What is the cause of the high divorce rate?

[Harpo]

I've never been divorced, so I don't think I can talk about the underlying cause(s) of the divorce rate.  I have been married for 22 years, so I think I can say something about what it takes to keep a marriage going. 

As usual, your analysis is excellent. I especially agree with shared values, compromise and just stubborn commitment.

[Josquin des Prez]

I made the comment, specifically to emphasize that regardless of statistics, they do not tell the whole story.

No, they do in fact tell the whole story, you are just too stubborn to admit it, like everybody else. It is a fact that the quality of child rearing has been decreasing dramatically ever since single parenthood has become epidemic. It is a fact children received a far better upbringing when marriages didn't brake on a whim. What you said on the other hand is fantasy.

[Josquin des Prez]

The premise of Coontz's book, mentioned above, is that marriage has become personally more fulfilling (that is, among those who are successful at it) while losing its value as a social institution.  

Which is based on the author's own wishful thinking rather reality. And even then, if the price for personal fulfillment is the degradation of society then that price is just too damn high. Leave it to a woman to think in terms of "personal fulfillment" rather then duty.

Marriage, as a human institution, is adaptable and can be separated from family or just about anything else

Nonsense of course. Marriage, as an institution, was created precisely to regulate family matters. Without the latter the first ceases to have any meaning.

[lisa needs braces]

Here's another essay about the decline of marriage, this time from an individual's perspective.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/divorce

Do note that the writer's husband sounds like a nice guy, yet the writer grows to dislike him anyway. It's as if she's rebelling at the fact that he's a "modern" husband who treats her like an equal and does the dishes and everything.

[owlice]

A lot of people say that infidelity of a spouse would be the breaking point for them.

Because trust, once broken, is extremely hard to restore. It's not so much that the spouse had sex with someone else (though that's generally not a great idea!), but rather, the betrayal that accompanies that act which destroys the marriage. It takes a great deal of work to restore trust, far more work to restore it once it's broken than it takes to establish it initially. It is hard to have a close relationship with someone who is untrustworthy.

Have your 20's be your "ME" years.  Don't rush.  Wait until you are in your 30's to get married and have children.

Something to be said for that, but no guarantee. I first married when I was in my mid-30s, and married for the second time when I was 50.

The real reason women it is women who initiate divorce most of the times is that the laws are skewed entirely on their favor. They get custody of the children almost by default barring extreme situations and with that generally comes alimony as well.

Alimony?? Where? Alimony may have been ordered at one time, but I have never heard of anyone of my generation getting it, outside of perhaps celebrity divorces.

The reason women initiate divorce is because they now have the economic power to do so; they no longer have to stay in a bad marriage because they can't afford to leave it.

Which states in the US do not favor joint custody over sole custody? I'm in a state which definitely favors joint custody. Perhaps 40, 50 years ago, women were favored in custody issues, but that certainly isn't the case now where I live (and even 50 years ago, one needed to prove unfitness of the other parent to win sole custody in my state). 

The durability of unhappy marriages in the past was not necessarily proof of greater commitment.

Word.

[zamyrabyrd]

So, a kid that has two parents who absolutely despise each other stay together for the sake of the children, and abuse is going on?  I have a hard time believing kids growing up in this environment would perform better than if the parents split up.

This begs the question how two people get together who "despise" one another. Unresolved childhood trauma, the unconscious needs to work them out in the present do not go away with replacement relationships. In fact, the mistakes are compounded and the children suffer much more than if attempts are made to heal.

On the whole, I'm really impressed with the responses to this discussion. It's nice to know that musicians have sensible attitudes about family values.

ZB

[Wendell_E]

Alimony?? Where? Alimony may have been ordered at one time, but I have never heard of anyone of my generation getting it, outside of perhaps celebrity divorces.

Many people still do, maybe they just don't talk about it.  According to a recent article, "the number of American men [emphasis mine  ] receiving alimony has climbed, from 7,000 in 1998 to 13,000 last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data". No doubt there are many times that many women receiving alimony.

The full article:  http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/role-reversal-wives-angry-paying-alimony/Story?id=8662940&page=1

So, a kid that has two parents who absolutely despize each other stay together for the sake of the children, and abuse is going on?  I have a hard time believing kids growing up in this environment would perform better than if the parents split up.

As Frank Burns put it in an episode of M*A*S*H:  "My parents never divorced.  I'd have come out better coming from a broken home". 

[Papageno]

I would say the fact that women stay the same after the age of 16.

[secondwind]

I would say the fact that women stay the same after the age of 16.

Huh?

Because trust, once broken, is extremely hard to restore. It's not so much that the spouse had sex with someone else (though that's generally not a great idea!), but rather, the betrayal that accompanies that act which destroys the marriage. It takes a great deal of work to restore trust, far more work to restore it once it's broken than it takes to establish it initially. It is hard to have a close relationship with someone who is untrustworthy.

Absolutely true.  And that is why I said it is something people should try to come to grips with before marrying--difficult, when one is young and in love (or, let's face it, any age and in love), when in the starry-eyed romantic phase of a relationship such a betrayal seems impossible.  I think it could reduce the divorce rate, if only by reducing the marriage rate, if people asked questions like this in advance.  Is this someone I am willing to forgive if he betrays me in the worst possible way?  Is this someone I am willing to ask to forgive me if I betray him in the worst possible way?  (Not sure which role would be more painful, actually.)  Is this someone whose diapers/catheter/feeding tube I'm willing to tend when he no longer knows who I am?  Is this someone I want to have tending to my diapers/catheter/feeding tube when I no longer know who he is?  And so on.  Not fun questions, but without considering them seriously, people have no idea what the old words of the vow "for better or worse, in sickness and in health" really mean, and the words "till death do us part" mean little more than "as long as you are still acting like the person I thought I married and I still feel about you the way I did when we first fell in love"  or "until one us us screws up really badly or becomes hideously physically unappealing". The "till death do us part" style of marriage may not be for everyone, it may not be a goal everyone even wants to strive for.  I'm just saying that if that is the kind of marriage the young man wants, you have to consider the potential costs in advance and be willing to take them on. 

