📈 Divorce Statistics & Insights: Dive into the latest study from Forbes, exploring divorce trends from 2020 to 2023. Discover eye-opening stats on the average length of marriage before divorce, the impact of occupations on marital stability, and much more.
👥 Who's Most Likely to Divorce?: Uncover which age groups and professions face higher divorce risks. Plus, find out about the surprising stability in second marriages.
🕒 Marriage Duration Insights: The average marriage now lasts about eight years before divorce. We delve into why this might be lower than expected and what factors contribute to this trend.
💔 The Divorce Rate and Third Marriages: A startling 75% divorce rate in third marriages - what's behind these numbers? We explore the patterns and reasons for this high rate.
🧐 Commitment Issues: Lack of commitment is cited as the top reason for divorces. We discuss how societal changes have influenced commitments in marriages and beyond.
🏠 Living Together Before Marriage: Does it increase the likelihood of divorce? We analyze the dynamics and share some thought-provoking perspectives.
👫 Occupations & Divorce: Discover which jobs have the highest divorce rates and why certain industries might be contributing to marital instability.
👨👩👧👦 Family Dynamics & Children's Well-being: Understanding the profound impact of divorce on children and the importance of family structure in their development.
✨ Hope and Help: Despite these challenges, we believe in hope and the possibility of saving marriages. Learn about the pathways and support systems available for couples in crisis.
📚 Your Next Steps: Visit marriagehelper.com/booknow to talk to our intake specialists and discover how we can help you navigate through your marriage crisis.
👍 Subscribe & Share: Don't forget to subscribe for more insightful episodes and share this with a spouse or friend who might benefit from it. Together, we can explore the complexities of modern marriage and find pathways to lasting relationships.
🔗 Links & Resources:
📅 Stay Tuned: Join us next week for more insights and strategies to strengthen your marriage! Remember, there is always hope. 💑
Relationship Radio is hosted by CEO of Marriage Helper, Kimberly Beam Holmes, and founder of Marriage Helper, Dr. Joe Beam.
Regardless of your situation, what we teach will not only make your relationships better, but will also help you to become the best version of yourself along the way.
Relationship Radio is released every Wednesday and is an extension of Marriage Helper.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. We love hearing from you!
For more resources about your specific situation, visit marriagehelper.com.
We have a new website for the It Starts With Attraction podcast!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
📈 Divorce Statistics & Insights: Dive into the latest study from Forbes, exploring divorce trends from 2020 to 2023. Discover eye-opening stats on the average length of marriage before divorce, the impact of occupations on marital stability, and much more.
👥 Who's Most Likely to Divorce?: Uncover which age groups and professions face higher divorce risks. Plus, find out about the surprising stability in second marriages.
🕒 Marriage Duration Insights: The average marriage now lasts about eight years before divorce. We delve into why this might be lower than expected and what factors contribute to this trend.
💔 The Divorce Rate and Third Marriages: A startling 75% divorce rate in third marriages - what's behind these numbers? We explore the patterns and reasons for this high rate.
🧐 Commitment Issues: Lack of commitment is cited as the top reason for divorces. We discuss how societal changes have influenced commitments in marriages and beyond.
🏠 Living Together Before Marriage: Does it increase the likelihood of divorce? We analyze the dynamics and share some thought-provoking perspectives.
👫 Occupations & Divorce: Discover which jobs have the highest divorce rates and why certain industries might be contributing to marital instability.
👨👩👧👦 Family Dynamics & Children's Well-being: Understanding the profound impact of divorce on children and the importance of family structure in their development.
✨ Hope and Help: Despite these challenges, we believe in hope and the possibility of saving marriages. Learn about the pathways and support systems available for couples in crisis.
📚 Your Next Steps: Visit marriagehelper.com/booknow to talk to our intake specialists and discover how we can help you navigate through your marriage crisis.
👍 Subscribe & Share: Don't forget to subscribe for more insightful episodes and share this with a spouse or friend who might benefit from it. Together, we can explore the complexities of modern marriage and find pathways to lasting relationships.
