Does Divorce
Make People Happy?
Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages
an Institute for American Values Press Release
[dated 7/12/02, and posted here on 7-16-02]
One visitor comments
that divorce may not always be a bad thing.
Call it the "divorce assumption." Most people assume that a
person stuck in a bad marriage has two choices: stay married and
miserable or get a divorce and become happier.(1) But now come the
findings from the first scholarly study ever to test that assumption,
and these findings challenge conventional wisdom. Conducted by a team of
leading family scholars headed by University of Chicago sociologist
Linda Waite, the study found no evidence that unhappily married adults
who divorced were typically any happier than unhappily married people
who stayed married.
To get a full copy of the report, go to www.americanvalues.org
Even more dramatically,
the researchers also found that two-thirds of unhappily married spouses
who stayed married reported that their marriages were happy five years
later. In addition, the most unhappy marriages reported the most
dramatic turnarounds: among those who rated their marriages as very
unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce were happily married
five years later.(2) The research team used data collected by the
National Survey of Family and Households, a nationally representative
survey that extensively measures personal and marital happiness. Out of
5,232 married adults interviewed in the late Eighties, 645 reported
being unhappily married. Five years later, these same adults were
interviewed again. Some had divorced or separated and some had stayed
married.
The study found that on
average unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier than
unhappily married adults who stayed married when rated on any of 12
separate measures of psychological well-being. Divorce did not typically
reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-esteem, or increase a sense of
mastery. This was true even after controlling for race, age, gender, and
income. Even unhappy spouses who had divorced and remarried were no
happier on average than those who stayed married. "Staying married
is not just for the children's sake. Some divorce is necessary, but
results like these suggest the benefits of divorce have been
oversold," says Linda J. Waite.
Why doesn't divorce
typically make adults happier? The authors of the study suggest that
while eliminating some stresses and sources of potential harm, divorce
may create others as well. The decision to divorce sets in motion a
large number of processes and events over which an individual has little
control that are likely to deeply affect his or her emotional
well-being. These include the response of one's spouse to divorce; the
reactions of children; potential disappointments and aggravation in
custody, child support, and visitation orders; new financial or health
stresses for one or both parents; and new relationships or marriages.
The team of family experts
that conducted the study included Linda J. Waite, Lucy Flower Professor
of Sociology at the University of Chicago and coauthor of The Case
for Marriage; Don Browning, Professor Emeritus of the University of
Chicago Divinity School; William J. Doherty, Professor of Family Social
Science and Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy program at the
University of Minnesota; Maggie Gallagher, affiliate scholar at the
Institute for American Values and coauthor of The Case for Marriage;
Ye Luo, a research associate at the Sloan Center on Parents, Children
and Work at the University of Chicago; and Scott Stanley, Co-Director of
the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver.
Marital
Turnarounds: How Do Unhappy Marriages Get Happier?
To follow up on the
dramatic findings that two-thirds of unhappy marriages had become happy
five years later, the researchers also conducted focus group interviews
with 55 formerly unhappy husbands and wives who had turned their
marriages around. They found that many currently happily married spouses
have had extended periods of marital unhappiness, often for quite
serious reasons, including alcoholism, infidelity, verbal abuse,
emotional neglect, depression, illness, and work reversals.
Why did these marriages
survive where other marriages did not? Spouses' stories of how their
marriages got happier fell into three broad headings: the marital
endurance ethic, the marital work ethic, and the personal happiness
ethic.
- In the marital endurance ethic, the most common story couples reported to researchers, marriages
got happier not because partners resolved problems, but because they
stubbornly outlasted them. With the passage of time, these spouses said,
many sources of conflict and distress eased: financial problems, job
reversals, depression, child problems, even infidelity.
- In the marital work ethic, spouses told stories of actively working to solve problems,
change behavior, or improve communication. When the problem was solved,
the marriage got happier. Strategies for improving marriages mentioned
by spouses ranged from arranging dates or other ways to more time
together, enlisting the help and advice of relatives or in-laws, to
consulting clergy or secular counselors, to threatening divorce and
consulting divorce attorneys.
