By
Scott Stanley
Why
do people divorce? What do people say about why they divorced? Those are two
different questions, and I am going to focus on the latter—what people say
about why.[i]
That is a simpler question to answer than the larger and complex question of
the various causes of divorce. The five reports I mention rely on a variety of
methods and types of samples yet yield similar answers across different
samples, methods, and eras.
Sociologists
Amato and Previti (2003)[ii]
used data from the “Marital Instability Over the Life Course” project (Booth,
Amato, & Johnson, 1998). These data are based on a national survey of
people in 1980 and 1997. Those who divorced were asked, “What do you think
caused the divorce?” The open-ended responses were coded into categories, with
the top reasons for divorcing being:
- Infidelity
- Incompatibility
- Drinking or drug use
- Growing apart
In
2001, a group of family scholars conducted a large, random, statewide phone
survey in Oklahoma.[iii] I
was part of this team. We interviewed over 2000 people and asked those who had
been divorced choose among nine “major” reasons for divorcing, the list being
developed by the researchers ahead of time based on our knowledge of the
literature. The top three reasons people gave were:
- A lack of commitment
- Too much conflict or arguing
- Infidelity or extramarital affairs
These
reasons were followed by “getting married too young,” “little or no helpful
premarital preparation,” and “financial problems or economic hardship.” The
reports of marrying too young likely overlap with the general category of incompatibility,
since this is one of the risks of marrying very young; people often do not know
themselves or what they expect and desire in a mate at age 18. Amato and
Previti presenting findings in support of this point, finding that incompatibility
was more commonly reported as a reason for divorce among those who had married
young than those who had married when a little older.
Infidelity
is on both lists covered so far (and on every list coming up). Clearly, that is
a sub-category of commitment problems, so commitment is a major theme in both
reports I’ve mentioned thus far. For some, infidelity is the main reason their
marriage ended and, for others, infidelity is something that happened at the
end of years of other problems, such as nasty conflicts, incompatibility, and
substance abuse.
I Blame You
Amato
and Previti found that many more people blamed their ex for their marriage
ending (33%) than blamed themselves (5%). Similarly, in the report from the
survey in Oklahoma, we found that most people (73%) believed that they had
worked hard enough on their marriage but that their ex-spouse should have
worked harder (74%). As in Amato and Previti, we see that most people who have
divorced believe their ex was more to blame.
Mostly,
people don’t blame themselves for divorcing. This is a good example of the
point I made at the outset. There are many complex reasons why marriages fail,
including characteristics of the individuals, family history (growing up),
poverty, mental health issues, the way the relationship developed (Too fast or
too slow? Timing and sequence. All the things I write about here, regularly),
communication ability, attachment dynamics, individual misbehavior, and so on.
In contrast, the reasons people give for divorcing are pretty straightforward,
and while the actual causes can be complex, most people distill it down to
failings on their partner’s side of the equation.
Reasons for
Divorce and Final Straws
A
study from our lab (Scott, Rhoades, Stanley, Allen, and Markman, 2013)[iv]
used a multi-year, longitudinal sample of couples marrying who participated in
premarital preparation between the years 1995 and 2001 through their religious
organizations. After following this sample for many years, the team contacted
those who had divorced and interviewed the fifty-two people who responded about
their reasons, using the same list used by Johnson and colleagues These data
are less representative than other samples here, but what the study lacked in
sample size may be made up for by depth of information. Our team asked people
not only the major cause of divorce but also about the “final straw.” The top
reported reasons for divorce were:
- Lack
of commitment
- Infidelity
- Conflict/arguing
Pretty
familiar, right? The most common final straws were:
- Infidelity
- Domestic violence
- Substance abuse
Scott
and colleagues made an important distinction in that the reasons why a marriage
declines, leading to an end, can be different from what finally breaks the back
of one continuing. And when it comes to deciding a marriage is over, women are
more likely than men to say it’s done (found by Amato & Previti, and many
others). In both Amato and Previti’s study, and in the report by Johnson and
colleagues, women were more likely than men to report a marriage ending because
of abuse. I still recall a talk based by Amato, years ago, where he noted that,
on average, many marriages end when women become fed up with men behaving
badly. Clearly, plenty of women behave badly also, as many divorced men will
attest. Nevertheless, it is a common scenario where one partner (more often the
man) exhibits behavior that the other partner (more often the woman) finally
decides is more than too much to bear. In his talk, Amato described the same
deal breakers listed by Scott and colleagues as final straws. Similarly, Johnson
and colleagues (2002) reported top reasons men and women gave for divorcing,
and found that the answers were mostly the same except that women were far more
likely (44%) than men (8%) to report that domestic violence was a major reason
for divorcing.