🔗 Links & Resources:
📅 Stay Tuned: Join us next week for more insights and strategies to strengthen your marriage! Remember, there is always hope. 💑
Relationship Radio is hosted by CEO of Marriage Helper, Kimberly Beam Holmes, and founder of Marriage Helper, Dr. Joe Beam.
Regardless of your situation, what we teach will not only make your relationships better, but will also help you to become the best version of yourself along the way.
Relationship Radio is released every Wednesday and is an extension of Marriage Helper.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. We love hearing from you!
For more resources about your specific situation, visit marriagehelper.com.
We have a new website for the It Starts With Attraction podcast!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
Forbes has come out with a new study about some divorce statistics looking backward into 2020, 2021, 2022, even some of 2023. And there's some pieces in here that I think are interesting to discuss, especially knowing that we love marriage, we're excited for marriage, but a lot of things in here talk about like which occupations are most likely to divorce.
Speaker 2:Which age groups. Which age groups and even a percentage of the likelihood of people who divorce and remarry divorcing a second time or actually staying married the second time, which is a very high percentage interestingly, it is, it is.
Speaker 1:I am just going to go through and point out what I find interesting. Okay, we'll start with that. So as we. Well, I don't know if we knew this we knew that about six to seven years after marriage problems began is when couples typically go and seek help. But according to this recent divorce statistics, or these recent divorce statistics, it says that the average length of marriage prior to divorce is about eight years. That's a little bit lower than I thought it would be.
Speaker 2:I remember seeing a statistic several years ago from the US government that the odds of a woman still being married after 15 years was like 49%, something like that. Now, that's an old statistic, it's from a decade ago. But yeah, it's interesting. But here, Kimberly, just remember this when they start using these statistics how many states are in the United States of America?
Speaker 1:50.
Speaker 2:And how many of those states report divorce statistics?
Speaker 1:Yeah, 45.
Speaker 2:45. And one of the states not reporting divorce statistics is California, yeah, and I think Hawaii.
Speaker 1:I think Hawaii might be another one, I'm not sure. But the other interesting part of this because it starts and we're not covering every single part of this study, but we're going to part the, or I'm going to point out the parts I find interesting to me. This is 2021 statistics that they gave of divorce rate. We know that in 2020 and 2021, a lot of divorces were backed up because courts continued to be closed. So I also wonder if it might be a little bit low in 2021 because of that.
Speaker 2:But it said you always have to look at the environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah it was saying just under 700,000 divorces occurred in 45 states that year and of course, did not include the state of California.
Speaker 2:Yeah, back when they used to do all the states that kind of thing. The divorce rate in America was a little over a million divorces in. America back in those days.
Speaker 1:So we see on average of eight years before a couple divorces. The other interesting thing and we've said this on the podcast before, but it's saying it here in this study third marriages have the highest divorce rate, at 75%, and 40% of new marriages include someone who is remarrying. Now the reason that is interesting it doesn't say it here, but a person's second marriage has a likelihood of about 65, 68%.
Speaker 2:It's about one out of two for the first marriage, about two out of three for the second marriage and three out of four for the third marriage.
Speaker 1:So if 40% of new marriages include someone where it's their second marriage, you're already entering into that marriage with a higher likelihood of divorce. Why?
Speaker 2:I think it's because of the fact that once you have made a decision, if I'm not happy I'm leaving. That making that decision again is easier because if you haven't made it before and now you make it, you've got to consider all kinds of things. Well, what about this? What about that? How will I feel about this? What will I do about that? And people who have been through it. I think, become less afraid of it.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm trying to find exactly where it said that, but one of the things that's said in here was that the top issue oh yeah, here it is right, here it is that the number one cited reason, or the most common reason for divorce is lack of commitment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw that. I would agree with that. Now, when you start looking at motivations as to why people divorce we probably look at Gottman's research there about I don't feel you love me, like me, respect me but when you look at the causes, so commitment then is not a motivation. A lack of commitment is I'm not going to do what it takes to keep this thing going and that I don't know about the whole world because I don't travel the whole world anymore. You do. You travel the world a lot. I've gotten old enough. I'm pretty happy at a home.
