Are Some Marriages Doomed From the Start?

          

Those stressors can be resolved, he said. However, there are some issues that may automatically mean the end of a relationship. Things like: drug or alcohol abuse, mental illness, lying, out-of-control gambling, physical or emotional abuse and infidelity. “Those tend to be big hurdles for a relationship,” Granat said. “I sometimes approximate those as deal breakers.”            

Beyond those factors, Granat said, there are ways to offset some of the difficulties that are commonly present failing relationships. If both partners are willing to work on improving the relationship, then there is a chance at reparing it.    
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“I think you have to go over the options in terms of how they feel: to stay, to leave, to see if they can learn about each other and grow into this,” Granat said. He said that some couples, especially those who marry young, need education about parenting and family life. “What’s common is that they have poor communication skills, and they have not been in the situation where they have to compromise,” Granat said. “Those are the things they need to learn about.”  


OTHER FACTORS COMMON IN DIVORCE              

However, one therapist said that these common demographic factors – income, early child bearing, coming from a divorced family, no college education – don’t seem to play a part in the lives of the couples who come to her for help. Barbara Fontana, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist and Imago therapist in Long Island, said that the fact that she doesn’t see it doesn’t necessarily mean that the common factors don’t contribute to divorce.

“I am on the north shore of Long Island., so it’s a very white, middle-class area. Not diverse. I don’t see that at all, but I think I have a very narrow sample,”  Fontana said. Instead, she said that the amount of time married seems to play a part in the health of the marriage. “There seem to be two times when there is an increase in divorce – around seven years, and when the kids are grown,”  Fontana said. “There are two blips, or peaks, that I see.”       
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Added to that, she said, is a new “blip.” She is hearing about more couples who are divorcing early, within a year or two of the wedding. “And that is new,”  Fontana said. “I think that comes from people not understanding that marriage is hard work. And when they see that it is hard work, they give up. And I think that’s sad.”  


A GENETIC PREDISPOSITION TO DIVORCE?              

If there are commonalities to divorcing couples, might there be common personality traits? Brian D’Onofrio, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University, thinks so. He conducted research on twins to understand whether genetic factors might play a part in divorce. He found that issues like depression and addiction, which can be genetically predisposed, may be issues that are more likely to cause divorce.            

He said there are no specific “divorce genes.” He researches personality traits that might lead to divorce. He looks at twins to understand the differences between genetic and environmental effects. “When we talk about genetic factors on any complex behaviors, we are talking about how genetic factors affect personality factors or behaviors that then go on to affect divorce,”  D’Onofrio said.       
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He said it has long been accepted that one particular personality trait makes it more likely for one to experience divorce: people who respond negatively to life events. “We’ve known from numerous psychological and sociological studies that people who are more likely to respond to stressful events negatively, that they are more likely to get divorced,” D’Onofrio said.            

Which means that people who worry a lot, get stressed out quickly and easily, get overly upset when bad things happen, are more likely to have failed relationships, he said. That trait seems to have a strong bearing on how partners relate to each other, he said.            

In many of these situations, he said, the key to trying to save the relationship is finding some kind of help or treatment. “We always encourage people who are going through difficult times in ther marriage from marital counseling,” D’Onofrio said. “Sometimes I think people wait to long to get the help that they need.”  


Michele Bush Kimball has a Ph.D. in mass communication with a specialization in media law. She has spent almost 15 years in the field of journalism, and she teaches at American University in Washington, D.C.