Some Basic Background 11
between jobs, cities, and midlife crises. If our mate fails to keep
up intellectually, physically, or sexually during these transitions,
we tend to opt for serial marriages or relationships—one for each
new stage of our lives. As actress Ingrid Bergman once said: “Five
husbands, each for ten years, that would be just about right.”
The seven-year itch. Ms. Bergman may have exaggerated our
staying power. Remember the fabled seven-year itch phenom-
enon? It has been statistically shown that marriages that end in
divorce do indeed last an average of about seven years. In fact,
according to a recent study published in Family Process, one half
of all U.S. divorces occur in the first seven years of marriage. Even
second marriages that self-destruct typically do so after about
seven years. Interestingly, however, it is actually the third year
of marriage which is the single riskiest insofar as the chance of
divorce occurring during any one given year. And, while on the
subject of statistical averages, I should point out one other little
“food for thought” tidbit: the key average ages for divorces over-
all are the early to mid-thirties.
Risk factors. What are some of the risk factors? Youth seems to be
one—dissolution rates are definitely higher for people who marry
at younger ages. Also, people whose parents divorced while they
were growing up are more likely to divorce themselves. Another
risk factor is relatively low educational levels. People with higher
education are more likely to marry and less likely to separate.
Premarital births are also associated with a higher incidence of
divorce. Finally, several studies have shown that a couple’s mari-
tal satisfaction drops off by up to 70 percent in the first few years
after the birth of the first child (although later, having child(ren)
does make a couple less likely to divorce).
It is interesting to note that while the first four or five years of
a marriage have always been among the riskiest, the other deadly
year for marriages seems to be the first year after the last young-
ster leaves home. Another high-risk period is during the couple’s
twenties—at the height of their reproductive years.
Many argue nowadays that it makes more sense to simply live
together than to get married. This is certainly the choice of the
more than six million partners of opposite sexes who, according
to the U.S. Census Bureau, live together today in America. The