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Well maintaining that believe relieves those from toughing it out to fix their marriages, supports the divorce lawyer market and their marketing, and politician

Well maintaining that believe relieves those from toughing it out to fix their marriages, supports the divorce lawyer market and their marketing, and politicians who like to capitalize on strife. Seriously, I know the holidays are tough but my drive to and from work the local stations are all covered with divorce lawyer ads.

coldtea 12y ago
>Well maintaining that believe relieves those from toughing it out to fix their marriages, supports the divorce lawyer market and their marketing, and politicians who like to capitalize on strife. That's pop psychology. Plus assumes the belief is some myth... The divorce rate IS close to that number. Whether it's 50% or 45% doesn't matter much, as another poster said, it's not like its 5% or 15%. From Wikipedia: In 2002 (latest survey data as of 2012), 29% of first marriages among women aged 15–44 were disrupted (ended in separation, divorce or annulment) within 10 years. Using 1995 data, National Survey of Family Growth forecast in 2002 a 43% chance that first marriages among women aged 15–44 would be disrupted within 15 years. More recently, having spoken with academics and National Survey of Family Growth representatives, PolitiFact.com estimated in 2012 that the lifelong probability of a marriage ending in divorce is 40%–50%.
- hawleyal 12y ago
  So you are disagreeing with the entire premise of the article. You are calling bullshit. That's interesting, given that the author specifically debunks the stats you are quoting.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >That's interesting, given that the author specifically debunks the stats you are quoting. He doesn't debunk much, if anything at all. He has a predetermined conclusion and he hacks his way to reach it. Instead of quoting statistics and measurements, he quotes a NYT article (that doesn't back him up as much as he think) and does the equivalent of rigorous hand waiving with nebulous arguments.
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  Actually, I think you can easily get that number down to 5 or 15%. Well below 25%, anyways. The stat that people really care about is, if I get married to my partner, what's the divorce rate of people similar to me. If you're reading HN and are thinking about marriage, it's quite likely that most or even all of the following apply to you. All of which have shown indications that they lower the divorce rate. The first three alone drop the divorce rate below 25%. - getting married later then 1980 - first marriage for both - both older than 30 - both have college degrees - both make wages > $60k, < $1M - similar ages - man makes more $ than woman - getting married later than 1990 - neither goes through an extended period of involuntary unemployment - neither goes to jail
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >The stat that people really care about is, if I get married to my partner, what's the divorce rate of people similar to me. Who are those people? I (and those the article mentions talking about the US in general) care about the general numbers. Not how to use the numbers to gauze my own wedding's future.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    "Later than 1980" distorts because lots of marriages newer than that haven't ended through either divorce or death yet. If you were looking at, say, a 20 year success rate and the window in question was 1981-1994, it might be comparable to earlier periods where you were looking again at the 20 year success rate.
  - anon4 12y ago
    I'd say that if you care about your personal chance of divorce, there's way better ways to gauge it, including talking with a marriage counsellor and/or psychologist before marrying (which could bring it very close to 0, especially if you choose to not marry). If, on the other hand, you want to know what percentage of marriages result in divorces, then you probably want to implement some very suspect social policies and probably should be stopped. Not certainly, but probably.

coldtea 12y ago

>Well maintaining that believe relieves those from toughing it out to fix their marriages, supports the divorce lawyer market and their marketing, and politicians who like to capitalize on strife. That's pop psychology. Plus assumes the belief is some myth... The divorce rate IS close to that number. Whether it's 50% or 45% doesn't matter much, as another poster said, it's not like its 5% or 15%. From Wikipedia: In 2002 (latest survey data as of 2012), 29% of first marriages among women aged 15–44 were disrupted (ended in separation, divorce or annulment) within 10 years. Using 1995 data, National Survey of Family Growth forecast in 2002 a 43% chance that first marriages among women aged 15–44 would be disrupted within 15 years. More recently, having spoken with academics and National Survey of Family Growth representatives, PolitiFact.com estimated in 2012 that the lifelong probability of a marriage ending in divorce is 40%–50%.

hawleyal 12y ago
So you are disagreeing with the entire premise of the article. You are calling bullshit. That's interesting, given that the author specifically debunks the stats you are quoting.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >That's interesting, given that the author specifically debunks the stats you are quoting. He doesn't debunk much, if anything at all. He has a predetermined conclusion and he hacks his way to reach it. Instead of quoting statistics and measurements, he quotes a NYT article (that doesn't back him up as much as he think) and does the equivalent of rigorous hand waiving with nebulous arguments.
bryanlarsen 12y ago
Actually, I think you can easily get that number down to 5 or 15%. Well below 25%, anyways. The stat that people really care about is, if I get married to my partner, what's the divorce rate of people similar to me. If you're reading HN and are thinking about marriage, it's quite likely that most or even all of the following apply to you. All of which have shown indications that they lower the divorce rate. The first three alone drop the divorce rate below 25%. - getting married later then 1980 - first marriage for both - both older than 30 - both have college degrees - both make wages > $60k, < $1M - similar ages - man makes more $ than woman - getting married later than 1990 - neither goes through an extended period of involuntary unemployment - neither goes to jail
- coldtea 12y ago
  >The stat that people really care about is, if I get married to my partner, what's the divorce rate of people similar to me. Who are those people? I (and those the article mentions talking about the US in general) care about the general numbers. Not how to use the numbers to gauze my own wedding's future.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  "Later than 1980" distorts because lots of marriages newer than that haven't ended through either divorce or death yet. If you were looking at, say, a 20 year success rate and the window in question was 1981-1994, it might be comparable to earlier periods where you were looking again at the 20 year success rate.
- anon4 12y ago
  I'd say that if you care about your personal chance of divorce, there's way better ways to gauge it, including talking with a marriage counsellor and/or psychologist before marrying (which could bring it very close to 0, especially if you choose to not marry). If, on the other hand, you want to know what percentage of marriages result in divorces, then you probably want to implement some very suspect social policies and probably should be stopped. Not certainly, but probably.