What Year of Marriage is Divorce Most Common?

When you and your spouse first got married you likely thought the good times would never end. The bliss of being a newlywed couple with the attention and adoration of your family surely made the transition into marriage easier. All your family and friends gathered for a wedding. The two of you tied the knot before a group of people who love and support you. In short, a relationship with one another was easy and fun to maintain. Everything was bright, fresh, and new. Surely, this was how it was always going to be. What year of marriage is divorce most common?

Compare that to the months and years following the initial euphoria of the marriage. As is human nature, you and your spouse entered a phase of a consistent, stable relationship with one another. It’s not that times were terrible. We never experienced major fights and there were never thoughts of ending the marriage. However, it became impossible to seek out and find that feeling you had when you first got married. After a while, it became a major frustration to find yourself unsuccessfully yearning for a feeling you can never quite recreate.

Now you are on the blog for the Law Office of Bryan Fagan. You wonder about divorce. What year of marriage is divorcing most common? Maybe finding the answer to this question will give you greater perspective and insight into your circumstances. That is what we are going to be discussing today on the blog for the Law Office of Bryan Fagan. Any questions you have about this subject can be addressed to the attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan.

Marriage difficulties and the “Seven Year Itch”

When it comes to what year of marriage is divorce most common, we can look to cultural beliefs first. One of the most common phrases or sayings surrounding divorce relates to the “Seven Year Itch.”  The seven-year itch is exactly what you would think it is. Basically, at around the seven-year mark of a marriage you and/or your spouse start to look at the marriage with some frustration. There are an endless number of frustrating circumstances that can arise. At seven years you and your spouse are looking at a marriage that has solidified itself. It’s likely your marriage isn’t going to change much at this point. 

In other words, you can begin to feel like you are “stuck” That stuck feeling can result in you and/or your spouse to start looking elsewhere. An escape hatch, if you will. You have been there for that escape hatch maybe the main menu by which you could escape the marriage and find happiness elsewhere. This can be complicated for you given that none of us can be sure whether we are seeking something better or just seeking something different. These are the sort of complicated emotions that you and your spouse must work through together. 

In short, we know at the Law Office of Bryan Fagan that marital difficulty can be found at the seven-year mark. The question you need to ask yourself if you are around this time is whether you are likely to be finding a place to scratch at the seven-year mark. Before we go any further in today’s blog post let’s develop the question of the seven-year itch slightly more. Specifically, what are the main reasons why people start to find issues in the marriage at the seven-year mark? 

The impact of career and children on the seven-year itch

As you look at your life two, common subjects can impact the relationship. The first is career. How we married people function in the relationship with careers is different than our grandparents. In those days, dual-income households were the exception rather than the rule. Now, that situation is reversed. Most of us who are married have dual incomes contributing to the finances of our family. This is a good thing as far as bringing in more money. However, it certainly presents challenges to the dynamics of the marriage relationship. 

Having a spouse at home to perform domestic duties has its merits. Undoubtedly, working at home means that a spouse can better address issues involving the children and home. Think of all those small issues in the home that become bigger because you and your spouse do not have time to deal with them. Those problems, if quickly addressed, can be minimally impactful on the family. Once they are left to fester, they can become tedious and destructive to the marriage.

The other main issue that tends to impact marriages at the seven-year mark is children. Many married couples have children early in the marriage. Raising children, as any parent would tell you, is difficult. Of course, the process is rewarding and important. That does not mean that it isn’t hard on a relationship. Marital problems can come about because of having children. Some people have children thinking that having children is going to help save a marriage and avoid the common problems of divorce. The impact of the birth of a child can lead to a seven-year itch for many others.

Marriage difficulties at the One- or Two-Year mark of the marriage

One of the periods when divorce is most common is between Year One and Year Two. This is a time when many people begin to suffer the stress of living with another person. Admittedly, many if not most people who have married in recent years have lived together to one degree or another previously. However, living with another person off and on for several years does not equate to sharing the same residence as that person on an everyday basis. This can lead to stress and anxiety which come about from sharing a space with another person.

At first, marriage is something different. You are used to living by yourself or even with a roommate. However, marriage involves something much different. Experiencing life with another person in your household means the companionship and camaraderie of a relationship are always available to you. For many of us who do better in a community marriage offers you that and so much more. There are relational, familial, and physical benefits to marriage. For better or worse, those changes in your lifestyle are acutely developed in the first few years of marriage.

Again, once that honeymoon phase of the marriage comes to an end the first few years of the relationship can be difficult. Something as simple as sharing a space with another person every day can be frustrating. Many of us when we are first married find ourselves living in a small home or apartment. What used to be your food and your schedule has transformed into a shared living situation. Making compromises with each other is critical to surviving the difficulties in a new marriage. An unwillingness to make these compromises can lead to dissatisfaction and possibly divorce.

