Marriage Failure Rates

[FollowingHim2]

I have no idea where these stats came from or if they're correct at all, but it makes for fascinating reading if they are.
Anyone have any idea why the NFP makes such a difference?

 

[Verifyveritas76]

That’s very interesting.

I have nothing on the NFP except an anecdote from a book I read a while back written by a MGTOW guy on how to successfully create a harem or something like that. In it he remarked that two of the women in his “harem” had been accidentally exposed to his sperm at different occasions. As all of them come from a different world view, their next step the following morning was to make sure that they used the morning after pill etc. He was commenting on it specifically because prior to the incidents he would have rated them as being unlikely to stay long term with him. However, after the incident, both of the women became very committed to him even though neither had become impregnated (to his knowledge).

 

[IshChayil]

I’ve heard that the 50% figure is skewed by the many multiple divorces certain individuals go through. The idea being after a first divorce it’s much easier for many to accept a second, third etc so the stats may not accurately reflect how many individuals in the states have ever divorced.
I may be totally wrong on this but I bet the actual number is actually somewhere between 35 and 40 percent

 

[FollowingHim2]

accidentally exposed to his sperm

I actually burst out laughing at this.

However, after the incident, both of the women became very committed to him even though neither had become impregnated (to his knowledge).

Makes you wonder about that whole becoming one flesh thing.

BTW, what kind of a harem was this guy running? I thought the whole point of a harem was a group of wives all together, not a free for all where they come and go as they please.

 

[FollowingHim2]

I’ve heard that the 50% figure is skewed by the many multiple divorces certain individuals go through. The idea being after a first divorce it’s much easier for many to accept a second, third etc so the stats may not accurately reflect how many individuals in the states have ever divorced.
I may be totally wrong on this but I bet the actual number is actually somewhere between 35 and 40 percent

I have heard (though I don't know if it's correct), that the 50% is first time only. After that it goes up to something like 70% for second marriages and then up and up as you have more. I'm only going off what I've heard floating around, a bit like the image above, so I don't know what is actually accurate.

 

[FollowingHim2]

Interesting article here:
https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-myth-of-the-high-rate-of-divorce/

"The key is that the research shows that starting in the 1980s education, specifically a college degree for women, began to create a substantial divergence in marital outcomes, with the divorce rate for college-educated women dropping to about 20 percent, half the rate for non-college educated women. Even this is more complex, since the non-college educated women marry younger and are poorer than their college grad peers. These two factors, age at marriage and income level, have strong relationships to divorce rates; the older the partners and the higher the income, the more likely the couple stays married. Obviously, getting a college degree is reflected in both these factors."

Why do those factors affect divorce rates at all? What does marriage have to do with education?

 

[FollowingHim]

NFP makes sense because

• You're spending more time intimately understanding one another
• The wife's brain isn't being screwed up with artificial hormones

But I have no idea where they would have got the statistics from, so it's possibly fake.

 

[IshChayil]

This peaked my interest so I did some digging. The three sites I visited claimed the actual divorce rate (inclusive of serial divorces) is between 33%-41%
Who knows if the stats are correct. two articles I read asserted what you mentioned @FollowingHim2 that the divorce rate has been falling since the 80's and the trend seems to be that it continues to fall.
I think this is all not so meaningful because what none of the articles mentioned is I'm sure it's more common to shack up now and when those couples break up it is an actual divorce (no papers involved but the tragedy on the people involved is surely similar) so that may put it back up to the 50% you first mentioned.

I think the real numbers that would be interesting to us should be among believers what is the divorce rate?
Oh how about this, so in Polygamous families, if a man has 5 wives and one of them leaves him that's a great stat right? 20% divorce only!

 

[rockfox]

Look up the Barna statistics. It shows you divorce by denomination and church attendance as compared to the world. IIRC in that study the failure rate of any given marriage in the first 10 years is around 42% or so for non-church goers. Differing studies and stats in different areas come in at different rates and so overall it colloquially came to be thought of as 50%; which isn't far off really, not in the grand scheme of things when is ought to be an order of magnitude less.

