It has long been said that individuals whose parents got divorced when they were young were more likely to get divorced themselves. The divorce odds are simply higher for these individuals when they grow up and get married because they already saw divorce as an example in their life.
Studies have found that this is happening less often than it has in the past, but it is still true. If your parents did not have a stable marriage, then you may not have one either.
That certainly doesn’t mean that you can’t buck the trend. Plenty of people who are happily married have divorced parents. Divorce is just so common in the United States that this happens a fair amount. But the statistical link cannot be ignored, and it’s important to be aware of that, too.
Why does this happen?
As noted above, part of the reason for this is just that you’ve already seen a divorce happen once and so it’s something that you’re more likely to think of if your own marriage runs into problems. Conversely, someone who has still-married parents may be a bit more reluctant to get divorced because their parents have stayed together for decades.
But a lot of it is probably just the general rise of divorce in the U.S. When roughly half of all marriages eventually end in divorce, the odds are fairly high that one spouse or the other will have a divorced parent. So these are risks that most couples have to face.
If you and your spouse do decide to get a divorce this year, be sure you know about the legal steps you need to take.