Grey divorce in middle age

Another common time when divorce occurs is during middle age. These are so-called grey divorces. For many couples, life can change significantly as you approach middle age. Just as life changed when you got married and had children now your life is taking on another change. You used to have children living in the home. Now, the two of you are dealing with transitions. A once bustling home is becoming quieter. Bedrooms that were full of commotion lay still.

On some levels, this may be a good thing for your marriage. After a busy life of raising children, you and your spouse can have some time to yourselves that allows you to reconnect. However, that reconnection presumes a connection of some sort between the two of you to begin with. When there is not a connection to fall back on it can be in an extremely tedious transition. That connection with your spouse is the key to being able to enjoy life together and move on to the next phase of your life. Identifying a lack of a bond between you and your spouse is not uncommon.

One of the reasons that divorce tends to be common in middle age is because you have had ample opportunity to overlook the issues in your marriage. Those issues could have been papered over by the city. Parents will protect their own relational problems and instead focus on issues involving the family. However, now that the children are out of the house it becomes more difficult to ignore those important subjects. Thus, divorce becomes more common because of having fewer distractions at home.

Avoiding breakdowns in the marriage that commonly lead to divorce

Working with an attorney with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan provides you with several benefits. We are not here to sign up clients and immediately divorce them. Rather, our office takes an interest in you and your family as unique individuals. Part of this is identifying if there is the possibility of saving the marriage. Most people would agree that, if possible, it is better to try and save a marriage rather than push through a divorce. With that said, there are skills you can try to develop that can help save your marriage.

Improving your communication skills

A divorce may not be necessary if you and your spouse can improve your skills at communication. Communicating with one another may never have been a strong suit. Over time, you all may have been able to avoid discussions or disagreements through life’s circumstances. Busying yourself with matters related to your home and children can make it easier for you to avoid ever having to discuss marital problems together.

However, this is not a long-term solution to your problems. Strong communication skills are incredibly important in helping families like yours avoid divorce. By improving your communication skills, you can position yourselves to overcome adversity and problem solved together. What makes communication so difficult for many people is that it is not a skill that many people have naturally. Rather, being able to work on improved communication is important. Many people will throw up their hands in frustration at not being able to communicate with their spouse. However, far fewer will go through the effort to try and save their marriage through improved communication.

If you and your spouse are going to try and solve the communication problems on your own, then it takes a concerted effort. Turn off the television and put the children to bed. Then, work with one another to determine how you best communicate. Ideally, taking steps like talking honestly and sharing your feelings is a good start. Also, working with a counselor or therapist to fix the problems in your marriage can be a great way to improve your communication skills.

Identifying issues and seeking to remedy them early to avoid common divorce problems

Whatever the issues are in your marriage it is best to try to identify those early and to deal with them head on. Compare the strength of your marriage to the strength of your physical home. If there is a leaky roof on one section of the house it is best to identify that problem as soon as possible. This way a small fix may be able to remedy the issue. The longer you let the issue go on the more likely it is to worsen. What started as a small problem can grow in magnitude very quickly. A small fix can turn into a very big one without much effort.

The same is true in your marriage. Once you begin to determine that there are problems in the marriage you should address them. This can be difficult. Just about every person will tell you that it is easier to ignore a problem and focus on something more positive. This is true in any number of areas in our lives. The uncomfortable issue in our family life can be papered over for now. Why not focus on something easier to deal with?

However easier it would be to focus on something simple, marriage problems are rarely simple to fix. However, the earlier you deal with the issue the easier it becomes to solve the problem. A small communication problem at the beginning of a marriage can be fixed with counseling or therapy. On the other hand, a major breakdown in communication later in the marriage can lead to significant issues for your family to deal with. Again, a therapist or counselor can help you identify and fix issues with communication sooner rather than later to avoid common problems and divorce.

Spending quality time with your spouse

Finally, one way to make divorce less common is to spend quality time with your spouse. For many people, slowing down to spend time with their loved ones can be difficult. That does not mean that we don’t want to spend any time with the people in our family. However, it could mean that we have other priorities at this time which seem to be more important. While these priorities are important, they may still be misplaced. If you are suffering from a common problem in your marriage, then your ability to prioritize the relationship is critical to avoid divorce.

Fortunately, prioritizing your marriage can be something simple. Spending quality time with your spouse does not have to take a lot of time or cost a lot of money. For some of us, it just means slowing down to work through these time commitments. Instead of waking up early to get extra work in you can instead spend that time in conversation with your spouse. Try to wake up early a couple of days each week. This allows you to read together, pray, or simply talk about your plan for the week.

This quality time will force you to come face to face with issues in the marriage. Certainly, you and your spouse have ample opportunity to determine what the most pressing needs in your marriage are. Without a doubt, the problems in your marriage can be significant. However, that does not mean you have no opportunity to solve them. Simple steps towards improved communication and quality time can make the idea of a divorce uncommon no matter what year of marriage you are in.

Final thoughts on what year of marriage is divorce most common

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