In
2004, AARP put out a report based on a
large, national survey of older adults, aged 40 and up, on reasons for the
divorces they experienced in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. The survey appears to be
representative and used excellent methods.[v]
Cutting to the chase (because time is of the essence when you are older), people
reported these top reasons for divorcing:
- Abuse: verbal, physical, or emotional
- Differing values and lifestyles
- Cheating
Runner
up was “simply falling out of love/no obvious problems.” So, the older set, who
now account for a lot of divorce,[vi]
give reasons for divorce similar to other reports covered here.
Hawkins,
Willoughby, and Doherty published a study in 2012[vii]
that reported reasons for marriages in the only study I cover here that was not
retrospective. As part of the extensive work that Bill Doherty, StevenHarris, and colleagues have been doing about the possibility of
reconciliations after filing—but before finalizing—divorce, the study by Hawkins
and colleagues reports reasons given for divorcing within a sample of 886
individual parents who were in the process of divorcing. These parents were involved
in mandated parenting classes as part of the legal system in Hennepin County, Minnesota.
They found the two most common reasons for divorcing to be:
- Growing apart
- Not being able to talk together
People
who were the least likely to entertain putting the brakes on their divorce reported
growing apart, differences in tastes, and money problems. In an interesting
twist, given the other findings noted here, abuse and infidelity were not
reasons for divorcing that were associated with how much interest someone had
in potentially reconciling the marriage.
Having My
Baby: Or Not
There
is a lot of consistency across these studies but might there be other reasons
emerging as the deal breakers in the current era? While not a study, Vicki
Larson (@OMGchronicles) recently
tweeted about the observations of attorneys in a New York Post piece suggesting
that conflicts over having children had become one of the biggest reasons for
divorce.
Both
I (@DecideOrSlide) and Nicholas
Wolfinger (@nickwolfinger) tweeted that we
did not know of research supporting this point. (Great science proceeds on
Twitter. Follow me.) Nevertheless, Larson and I agreed that this is likely to
be a growing reason for divorcing. I believe this is likely. First, I think people
are more likely than ever before to slide into important relationships—including
marriage and parenting—without making clear decisions about a future together.
That means there will be a growing number of relationships moving into marriage
that are poorly vetted.
Second,
incompatibility has often been given as a reason for divorcing, and different
family aspirations could easily become a major driver in this category as having
children has become less of a default expectation in marriage. Whether or not
two spouses were likely to be good parents, or to attempt to be, most married couples in the past had children.
Now, like everything else, whether or not to have children is much less a given
and much more a (potential) negotiation (when it’s not a slide).
It Takes Two
to Tango
While
no one can anticipate all the changes and circumstances that will impact a
marriage in the future, singles interested in marriage do well to make the best
choices they can at the start in preparing for a successful marriage (read
more, here). And those who are married and happy
who want to avoid divorce in the future have ways to strengthen and build on
what they have (read more, here.) We all know that it takes two people
to make a good marriage last. One person cannot make it happen without the
other person also being willing to invest and grow. As mentioned already, it’s
easiest after the fact for each individual to believe that their ex failed the
dance. But to make a marriage last, it’s going to work best if each spouse is
focused on the mantra my colleague Howard Markman and I push: “do your part.”[viii]
I
am sure there are other studies bearing on this of reasons for divorce, but it
is obvious that there is a convergence in reasons people give for their
marriages ending. The individual stories will be varied and complex but the basic
themes remain: broken hearts and deal breakers.
[i]
This is not intended to be a systematic review. It is a brief review based on
the studies I know about.
[iii] Johnson,
C. A., Stanley, S. M., Glenn, N. D., Amato, P. A., Nock, S. L., Markman, H. J.,
& Dion, M. R. (2002). Marriage in Oklahoma: 2001 baseline statewide surveyon marriage and divorce (S02096 OKDHS).
Oklahoma City, OK: Oklahoma Department of Human Services.
[iv] Scott,
S. B., Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., Allen, E. S., & Markman, H. J.
(2013) Reasonsfor divorce and recollections of premarital intervention: Implications for improving relationship education. Couple and Family Psychology: Research
and Practice, 2(2), 131-145.
[v]
The work was conducted by Knowledge Networks, which is a sign of typically
excellent survey methods.
[vii] Hawkins,
Willoughby, & Doherty (2012). Reasons for divorce and openness to marital reconciliation. Journal of Divorce andRemarriage, 53, 453–463.; See also Doherty, W. J., Harris, S. M., &
Wickel Didericksen, K. (2016) A typology of attitudes toward proceeding with divorce among parents in thedivorce process. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 57(1), 1-11.
Kayla Knopp’s Summary
