Laws making divorce easier, which came into vogue in the late 1960s, have made the experience less harrowing for many couples. The social stigma once attached to divorce has almost disappeared. However, the statistic that almost 1/2 of all marriages end in divorce seems to be an urban myth. Researcher George Barna"s most 2001 survey of Americans estimates that only 34 percent of those who have ever been married have ever been divorced. A 2005 report released by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), based on a 1995 nationwide study of approximately 11,000 women ages 15-44, predicted that one-third of new marriages among younger people will end in divorce within 10 years and 43 percent within 15 years. So, not quite one-half, but still a considerable number of marriages will end eventually.
This is partly due to demographics; people live longer than they did 100 years ago, so there is much more time for relationships to go sour. In addition, better employment opportunities for women allow them to leave abusive or tepid marriages, whereas previous generations of women would have no choice, due to financial considerations, except to stay in such unions.
In cases of divorce, many couples make predictable mistakes. People start off by thinking they"re not going to lose their cool, or their money and property, and wind up doing just that. However, it is possible to avoid a lot of unnecessary grief by learning from the experiences of couples who have gone through the process.
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