The Barna rate for the world is also not far off the church average of around 36 or 38. (10% diff, not far off the margin of error). And Protestants and Catholics differ little on that.

I don't know where he gets the NFP rate, but it doesn't surprise me. That's basically selecting for staunch Catholics; who worldwide have very little divorce (except in the USA, dominated by our cafeteria Catholics and lax diocese). The US Catholic church grants more divorces than all other countries combined. IIRC an order of magnitude more even.

NFP doesn't just select for Catholics who will be willing to follow church tradition in other ways (i.e. divorce); it also marks people willing to set aside the world's standard for marriage for the churches.

Praying together, now you're dealing with a wife willing to bear her soul before her husband. That's quite out of the ordinary and creates a different dynamic.

Most current Barna survey, which differs a little from my numbers. The 42% number above must have been from an earlier survey where they listed by church attendance (couldn't find it just now), or from US wide stats. Again, off my memory. But it does show all adults at 33% and Protestants and Catholics at or a little below that. My recollection matches O'Brian's and is from an earlier survey.

A note about Barna. It is based on survey data. Doing it that way allows him to break it down by church affiliation, something you can't get from county marriage stats, but doesn't capture those who have left the church; which is why I think the rate fell from 38% to under 30 in the newest survey. It also exposes you to further error due to people not honestly self reporting.

 

[FollowingHim2]

I think this is all not so meaningful because what none of the articles mentioned is I'm sure it's more common to shack up now and when those couples break up it is an actual divorce (no papers involved but the tragedy on the people involved is surely similar) so that may put it back up to the 50% you first mentioned.

I think the numbers for cohabiting couples breaking up is much higher. I've heard that 75% of cohabiting couples with children in Europe break up.
The main problem there is commitment I think. They don't see themselves as married so they don't think they are committed for life. However, like you said, the break up there is just as bad as a divorce. In NZ, if you've been living together for 3 years then if you break up you have to split everything 50/50. It's treated basically the same as being married. Also, in NZ there are lots of cohabiting couples, as we have this weird culture here where non-Christians don't tend to date much, they just hang out for a bit and then move in together and then continue to date while in the same house. Then they often break up, obviously, which they would have done had they not been living together and if they'd just given it some time. Or, they've been living together for 5 years, figure it's about time they got married, get engaged, spend another 5 years trying to save up for a massive wedding, then get divorced after being married for a few years. I've seen that a few times, it's a bizarre thing.

 

[FollowingHim2]

I don't know where he gets the NFP rate, but it doesn't surprise me. That's basically selecting for staunch Catholics;

You'd be surprised how many non-Catholics use NFP. However, you're right, when Samuel and I wanted to learn about this when we first got married, the only place we could learn was a Catholic charity place. Most doctors and even midwives have no idea how a woman's body works, yet any Catholic can tell you lol!

Praying together, now you're dealing with a wife willing to bear her soul before her husband. That's quite out of the ordinary and creates a different dynamic.

Right, and now you've got YHWH involved, and you're making Him central in your decisions. You know what He thinks of divorce...

 

[rockfox]

Right, and now you've got YHWH involved, and you're making Him central in your decisions. You know what He thinks of divorce...

Probably, but not because of the praying part; but the with her husband part.

The thing is, there are lots of church women who pray, while at the same time living in rebellion against their husbands God given authority. A praying women doesn't necessarily have YHWH involved; it could just be play-acting. So too do lots of women invoke God as justification for their divorce.

But praying with your husband, unless she's taking a leadership role in doing so, entails a higher level vulnerability and spiritual accountability on her part and indicates a husband who is taking his spiritual leadership more seriously. And that indicates a different marriage dynamic; one less likely to end in divorce.