Are Some Marriages Doomed From the Start?

    “I saw it coming.”  “I could have predicted it.”  “I knew at the wedding that the marriage wouldn’t last.” News of divorce often generates comments about whether the break-up was in the cards before the vows were finished. But is it possible to predict divorce? Maybe.            

There are some common denominators when it comes to divorce, according to research tabulated by the National Marriage Project, in its report The State of Our Unions. Some of the personal and social factors that may affect the potential for divorce are: Having an income lower than $25,000; having a child before marriage;  coming from a divorced family; having no religious affiliation; and having no college education.

The factors are listed in order of effect, with income level seeming to have the greatest affect on whether a couple divorces. A couple who makes less than $25,000 has a 30 percent increased chance of divorcing. For a couple who has a child before marriage, or within the first seven months, the chance of divorce increases 24 percent. If a couple is younger than 18 years old, the chance of divorce also increases 24 percent, as compared to those who marry at a later age. And those who come from divorced families are 14 percent more likely to divorce than those who do not.            
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There are clearly some divorce predictors, but they don’t have to mean that a happy marriage is an impossibility, said Robert Emery, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and the director of the Center for Children, Families, and the Law.   

“Demographers have known for a long time that different background factors are associated with an increased risk of divorce,”  Emery, who is also the author of The Truth About Children and Divorce, said. One of the most long-standing and accepted predictors, he said, is the fact the people who marry at a later age are less likely to divorce.  


THE DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDE              

The demographic factors that predict divorce seem to show a chasm in marriage and family life when taken together, Emery said. “They all kind of fit together,”  he said. Those who are educated tend to be more affluent, and they are more likely to marry and stay married. Those with less education and lower incomes are more likely to have children outside of marriage. When analyzed as a whole, college education seems to form the divide, he said.            

The problem is that no one knows for sure why they all fit together in this way, he said. “It’s something that everyone is trying to sort out,” Emery said. “Is it an issue that better-educated, better-off people are recognizing the benefits of marriage?  Is it that they have better marriage and family options? Or is it nothing to do with that?  People are more able to put things off for tomorrow, more able to go to college, save, invest in marriage like they would an education.”      
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Because the reasons behind why these demographic factors are predictors of divorce remain unanswered, he said, he cautions against using them to foretell the future of a relationship. Instead, determine the health of a relationship by looking carefully at the partners, he said. He said he often jokes that arranging marriages might be more effective because the couples could be joined together based on long-term stability instead of short-term attraction.            
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So instead of focusing too deeply on the demographic factors, couples should try to analyze in an unbiased way what brings them together, he said. “I guess the question is:  Would you arrange this marriage for yourself?” Emery said.  


MARITAL DEAL-BREAKERS              

While the demographic factors on the list make marriage more difficult, they are not the kids of issues that will mean the end to a marriage, said Jay P. Granat, Ph.D., a psychotherapist in New Jersey. He said he often sees young couples who had a child before marriage or very early in the marriage, and who are struggling in their relationship. He said he asks those couples one of the most difficult questions: Would you have married if you were not having a child? That helps him understand the kinds of stresses they are trying to resolve.     
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Added to that, he said, is the fact that many of these couples are young and have not matured. They may not have reached a level of stability in their occupations or in their finances, and they are trying to adjust to financial strains of raising a child. It’s a stressful situation from the start, he said.