Life after Divorce 201
couple of years. When I extrapolate a bit on this divorce domino-
effect theme, and when I factor in my own personal and profes-
sional experiences, I have to come to the regrettable conclusion
that the current high incidence of divorce throughout contem-
porary society may itself have become a self-fulfilling prophecy
that can in turn threaten the marriages of the other members of
that society.
Remarriage
Remarriage, sir, represents the triumph of hope over experience.
—Samuel Johnson
Statistics show that over 80 percent of divorced men and about
75 percent of divorced women eventually remarry. Most remar-
riages take place within three years of the divorce. In the Califor-
nia Children of Divorce Project study, 43 percent of the men and
33 percent of the women remarried within five years of the sepa-
ration date. Californians do everything fast, of course, but nation-
wide statistics also indicate that over one-half of the women, and
about 70 percent of the men, remarry within ten years following
their divorce.
Men race down the remarriage route. As a rule, men seem to act
more quickly than women in taking the remarriage plunge. Often-
times men marry women who are far younger, and/or women
they had already been actively involved with on a liaison level
during their original marriages. As pointed out earlier, men
seem (somewhat ironically) to need the nest even more than do
women. Hence, guys are far less likely to leave even a bad mar-
riage until they have a secondary substitute relationship already
lined up on the side. The fact that men undergo relatively more
rapid remarriage rates seems to be a further indicator of this
phenomenon.
Many second marriages—while statistically more risky—can
indeed result in a relationship that is much more happy and ful-
filling than the first. Amazingly enough, some people are actu-
ally smart enough to learn from their past mistakes. (Others, of
course, seem destined only to repeat them.)