[Josquin des Prez]

Alimony?? Where?

Mental slip. I meant child support.

The reason women initiate divorce is because they now have the economic power to do so; they no longer have to stay in a bad marriage because they can't afford to leave it.

Yes, now they can just get the government to support them (plus whatever they can siphon away from their former husbands), which is what i said. They get to fulfill their desires to have children without having to face any of the obligations of being mothers and wives.

[Joe Barron]

Which is based on the author's own wishful thinking rather reality. And even then, if the price for personal fulfillment is the degradation of society then that price is just too damn high. Leave it to a woman to think in terms of "personal fulfillment" rather then duty.

Nonsense of course. Marriage, as an institution, was created precisely to regulate family matters. Without the latter the first ceases to have any meaning.

Excellent analysis, as usual --- leaving aside the anger, the lack of real data, and the misogyny, of course.

It's no surpise my take would be the opposite of yours: If "society" is so fragile that it demands widepread personal misery as the price for its continuaton, then that price is too damned high. And why is it only women who are blamed for putting personal fulfillment over duty? Perhaps because, in our phallocentric world, women's duty is just another tool for men's personal fulfillment.

[owlice]

Some might be interested in this article: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/misreporting-on-divorce/

Wendell, I don't know that the number is "many." With six states NOT reporting data, there were 767,455 divorces in the US in 2008. (Source: http://www.edivorcepapers.com/divorce-statistics/divorce-statistics-2008.html) 13,000 men getting alimony, even assuming all of those were awarded alimony last year (not a safe assumption), is a very very small percentage. I don't know ANY women who receive alimony, although there must be some (or more than some), if men are receving it.

I meant child support.

...

plus whatever they can siphon away from their former husbands

...

They get to fulfill their desires to have children without having to face any of the obligations of being mothers and wives.

If they are getting child support, it means they are raising children, which is definitely NOT opting out of their obligations as parents.

And I find it interesting -- but not surprising -- that you see child support as something that is siphoned away from former husbands. Fathers shouldn't have to support their children? Is that where you are going with that? Do you know where that leads? To that place you don't like: government having to support the children who are financially abandoned by a parent.

[Joe Barron]

Alimony is, or should be, based on need and equity. In the fifties, when stay-at-home moms were the rule, it was assumed that a woman living alone was not economicaly viable and needed support. In an age when women work, this is no longer the case. My first wife earned more than I did, and as my lawyer told me, alimony was out of the question. Some couples, too, prefer to make a clean break and leave the marriage with no more than what they brought into it. In both my divorces, my wives and I decided just to walk away. Duty never entered into it, since there were no children in either case.

The problems arise over the value of communal property, which is sold so that the proceeds can be split. people lose omes and valued possessions. My Charles Ives autograph came on the market because the previous owner was going through a divorce and he needed to turn it into cash. I probably could have made a stink over my (second) ex's home, which she inherited while we were married and living there, but her parents worked hard for it all their lives, and demanding half the value after just seven years would have been little more than piracy.

Gee, all this talk of failed relationships is making me nostalgic. Ah, for the days of bickering, bitterness and staying out till all hours because I was afraid to go home ...

[Josquin des Prez]

If they are getting child support, it means they are raising children

No, they are nurturing children, they are not raising them. Only a father can raise a child.

[Josquin des Prez]

If "society" is so fragile that it demands widepread personal misery as the price for its continuaton, then that price is too damned high.

Except people are far, far more miserable today then they were then. Once again, your point is built on a false premise. Traditional families brought happiness. Today to find an happy couple is to stumble upon a statistical miracle.

And why is it only women who are blamed for putting personal fulfillment over duty?

Because duty and self-sacrifice are masculine traits, femininity is inherently ego-centric.

And why is it only women who are blamed for putting personal fulfillment over duty?

Because the very idea of "personal fulfillment" is anathema to a masculine conception of reality. Fulfillment is a passive trait. To be "fulfilled" implies lack of motion, which is an unbearable condition for a man. Only women think in terms of personal fulfillment because their destiny in life is to be. A man's destiny is to create, and he is happiest when engaged in action.

[ChamberNut]

Because duty and self-sacrifice are masculine traits, femininity is inherently ego-centric.

Interesting.    What about hermaphrodites?

[Mozart]

Check freeway driving habits: "I can break the speed limits and weave in and out of traffic and cut people off because where I am going is more important than where you are going."

Hahahahahaha

drive in a foreign country and you will find Americans to be quite polite and courteous on the roads. In other places being constantly cut off is expected, and traffic laws don't exist as long as there isn't a cop behind you.

[owlice]

Except people are far, far more miserable today then they were then.

Data which supports this, please. Thanks.

Because duty and self-sacrifice are masculine traits, femininity is inherently ego-centric.

Data which supports this, please. Thanks.

A man's destiny is to create, and he is happiest when engaged in action.

And yet, La-Z-Boys exist. Hmmmm....

[Joe Barron]

And yet, La-Z-Boys exist. Hmmmm....

[MN Dave]

What do you think is the underlying cause of the high divorce rate?

Stupidity. Are you stupid? I doubt it.