ignore their relationship problems.
And let’s talk about some common factors leading to divorce:
1 Getting married too early or too late:
This thing seems not to be surprising because more and more people get married at a young/late age. But you have to awake to the fact: getting married too early is risky, and so is getting married too late, and research found that a person’s late 20s and early 30s is the perfect age gap for an ideal partnership.
Whether you like it or not, age can be a predictor of marital success. We have always been told to do the right thing at the right time. So a person should try his/her best to find the right partner when he/she is in the right age for marriage.
Another thing to note is that the larger the age differences between the two partners are, the more difficult it is to maintain a long-term relationship. According to a recent study, the divorce rates of couples with a 1-year gap, a 5-year gap, a 10-year gap, and a 20-year gap are approximately 3%, 18%, 39%, and 95% respectively.
2 A lack of intimacy:
As a marriage develops, there can be a subtle change in intimacy between spouses. And sometimes that change may steer the relationship in the wrong direction. For example, a spouse has an off day for several days and he/she is not willing to open up to the other spouse about what has happened; when a spouse becomes distant, withdrawn, emotionally closes, or disappear without explanation , the other spouse may misunderstand that he/she is losing interest in the relationship. Over time, this subtle change may trigger a downward spiral in emotional intimacy.
On the other hand, when it comes to intimacy in marriage, men and women have different needs. In general, if a woman wants to make her man more intimate (more specifically, she asks for more romance from her man), she needs to understand that he wants her to be more sexually receptive first; by contrast, if a man wants to make his woman more intimate (more specifically, he wants her to be more sexually receptive), he needs to understand that his woman wants him to be more romantic first.
If a spouse always can not get what he/she needs in a marriage, he/she will unwillingly continue to provide what the other spouse wants, pulling away from the other spouse emotionally. A chronic lack of intimacy may make one or both spouses feel unloved/appreciated/ignored, and such a couple is at increased risk of divorce.
3 A lack of equality in marriage:
Lack of equality in marriage refers to a serious imbalance of power between spouses. And it is hard to live life with someone with a strong personality; especially when two spouses need to work together to make important decisions, a weaker side has to subjugate himself/herself.
A harmonious marriage should involve compromise with breathing room and open communication so that both spouses can feel they can own a meaningful stake in the long-term partnership; surely, that is easier said than done. And if a marriage is based on control and power instead of respect and equality, the married life will be filled with blame, resentment, anger, and hate. To keep a long-lasting marriage, each spouse’s thoughts, desires, and interests should be met and respected to a reasonable extent, as opposed to one spouse’s dominating without full consideration of the other one.
A wide range of marital issues can stem from inequality in marriage; for example, for a spouse who is subordinate in a marriage, he/she may have to do many more household chores even though he/she feels aggrieved and resentful; or a spouse who is dominant in the relationship may expect the other one to pay much more when they share the financial burden. Surely, a dominant spouse may not be a controlling freak. But if left unchecked, inequality in marriage can develop into controlling tactics over time.
For more tips on how to handle inequality in a marriage, you might go on to read the related posts below:
Controlling behavior causes – How to stop being controlling in your marriage.
How to resolve power struggle in marriage – How to move forward.
4 A lack of personal identity in a marriage:
Marriage does not mean a couple needs to be together all the time. But the longer couples are married, the more alike they are; and as a couple merges their lives into a cohesive whole and develops psychological and emotional reliance on each other, the merging may progress to an unhealthy level – a codependent relationship. This is a type of unhealthy relationship in which a spouse easily loses his/her personal identity. Codependency can creep into a marriage so silently that couples may not realize this problem in time. And a spouse may consider ending a marriage when he/she thinks he/she has lost himself/herself and that he/she no longer can get his/her personal identity back in the relationship.
For more tips on how to recover from a codependent marriage, you might go on to read the post below:
How to overcome codependency in marriage – Fix the marriage.
5 A lack of compatibility in a marriage:
Even though a marriage starts with total bliss and synchronicity, inevitably things will change over time. A spouse will never stop growing up in a marriage. Both spouses have to take on new challenges; their interests and habits may change; their careers may move forward; probably they will become parents; perhaps they will modify their religious views; some unexpected, significant events may impact a spouse’s way of thinking; new people may enter a spouse’s life, but the other spouse may dislike them…
Change is necessary and inevitable in any long-term relationship. Especially if a person has been married for tens of years, he/she can realize that the person who he/she is now is no longer the person who he/she once was. The same goes for his/her spouse.
If you have gone from “As long as I can be with you, nothing else matters.” To “You are in charge of too much, that is none of your business, you are way out of line!”, then you should admit there is a serious lack of compatibility in your relationship. And if a couple no longer can adapt to each other’s changes, then such a change can lead to emotional distance and even a strong feeling of loneliness in the marriage.
Anyway, every couple needs to learn to overcome massive differences in each other’s perspective and opinion; and there are always times when a spouse doesn’t feel as close to the other one as he/she once was, and there are always moments when a spouse is tempted to think incompatibility in a marriage has become irreconcilable.
As we all know, incompatibility is a commonly used ground for divorce. But in essence, the root problem is not about a lack of compatibility but about a lack of commitment.
6 Long-standing financial problems:
Most couples fight about money at some point, but it is also an issue that many couples are unwilling to discuss. It is well known that money problems are one of the common factors leading to divorce; research found money is the second most common topic that couples fight about, behind infidelity. Furthermore, a lack of communication and a high level of debt are major causes of anxiety and stress surrounding household finances. In particular, the larger a couple’s debt is, the more likely they will fight about money; when a couple can not eliminate debt, they can hardly experience peace of mind, and they both feel a sense of uncertainty and insecurity in the relationship; and compared with couples who feel their marriages are “in trouble”, research found that those couples who are satisfied with their marriages are nearly twice as likely to discuss money weekly or daily.
On the surface, a lot of families break up because of a lack of money. But at a deep level, it is because money problems result in a long-standing, profound disagreement about how to allocate and use the limited money rationally; and this ultimately makes a couple feel that they no longer can work together as a team to weather life’s storms.
7 Limited education:
As we all know, work stress and financial stress can strain a marriage. And a spouse’s education is closely linked to his/her job and income – a well-educated person is more likely to have a decent job with a stable salary. According to research, the higher education a couple has, the lower the chance of a marriage ending in divorce is; specifically, research found that more than 50% of married couples with incomplete high school education finally ended in divorce; by contrast, approximately 30% of married couples with college education ended in divorce.
The job market is transforming drastically in today’s society; long-term unemployment, as well as the unbearable cost of living, easily makes a person bad temped and angered; a long-term unemployed spouse may strongly feel inadequate to support his/her married life; as a marriage continues to worsen like this, a couple will feel miserable in the marriage, then one or both spouses may consider divorce as a way to change the present life. And yet a person with higher education usually has a stronger ability to secure high-paying work, he/she is less likely to worry about losing a job or not having enough money to make a living.
The final word:
Regardless of your relationship status, don’t be too nervous if you realize that your marriage has some threatening factors leading to divorce; in most cases, a problematic marriage can be savable. And long-lasting relationships are also bound to go through rough patches.
For more marriages-saving tips, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
Pay attention to these common but serious mistakes in marriage.
How to have a fulfilling marriage – Make your marriage last.
What a healthy marriage looks like – How to maintain a marriage.
4 basic tips on how to get through a rough patch in a marriage.