Speaker 2:But in America at least, the idea of commitment to anything has decreased dramatically. It used to be that people would get a job that stayed that job for their whole life, that kind of thing. And now it's highly unlikely that a person will stay at the same job their whole life. And people used to go into a particular church if they were religious, for example, and that's the church they'd be in unless they moved away somewhere. Now people switch churches every two or three years.
Speaker 2:The commitment to anything marriage, a school, even commitment to parents or children has changed dramatically. So in my generation of course I'm 149 years old, but in my generation parents wouldn't think twice about staying together for the children if they felt the children needed them. And the current is that the marriage counselors will often say don't even think about the kids, you just do what makes you happy. And when you live in a world where that is basically an idol worship of me, people worship themselves. What's the old saying he was a self-made man and worshiped his maker that kind of thing Then it's all about what makes me happy at the moment, and you and I both know the problem with that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, cause whatever makes you happy in the moment is gonna change. Moment to moment, everything changes.
Speaker 2:Nothing is ever the same. I was trying to explain that to a lady the other day. I said so. For example, I hold your daughter. She said 20. I said okay, the emotions you felt the first time you held her in your hand, right after the birth. Are the emotions you feel toward her exactly the same as those she said? Of course not. Everything evolves, including emotions like love evolve, and so if I'm gonna do whatever makes me happy in the moment, no wonder people move from one thing to the next to the next to the next to the next. One of my friends that I love very dearly, about every six to nine months as long as I've known her and I've known her for decades has changed jobs.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised she gets hired.
Speaker 2:Me too. Well, she's just really good at what she does. She's really good. I've hired her twice and she's awesome. I mean I love her to death, but it's like something. Whatever it is she's looking for, she doesn't find.
Speaker 1:Can't get satisfaction.
Speaker 2:I don't exactly know what it is, but I know that, whatever it is, she doesn't find. But that same kind of thing happens in people who go from one lover to the next, to the next, to the next, or people go from one marriage to the next to the next. I remember a lady in one of our workshops, for example. I forget which number she was in, but it was up there. I mean, she'd been married several times and everybody she had married had been Prince Charming. This is the man, this is who God meant me to be with. Well, she'd been through again, I don't remember how many, six or seven at that point because, well, I thought this was gonna satisfy me, fulfill me, make me happy, but it didn't. So let me move on.
Speaker 2:So I would agree, lack of commitment has been the primary reason. I would wholeheartedly agree. It's not the motivation, but it's lacking the glue that holds it together. In one of my books I think it was my book becoming one I can't remember the exact statement, but I wrote something like this Romantic love without commitment is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute it's very exciting, but it ends badly.
Speaker 1:Very badly, very badly.
Speaker 2:You remember, actually, but very badly at the end of that you haven't read all my books, have you?
Speaker 1:Have I Not all of them? I know there's at least two of them. I have not read. But couples who live together, they're more likely to divorce. Now, we've known this, but why?
Speaker 2:Well, of course, as you know, the research has been going on for decades. I tried to explain it to Dave Ramsey once. If you guys have ever listened to Dave Ramsey on the radio, he's that financial guru. I was a guest on this program a few times and one of the times I was on there he asked me that question. He said why and so I used the language I knew they would understand because it was background in real estate and finances there is a different mindset in renters and buyers. He said, I get it. What did you hear me say? Different mindset in renters and buyers.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I heard you say I mean, but what do you think that means?
Speaker 2:Oh, what do?
Speaker 1:I yeah, the renter, the landlord, will fix it Like I'll just use this up, use it for everything it's worth Once I, once I leave, the next person will have to deal with it, and so I don't have to commit to fixing anything, or do anything. I'm not here long term.
Speaker 2:I can leave and go to another place anytime I wish to.
