I found it a little sad that this ended up being our last lesson considering it isn’t the happiest one. The first thing we talked about in class was trends related to divorce or separation. I think I’ve mentioned this in a previous blog post, but couples that cohabit are three times more likely to divorce once they marry. Another statistic is that couples that get married as teenagers are more likely to divorce. However, there is an exception in Utah, but I don’t exactly want to get into that haha. Additionally, divorce is more likely to occur when a couple with one or more of the spouses gets remarried and there are children from a previous marriage. It adds so much more to the situation. Along with these trends, there were some interesting statistic that we went through. For example, 10% of people regret their divorce after two years and think it could have AND should have been avoided. 70% of men are remarried after two years and women are more likely to initiate divorce. Also, there was a study done in California where it was discovered that the group of people most likely to divorce was women married to women. Similarly, the group of people most likely to have infidelity is men married to other men. Another statistic I thought was interesting was that people who regularly attend church or worship are less likely to divorce. To me, this makes sense because a lot of religions have high standards for marriage and family life. Additionally, 24% of Americans will divorce. I thought the statistic was higher, but still, it’s so sad that 1/4 of the country will divorce. And lastly, if a marriage is a second marriage for someone, 62% will divorce. And as mentioned before, oftentimes it is because there are children from the previous marriage in the picture.
Something interesting my professor told me was that divorce was a lot different. In order for a divorce to be granted, the 3 As had to be involved, or at least one of them. They include abuse, abandonment, or alcoholism. On one hand, I think this is so sad, but on the other hand, I think it would have made people take marriage more seriously. Sometimes I think people don’t take the commitment of marriage more seriously. And not that I think that rule is necessarily a good one, but I do suspect that people took marriage more seriously when they had to have legitimate reason and probable cause.
A few interesting things happen with most divorces. One, mothers almost always get custody. Two, mental health almost always tends to go down after divorce. Additionally, for a child that is 15 with divorced parents, the father is on average 400 miles away. My professor explained that this is often because the father needs a new job to pay for a new place (separate from the one he was living in) and child support, and this often requires a new job, which in turn often requires to move to find it. Typically, when remarriage is involved with children, the birth parents tends to do all of the discipline. Very frequently, this pushes the step parent to feel as though thy need to liked by the children and they can try to compensate. This creates a disconnect and as one parent gets stricter, the other tries to compensate by getting sweeter, or less strict. My teacher suggested that the birth parent should be the one that does all parenting, while the step parent should be more of a cool or supportive aunt or uncle.
Overall, obviously there are a lot of negatives that can come from divorce and separation, but like we have learned throughout all the semester, situations like these provide immense opportunity for growth and happiness.
The Simple life 