The High Failure Rate of Second and Third Marriages
Past statistics have shown that in the U.S. 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second, and 73% of third marriages end in divorce. What are the reasons for this progressive increase in divorce rates? Theories abound. One common explanation is that a significant number of people enter a second or marriage 'on the rebound' of a first or second divorce.
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There are a lot of reasons for unsuccessful marriages and it doesn't matter whether this your first or fifth marriage :- (1) marriages fail because of misunderstandings between husband and wife. (2) sometime the behaviour of husband and wife is different from each other. they can't interpret problems of ach other. (3) because of money problem. (4) today husband and wife both work outside jobs. so both have no time to spend with each other.
Some factors that contribute to the failure of a marriage include a lack of communication or poor communication, financial issues and even the circumstances of the marriage. All of these issues can exist in a healthy and enduring marriage but if they are not dealt with properly they can lead to the failure of the marriage.
Unfortunately, sometimes even the circumstances surrounding the marriage can lead to its failure. A marriage of convenience is often not a healthy marriage. When the decision to marry is based on something other than true love, it is likely that the marriage will fair.
I think the reason so many marriages fail is because we have become a disposable society. When something doesn't work, instead of fixing it, we throw it away and get a new one.
Over my many years specializing in family law, I have seen that second marriages have a higher failure rate than first marriages, and when you get to a third or fourth marriage, there is even a higher failure rate. Why is this the case? There are several reasons. In the first place, in most first marriages, there are no children, both husband and wife are young, just starting out in life, often in school, or trying to build careers after finishing school, and neither party has much in the way of assets or debts, though that is changing with the heavy student loans that many people have, and the fact that credit cards have become such an issue.
People are in love, often naive, but there is a lot less baggage in a first marriage. Now let’s contrast that with a second marriage. People are usually older, but not necessarily wiser. I have found over the years that people tend to marry the same type of person again and again. Physical characteristics may be different, but unless there is some type of therapy or help, people who are married to abusive spouses, will pick the same type of individual. If there are issues with regard to alcohol or drugs, these issues will be there in a second or third marriage.
The next factor is that there are usually children from first marriages. We love our children, but children do not want you to marry anyone else. After a divorce, children have this hope, often a fantasy and a strong desire, that their parents will get back together and remarry. So when there is a new romantic relationship, or even worse, a new step-parent, our children will make things more and more difficult. In addition, a step-parent is not an actual parent and can never replace the parent. Step-parents do not have the power to discipline, and are in the uncomfortable role of being not really a friend, and too often an enemy, while the children from a first marriage will do whatever possible to undermine the relationship in the second marriage.
Parenting time schedules, where you are now coordinating schedules with his and her, and sometimes our children (new children make matters even more complicated), make things very complicated, to say the least. In addition, there may be a custody battle or a fight over parenting time, and litigation involving a former spouse inevitably puts pressure on the new marriage. A child may move from one household to the other, putting pressure on the new household, especially if there is a lot of acrimony between the two former spouses.
Other issues include the fact that there are often debts and a spouse bringing in debts can cause resentment in a second or third marriage. Economics can be extremely problematical. A new wife may resent her loss of spousal support. The husband will feel that he is paying too much in child support, and that his new wife is receiving too little. If the new husband is paying spousal support to his former wife, this can be a problem.
Many people have not fully healed from the first marriage, and will jump into a second marriage too quickly, literally jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. All of these taken together, along with the fact that once you’ve been divorced, even though you vow you’ll never do it again, it becomes easier to divorce a second or third time.
I agree with the idea that good statistics are important. However, to say that we dont' think they are true doesn't make them untrue. As an general practise attorney doing a fair amount of family law, I tend to believe that perhaps the detailed numbers may be open to debate, but the premise has a lot of validity.
Those who get divorced tend to blame it on the other, thus creating the strong chance the same mistakes will be repeated, just with another. Our obsession with soul mates creates the mindset that if it isn't easy, it isn't "real". Our obsession with happiness means we don't consider that we maybe unhappy and married, but not unhappily married. And if we are willing to throw the mother/father of our children under the bus in the pursuit of happiness, how much easier it must be when those ties don't exist when the inevitable "power struggle" phase kicks in.
. I wonder how affair partners who marry can trust each other enough to make it work. I often joke with other attorneys that I would like a government grant to study the divorce rate among my client who need the decree by Monday so they can re-marry on Saturday. Again, good, "hard" numbers would be nice. But the real question is how do we increase the odds of a marriage being "sucessful", no matter the first or the fifth
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