Speaker 1:But these people are wanting to get married and that's the thing. It's not just people who live together who break up. It's the people who live together, get married, are more likely to divorce. And you're saying it's because they continue to have the renters mindset, because they entered into it so haphazardly.
Speaker 2:Maybe say it slightly differently, but yes, I think that's basically it. Okay, well, we'll finally get married because we're doing well. But you know, we really weren't officially committed to each other and now that we are, maybe I'm feeling a little bit trapped. Yeah, you know, now I've got to fix the plumbing, or I've got to do this or I've got to do that, if you use the house illustration and I don't want, so yeah, we, they don't have the same level of commitment, and that's true. That's been. That's been evidenced by many research projects over decades.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no one talks about it much though.
Speaker 2:Not anymore.
Speaker 1:No, I was surprised it was in the Forbes article. If we're going to be real, we used to talk about it.
Speaker 2:It used to be talked about in in conventions and things of sociologists and psychologists and marriage therapists, but when it became the American norm, people stopped talking about it because it's like, well, we may offend these folks and you know they're the ones who are our clients, so maybe we should just be careful.
Speaker 1:We'll just stop talking about the truth.
Speaker 2:That applies to all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Not us, I hope.
Speaker 2:Not us. No, as a matter of fact, we tell people, we'll tell you the truth, yeah, even when it hurts. But think about it how many things that you can't say in public anymore because it'll make somebody mad or offend them even if it's the absolute truth, yeah, no, no, we don't want the truth.
Speaker 2:What makes me happy today and what we keep telling people is it's probably not what's going to make you happy tomorrow. People need to think longer term. So I agree wholeheartedly Commitment, the glue of commitment is missing. But that's also why you can't trust what people tell you anymore. It was a time when commitment applied to your word. People would do a business, deal with a handshake, literally in both fulfill their science of it, because your word was your bond. Now it's not at all. You don't know that if somebody is going to do what they say they're going to do or not. Commitment has more or less disappeared from our culture.
Speaker 1:We see that in psychology too. They talk about two different eras of marriage and relationships. In the 50s and 60s, we were in the commitment-based era. Starting in the mid-70s, we entered into the expressive individualism era.
Speaker 2:It began changing in the 60s but, yes, by the time we got to the 70s it was there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is a lot of these reasons, even well, I wouldn't say even this next one, but another statistic which we could have given them, because this aligns with what we see. In fact, our number is a little bit higher 60% of divorced couples cite infidelity as their reason for divorce.
Speaker 2:Two out of three couples that come through our workshop for marriages and crisis since we started doing that workshop in 1999. So we've been doing that 25 years. At the time of this recording, we 67% two out of three couples that show up at least one. It might be him, it might be her, it might be both. So infidelity occurs. Now the problem with research on infidelity is whether people will tell you the truth about it or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we don't know how rampant it is in the general population of marriage, but we can see that 60% of divorces claim that it happened.
Speaker 2:But in the general population. One research project will say 20%, the other one will say 80%. I mean because how truthful are people in the general population going to be? Have you been unfaithful to your spouse? No, and they're lying yeah.
Speaker 1:So what can define unfaithful?
Speaker 2:Is it.
Speaker 1:Could it be that I emotionally was unfaithful, that I sexually was unfaithful? Like, where's the line in between that?
Speaker 2:So one person may consider oh yeah, I remember one guy that said look, it was only oral sex, therefore it was not unfaithful. So they can do all kinds of things to draw that line.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So only 6% of men and 74% of women think that their spouse should have worked harder to save the marriage.
Speaker 2:But we see that in every workshop. We've talked about it before. He's the problem, she's the problem, you fix them, it's not me. And then what? What do they typically wind up discovering in our workshop?
Speaker 1:The lyrics of a Taylor Swift song it's me, hi, I'm the problem it's me.
Speaker 2:I don't believe I've ever heard a forgive me. I'm getting angry with it.
Speaker 1:Surely you've heard one of her songs.
Speaker 2:I only listen to music from the 60s and 70s. Well, either way, you're not missing that I call it classical music, either way.
