Recent research carried out by the Marriage Foundation www.marriagefoundation.org.uk has thrown an interesting light on the time when marriages are under most pressure and at risk of breakdown.
According to their report, half of all divorces currently take place within the first decade of marriage, with the riskiest period being three to six years after the marriage. So much for the “Seven Year Itch.”
Hardly surprising, when this is the time when most marriages are under pressure from long work hours, exhaustion, young children, lack of communication and lack of money. These factors often contribute to a tendency for partners to blame each other for difficulties, turning in on themselves and finding fault with each other, causing irreparable damage to the marriage. The glamour and fun of the wedding is a distant memory, and the reality of living with the same person for the rest of their lives somehow seems much less appealing than it did on the Big Day.
The Marriage Foundation report suggests that if the divorce rate is to be reduced, resources should be put into supporting marriages during these years, the first decade being the most vulnerable. Couples should be encouraged to go to Relate http://www.relate.org.uk at an early stage, long before the breakdown becomes irreparable, to develop strategies to ensure that communication between them continues at all cost and to enable each person to understand the other person’s point of view in a calm and reasonable manner.
According to its website, 80% of couples who had been to Relate, felt it had strengthened their relationship. The difficulty for many is in fact just getting their partner to agree to go in the first place.
The other interesting aspect to the report was that if the marriage survives the first decade, it is no more likely to break down nowadays than it was at any time from the 1970s, despite the commonly held assumption that the divorce rate is higher than it was in the 1960s. In fact, if the marriage survives the first decade, and especially the three to six year riskiest period, the chances of getting divorced decreases every year.
12.3.2013