Everyone Is NOT Getting Divorced
"The divorce rate is fifty percent." -- This is America's most-often quoted statistic. It's so widely held to be true that it is often repeated without question by therapists, pastors, talk show hosts, authors and politicians. However, the shocking truth is, the statistic is not true. There is no credible evidence to support such a notion.
Where did this false belief originate? Demographers say there was an increased focus on divorce rates in the 1970s when the number of divorces rose, partly as the result of no-fault divorces. Divorces peaked in 1979 and articles started appearing that claimed fifty percent of American divorces were ending in divorce. A misinterpretation became a politically motivated statistic that now must be perpetuated for certain people and organizations to receive government funding.
True, if you look at marriages and divorces in a single year, you would find there are twice as many marriages as divorces. In 1999, there were 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces. At first glance, that would appear to be a fifty percent divorce rate. Virtually none of these divorces were among people who had married during that year and the statistic failed to take into account the 54 million marriages that already existed, the majority of which would not see divorce.
The second misinterpretation is from those who have an agenda to predict the future of divorce. Based on known divorce records, these researchers projected that fifty percent of newly married young people would divorce. All unbiased researchers will now admit to the fact that the fifty percent divorce statistic is based more on assumption than fact.
What is the true divorce picture in America? It's not easy to tell from the way statistics are kept so some researchers have relied on surveys rather than government statistics. The Harris pollsters say eleven or twelve percent of people who married have been divorced." Researcher George Barna's 2002 survey of Americans estimate that 34 percent of those who have ever been married have been divorced.
Marriage Still Societal Goal
Marriage is the most important social issues in America today. Marriage between one man and one woman will be an area that will be attacked for good purpose. If we get marriage right, we can change the whole fabric of society.
As the marriage goes, so goes the family,
As the family goes, so goes the church,
As the church goes, so goes the community,
As the community goes, so goes the state,
As the state goes, so goes the nation,As the nation goes, so goes the world.
The vast majority of all Americans desire happy, lasting marriages, whether rich or poor, male or female, regardless of cultural background. There is overwhelming evidence that individuals, as well as society at large, benefit when those couples who choose marriage for themselves are able to maintain healthy marriages.
Americans haven't given up on the goal of marriage as an ideal institution. Indeed, most continue to prize and value marriage as a cherished and desirable goal. The reason we know this to be true is most people will experience marriage at least once in a life time. They will enter the relationship, established by the God of the universe, with a strong desire and determination for a lifelong, loving, and permanent relationship.
One reason couples prize marriage so highly is that it is the source of deeply desired benefits such as: emotional closeness, emotional connection, and emotional consistency, the needs that God placed inside us to be met by a lifelong faithful partner. This benefit can't be duplicated in the workplace, by friendships, the marketplace, or even on the internet.
Marriage Right of Passage
Marriage has begun to lose much of its social importance and significance as a rite of passage into adult life. It is no longer the standard pathway from adolescence to adulthood for young people today. It is far less likely to be closely associated with the timing of first sexual experience, and less likely to be the first living together union for young couples than in the past.
Marriage used to accomplish several goals associated with growing up in America: economic transition from parental household into an independent household, a psychosexual transition merging two individuals into two people who choose to be dependent on each other, a spiritual transition from status as a single reason to a partner.
The pathway leading to marriage has changed as well. The pattern of mating uses to follow a well-defined sequence: group dating (usually in a structured church youth group), couple dates to define "us", going steady, and then marriage to define "we."
Today the rite of passage is more complex and is manipulated in various forms by popular culture. There is no group dating where young people can learn social skills, defining "us" is skipped in favor of "self-pleasure", which usually means a sexual experience, then comes cohabitation, and then maybe marriage. So, we never quite get into defining what "we" is all about.
What Can Be Done to Help Couples?
My wife and I had just finished speaking at a marriage conference when the conference organizer, a personal acquaintance, began to ask about mutual friends, couples we'd both known. I found myself saying time and again, "They are no longer together or, they are separated or, they are divorced." By the end of the conversation I felt disheartened and was even more fully aware of the most often misquoted "fifty percent of couples divorce rate" statistic.
Then I began to look closely at what is causing divorce and I found the answer---marriage. The problem is, couples keep doing it. Eighty-five to ninety percent of Americans still marry--in spite of the odds. They still have children in the face of the predictions that they'll never equal their parent's earning power. They take on the difficult tasks of step parenting. They adopt crack babies, handicapped children, fetal alcohol syndrome babies, and traumatized children from third-world countries. They go to church. They give to the community. They spend their working life earning a living to care for their families. Yet, many of these giving, self-sacrificing, caring people end up divorced.
We all---conservatives, liberals, democrats, republicans, policy makers, religious leaders, parents, grandparents, bosses, workers, teachers, physicians, marriage therapists--- have become discouraged by the weight of the divorce epidemic in our country. We all have made the connection between family breakdown and violence, emotional abuse, poverty, school failure, substance abuse, and the list is endless.
We all believe that divorce is too costly--emotionally, financially, and spiritually---for individuals and society. Yet, as much as we believe that divorce has a tremendous cost, we've all somehow been convinced that divorce is inevitable---one of life's little necessary evils. It begs the question: Why does it have to be this way? Why do we have the attitude that marriage is a gamble, with worse than "fifty-fifty" odds?
Actually, I'm optimistic about marriage in America. I believe marriage has to do with an accurate understanding of what makes marriages work---or fail. John Gottman wrote a whole book on the subject, "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail." If couples knew how to make their marriages work they would keep their vows, raise their children, and plow through the inevitable conflicts that come with being married. We have all the answers ---the research, the know-how--the skill building education, and are not putting them to use. The information about what makes marriages work is almost the best kept secret in America.
My positive outlook is bolstered by the research that says most people value a happy marriage and family above all else. This outlook is validated and verified every time we speak at a marriage seminar. People are eager to capture the skills of relationship education and want to immediately put the skills to use to make the marriage better.
Most persons would use relationship education to strengthen their marriage. In our study, Dynamic Marriage Seminars (DMS), the 72 percent of respondents felt it was very important and 16 percent felt it was somewhat important to have relationship education. That means 89 percent of those responders want to learn more to benefit their relationships.
While most people are happy with their marriages, many married people report a time when they struggled greatly with their marriages. However, among those married couples who thought their marriage was in serious trouble at some point, the overwhelming majority are glad that they remained together. These findings demonstrate that even happily married couples go through difficult periods, but if they have the skills to weather the storms, they are happy to stay married.
I hope and pray that in the near future couples will come to accept that the most romantic thing they can do is to walk hand-in-hand into a course on making marriages work. That taking courses will become as common as celebrating an anniversary. Those not attending marriage seminars will come to be seen as foolhardy, reckless, uninformed, unsophisticated, dangerous, and irrational. That the time will come when none of us would dear dream of giving our children a wedding without a gift certificate to a marriage seminar. That along with prenatal classes a couple will also sign up for a course on keeping love alive through child-rearing years. And that employers and insurance companies will come to recognize that such courses will easily pay for themselves in work productivity.