Speaker 1:Either way, I found this it further. It continues. When a marriage end, there's often plenty of blame to go around. However, many people believe that they did all they could to save a marriage, while believing that their spouse should have worked harder. It's a cycle.
Speaker 2:We know, because we work with thousands and thousands of couples is doing all they could often means they did the wrong things.
Speaker 1:Or they read a book, or they went to a counseling session, or they asked their spouse will you go to counseling with me once? Yeah, that's all they could do.
Speaker 2:That's correct. You're right, but we know that people who really want to save their marriages typically do the wrong things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are some of those things?
Speaker 2:Fine big lead product control when God told me he made it where, financially, she couldn't survive without him. Therefore she'd have to stay. And all of these are various ways of control. Sometimes it's guilt. I'm going to guilt you. These terrible things are going to happen to me if you leave, et cetera, et cetera. And by doing all of those kinds of things, they think they're going to stay, when in actuality, they're pushing their person away even faster. We don't have time to explain all of that in this podcast, but we know a lot about that and we're happy to help you understand why that's the wrong thing to do, to the point that sometimes we actually say to people stop trying to save your marriage. And they go. What I thought you guys? You guys are the ones who want us to save our marriage. Yeah, but not the way you're doing it. So stop, stop trying to save your marriage. Let us show you the right thing to do instead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's why we have our seven steps. We have our seven steps that help people work towards saving their marriage and reconciling, but the first three steps of it all have to do with them, me.
Speaker 2:Myself what I need to do, what I stop doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, for sure. And we have intake specialists that our listeners can call and talk to about how we can help with that. You can book that if you're interested by going to marriagehelpercom or slash. Book now links in the show notes wherever you're listening or watching this. A couple of other key things I wanted to point out before, before we talk about why all of this matters. Occupations with highest divorce and industries with highest divorce, I thought was interesting occupations. We see gaming manager, so I'm thinking that's like a casino worker, something like that, I assume. Bartender, flight attendant, a switchboard operators, telemarketers, working long hours, night hours.
Speaker 2:But also people who have a lot of interaction with strangers. That's very true, which means they're meeting all kinds of people, and who knows what intrigue they may feel upon meeting a particular person.
Speaker 1:In talking about the industries, though, office and administration industry has the highest divorce rate.
Speaker 2:It's also where a lot of affairs began. It is with the receptionist, the person of the next cubicle, or the person down the hall or the person on the next floor. It's because of the fact that affairs, unless it's just purely about sex, if the affairs involve any kind of emotions, it's because you have developed a relationship with this person Well. Working in the same building, on the same floor, in the same office, seeing each other all the time, facilitates that being able to occur.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Divorce rates are similar among men and women not in the labor force, so there's kind of a new trend out there that women, when they work outside the home, it might lead to higher divorce rates or unhappier marriages. According to this research, in 2022, 21% of divorces involved men not in the labor force and 22% of divorces involved women not in the workforce.
Speaker 2:So they were pretty much even not quite statistically- but if they're not in the workforce they may have less opportunity to meet other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but these are divorce rates that happened when the partner was so seven. So the other 72%, or 78% of women who divorced were working.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I see what you're saying. They have more opportunity, yeah, but there's no difference in the men and the women.
Speaker 2:Okay, am I supposed to have a comment about that Do?
Speaker 1:you I don't know.
Speaker 2:People will often say don't men have a lot more affairs than women? And I said unless it's the same gender affair, you've got to have both, and so it wouldn't be that different in the number, unless there's one woman sleeping with 40 men. Then you would think that her numbers would be pretty similar.
Speaker 1:Bill and Melinda Gates divorce was $76 billion. We could have helped save them a lot of money.
Speaker 2:We would have done it for half that.
Speaker 1:We would have done it. You know what I would. 10% let's be generous, joe. 10% of that. 70% of children live with both parents who are married. 30% of children do not. We know from other research that up to 50% of children or after parents divorce. After 10 years, 50% of children no longer have relationships with their father. How many years? After 10 years, I? Thought you were telling us After the first year it's 25%, and after 10 years that goes up to 50%.
