Impact of divorce lasts for decades

"The emotional and social impacts of divorce are felt for decades after a marriage breaks down, leaving a generation of older Australians vulnerable to loneliness and poor health.

A new study into the wellbeing of Australians aged between 55 and 74 - the first generation to experience divorce at high rates - found divorcees felt more socially isolated and less satisfied with life compared with married men and women."

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Church Attendance Key to Marriage Success, Researcher Says

"Married couples who attend church services frequently are happier and more likely to succeed in their marriages than those who don’t attend church often or not at all, according to a recent study.

'[R]esearch suggests that not only do churchgoing husbands enjoy happier marriages but also that their wives are more likely to experience marital happiness, compared to married couples where husbands do not attend religious services on a regular basis,' said W. Bradford Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, explaining his research results.

According to the study, 70 percent of husbands who attend church regularly say they are 'very happy' in their marriages, compared to only 59 percent of husbands who do not attend religious services. For women, the figures were similar, with a majority of those who attend church services reporting to be happier than those who do not"

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Living Together Dangerously

Study reveals perils of cohabitation:

"Living together before marriage is a very common practice for couples in many countries. Many defend it on the basis that it enables the future husband and wife to get to know each other better.

Abundant evidence exists, however, that cohabitation is more of an obstacle rather than an advantage in preparing for marriage. Michael and Harriet McManus recently published “Living Together: Myths, Risks and Answers (Howard Books), which documents their research on the topic.

The authors, founders of the organization Marriage Savers, warn that couples who cohabit before marriage are much more likely to divorce afterward. There is a big difference, they say, between a permanent bond such as marriage and just living together in a conditional relationship."

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Men prefer being solo over a bad marriage

Study concludes men are not afraid of marriage, but rather afraid of a bad marriage:

"Men are 10 times more scared of marrying the wrong person than of never getting married at all. This is the first generation of people who have grown up with bad divorces. People assume there is something wrong if you don't marry but these are men who have made a different choice and not given in to social pressures."

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Until death do you part?

" 'There no longer seems to be much of a stigma attached to divorce; it is now seen as an unavoidable rite of passage,' concluded researcher George Barna in a recently published report.

Americans who have the highest rates of divorce, according to the study, are “downscale” adults (those who have not attended college and are earning less than $20,000 a year) at 39%; Baby Boomers (38%); non-Christian religious believers (38%); African-Americans (36%); and “people who consider themselves to be liberal on social and political matters” (37%).

Those with the lowest divorce rates are Catholics (28%); evangelicals (26%); upscale adults (college graduates earning $75,000 or more a year), at 22%; Asians (20%); and those calling themselves “conservative on social and political matters” (28%). Hispanics have a divorce rate of 31%, according to the Barna study."

The key to wedded bliss

Australian researchers say they can tell whether a marriage will last or end in divorce after asked just a few questions.

Full story is here.

A Good Fight May Keep You And Your Marriage Healthy

"A good fight with your spouse may be good for your health, research suggests. Couples in which both the husband and wife suppress their anger when one attacks the other die earlier than members of couples where one or both partners express their anger and resolve the conflict, according to preliminary results of a University of Michigan study."

Full story from Science Dailys

Marry Me

"Say yes, and you're in for more than love, children and a home. Better health and a longer life are part of the deal."

Full story from Time

Young women choosing careers over love

"When it comes to work versus romance, the stereotype has been that men put a premium on career goals while women focus more on family and friends. Not so, according to a study published recently in the scientific journal "Gender Issues."

Men were more willing than women to sacrifice achievement for a romantic relationship, according to the study conducted by Catherine Mosher of Duke University Medical Center and Sharon Danoff-Burg at the University of Albany."

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Happy Marriage Soothes Job Stress

"A woman's satisfaction with her marriage may affect how quickly she bounces back from a hard day at work.

Happily married wives tend to bounce back better after a rocky day on the job, according to a new study of 60 California couples."

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Faith and marital fidelity go hand in hand: study

"Where you worship - and whether you worship at all - could be connected to your likelihood of straying from your marriage vows.

People who identify with a faith group are less likely to cheat on their spouses than those with no religious affiliation, a new study has found. But even among the religious set, the odds vary according to denomination."

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Ages and stages of marriage

"Research also indicates that those couples who participate in a solid pre-marital preparation program increase their odds dramatically of developing a healthy happy marriage. It should be a preparation period of three to six months and involve not only a pastor but also a mentor couple or couples.