Speaker 2:When you start talking about the fact of why does it matter? Why does it matter at all if a couple stays together? What about an intact family unit? This was several years ago. A friend of mine who is a sociologist attended a meeting in Little Rock and, believe it or not, even by then the Crips and the Bloods, two of the West Coast gangs, had branches in Little Rock, arkansas, and there was a guy who had been trying to work with gangsters there and he actually got the head of the Crips and the head of the Bloods in Little Rock to come to this meeting where all these sociologists were. Now, according to my friend, they sat on opposite sides of the stays. They wouldn't be close to each other, but they had them both mic'd and they allowed people in the audience to ask them questions. I would have loved to have been there. She said.
Speaker 2:Somebody asked what would it take to do away with gangs and you would think that they would snarl and but whichever one Crips Bloods, whichever one? The guy said give me a better family. This is the only family I have Now. People may be thinking, but I'm not worried about my kids getting to that kind of gang. But understand that people are made to be in groups. We are social people. There's the occasional person who wants to be a hermit and live totally by himself, but even many people who want to be alone would rather live in an apartment complex than out in the middle of nowhere, so at least people are around them. We are made to be social people and we crave having people that we can protect and can protect us, that we can care about and they care about us. And the unit where that's supposed to happen, based on nature, is having a father, a mother and children together as a family. Now, people are making all kinds of other families, sometimes because they have to Like I'm raising my grandchildren because my daughter just abandoned them, that kind of thing. I'm not putting that down. I'm saying if you're doing that, thank God, you care about your grandchildren that much.
Speaker 2:But when it comes to people who are married, and particularly if you have children, if you're thinking well, they're going to be okay, they will crave family. Unfortunately, it might wind up being a gang or a click at school of people that you don't want them to be around, or some other outfit, some cult, some sect, all kinds of things. Now, I'm not saying that that's going to happen to every child. We all know that's not going to happen, but you need to understand that it can, because they crave family, they crave being loved, and so is it worthwhile to figure out how to solve marriage problems and stay together With the sake of the children? Absolutely, and if your counselors tell you that it's not, they don't read the research. Research is ample. Kids crave it. The biggest fear a child will have is losing a parent. So there's a reason for people to get married. There's a reason for them not just to live together and have children. There's a reason so the kids know you're committed to be here with me legally, morally, ethically, spiritually, every other way.
Speaker 1:A lot of times people feel like there's no hope if they're headed for divorce and that they can't do anything. Even this Forbes study says that when couples divorce and do even after couples divorce if they were to remarry, which is low, only about six percent of divorced couples tend to get remarried, which I would like to think Marriage Helper has made a dent in that six percent like helped increase it. But when this occurs, there is a 72 percent of them chance of them remaining married.
Speaker 2:They have a super high success rate, like we, were saying together super low chance of divorcing again Now, at night, they sure, but the odds are very, very low. As some people who watch our podcast know, I actually divorced my wife back in 1984, and then we were remarried in 1987, and we are happily married to this day and will be until death. And so I look at that statistic and say, yeah, that's right, because if you can put it back together and solve the problems, there's not much that's going to take you abort.
Speaker 1:We believe that there's always hope, always, that nothing is unrecoverable and that there is a step forward for people to take, no matter if you're divorced, separated or just feeling like it's hopeless in the current situation. But we can help you move forward. You can speak with one of our intake specialists. Going to marriagehelpercom slash book now, you can book a call it's a free call with one of our intake specialists who will help understand where you are, what your goal is and how Marriage Helper can help you get there, because that's our goal to help you save your marriage, and we would love to make that happen. This isn't supposed to be depressing. It's supposed to shed some light and some truth on what's happening with divorce. But at the end of the day, you have the ability to do something to change your future, whether it's for you having a better future, no matter what happens, but ultimately, hopefully, to save your marriage. We believe that there is hope and we hope we can help. Until next week, there is always hope.