This preparation time gives the couple an opportunity to determine their common ground, shared beliefs and values, and time to think through their current and future relationship. Meeting with a mentor couple helps them to recognize others have navigated through similar paths and thrived. One of the best gifts other family members and friends can give to an engaged couple is the encouragement of the need to attend adequate pre-marriage programs. They can be life changing."

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Globally, 70% believe marriage is for life

According to over 25,000 consumers polled online in 46 countries last December:

Seventy percent of people surveyed say that marriage is for life (with American consumers topping the list at 78%) and three out of five (60%) saying that marriage is one of their lifetime goals.

Survey results indicate that the concept of marriage today might be largely dominated by a country’s cultural and religious beliefs – with very opposing views among consumers in the developed West and emerging East.

Another surprising result is that in the USA, more men than women believed that marriage is for life and relevant in today’s society.

Muslim and Catholic strongholds in Asia top global rankings for believing that marriage ‘is for life’, lead by Indonesians (97%), and Filipinos and Malaysians (both 89%).

The news isn't so good in Western Europe:

Over 70% of Portuguese and Italians and 60% of Spaniards say marriage is irrelevant today – and of those who make it to the church altar, only one in three Portuguese and Spaniards believe that marriage is for life! In Italy, only half (48%) believe that marriage today will last a lifetime.

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Bad marriage = bad health

"A lousy marriage might literally make you sick. Marital strife and other bad personal relationships can raise your risk for heart disease, researchers reported Monday.

What it likely boils down to is stress — a well-known contributor to health problems, as well as a potential byproduct of troubled relationships, the scientists said.

In a study of 9,011 British civil servants, most of them married, those with the worst close relationships were 34 percent more likely to have heart attacks or other heart trouble during 12 years of follow-up than those with good relationships. That included partners, close relatives and friends."

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Children of divorce: Kids less likely to follow faith

Divorce often leaves children conflicted, confused and even bitter when it comes to matters of faith, according to Elizabeth Marquardt, author of the book Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce.

Marquardt, whose own parents are divorced and who is the director for the Center for Marriage and Families at the nonpartisan Institute for American Values, discovered that even children whose parents have a "good divorce" can suffer longstanding religious consequences.

Children of divorce are less likely to have had consistent involvement in a religious faith when growing up.

* Those who were active in a religion during childhood received little or no support from their church during their parents' divorce.

* In adulthood, children of divorce are much less religious than peers from intact families.

* Young adults from divorced families feel just as spiritual as their peers, but their spiritual journeys are more often characterized by loss and suffering.

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Wedding bells ringing later in life

Census shows people are staying single longer:

"2006 census data released earlier this month show that people are continuing to wait longer and longer to get married for the first time. In New York state, the median age for that rite of passage now stands at 29.4 years old for men and 27.7 years old for women, making the ages here two years older than the national median.

By comparison, in the 1950s, the median age nationwide was 22 for men and 20 for women.

Reasons for this upward creep, which began about 30 years ago, are many, but most people point to cohabitation prior to marriage as the primary factor."

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Silver anniversary becomes rarer milestone

"A U.S. Census Bureau study released yesterday reported that more than half of the American marriages consummated in the late 1970s failed to survive 25 years.

It was the first time since at least World War II that the Census Bureau reported that most marriages dissolved before reaching their silver anniversary."

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Retirement And Marriage

Forbes reports on a study examining transitions in retirement involving 534 married couples in their 50s, 60s or 70s who were retired or about to retire from several large businesses in upstate New York.

"Husbands and wives reported greater marital satisfaction if they retired at the same time. While men with nonworking spouses had greater marital satisfaction than those with working wives, regardless of whether the men themselves worked, those men who didn't work but had a working spouse reported the most marital conflict."

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Marriage Breakdown: Expensive and Divisive

Report Shows Big Downside to Family Disintegration

Why are we waiting to get married?

A 2005 report by the National Marriage Project titled "The State of our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America" offered a list of reasons why Americans have become less likely to marry are:

• People are delaying first marriages (waiting to meet right person or complete postgraduate education).
• There is an increase in people choosing to be single for life.
• More people are cohabiting.
• There is a slight decrease in the tendency of divorced people to remarry.

Other findings from the report include:

• The divorce rate today is nearly twice that of 1960 but has been declining since hitting its high point in the early 1980s.
• Most people now live together before marrying for the first time. An even higher percentage of divorced people live together before remarrying.
• Divorced men are more likely to remarry than divorced women. Also, among divorcees who do remarry, men generally do so sooner than women.
• The likelihood of divorce is higher for blacks than whites and higher in the West than in other parts of the country.
• Americans increasingly view marriage and child rearing as separate pursuits.

More details here.