- Finally, in the personal
happiness epic, marriage problems did not seem to change that much.
Instead married people in these accounts told stories of finding
alternative ways to improve their own happiness and build a good and
happy life despite a mediocre marriage.
The Powerful
Effects of Commitment
Spouses interviewed in the
focus groups whose marriages had turned around generally had a low
opinion of the benefits of divorce, as well as friends and family
members who supported the importance of staying married. Because of
their intense commitment to their marriages, these couples invested
great effort in enduring or overcoming problems in their relationships,
they minimized the importance of difficulties they couldn't resolve, and
they actively worked to belittle the attractiveness of alternatives.
The study's findings are
consistent with other research demonstrating the powerful effects of
marital commitment on marital happiness. A strong commitment to marriage
as an institution, and a powerful reluctance to divorce, do not merely
keep unhappily married people locked in misery together. They also help
couples form happier bonds. To avoid divorce, many assume, marriages
must become happier. But it is at least equally true that in order to
get happier, unhappy couples or spouses must first avoid divorce.
"In most cases, a strong commitment to staying married not only
helps couples avoid divorce, it helps more couples achieve a happier
marriage," notes research team member Scott Stanley.
Would most unhappy spouses
who divorced have ended up happily married if they had stuck with their
marriages?
The researchers who conducted the study cannot say for sure whether unhappy spouses who
divorced would have become happy had they stayed with their marriages.
In most respects, unhappy spouses who divorced and unhappy spouses who
stayed married looked more similar than different (before the divorce)
in terms of their psychological adjustment and family background. While
unhappy spouses who divorced were on average younger, had lower
household incomes, were more likely to be employed or to have children
in the home, these differences were typically not large.
Were the marriages that
ended in divorce much worse than those that did not? There is some
evidence for this point of view. Unhappy spouses who divorced reported
more conflict and were about twice as likely to report violence in their
marriage than unhappy spouses who stayed married. However, marital
violence occurred in only a minority of unhappy marriages: 21 percent of
unhappy spouses who divorced reported husband-to-wife violence, compared
to nine percent of unhappy spouses who stayed married.
On the other hand, if only
the worst marriages ended up in divorce, one would expect divorce to be
associated with important psychological benefits. Instead, researchers
found that unhappily married adults who divorced were no more likely to
report emotional and psychological improvements than those who stayed
married. In addition, the most unhappy marriages reported the most
dramatic turnarounds: among those who rated their marriages as very
unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce were happily married
five years later.
More research is needed to
establish under what circumstances divorce improves or lessens adult
well-being, as well as what kinds of unhappy marriages are most or least
likely to improve if divorce is avoided.
Other Findings
Other findings of the
study based on the National Survey Data are:
- The vast majority of
divorces (74 percent) took place to adults who had been happily married
when first studied five years earlier. In this group, divorce was
associated with dramatic declines in happiness and psychological
well-being compared to those who stayed married.
- Unhappy marriages are
less common than unhappy spouses; three out of four unhappily married
adults are married to someone who is happy with the marriage.
- Staying married did not
typically trap unhappy spouses in violent relationships. Eighty-six
percent of unhappily married adults reported no violence in their
relationship (including 77 percent of unhappy spouses who later divorced
or separated). Ninety-three percent of unhappy spouses who avoided
divorce reported no violence in their marriage five years later.
Endnotes
1. Examples of the
"divorce assumption": In a review of Cutting Loose: Why
Women Who End Their Marriages Do So Well by Ashton Applewhite in
Kirkus Reviews, the reviewer writes that "if Applewhite's figures
are correct, three-fourths of today's divorces are initiated by women,
and if her analysis of the situation is correct, they are better off, at
least psychologically, for having taken the big step." The book's
publisher describes the book this way: "Cutting Loose
introduces 50 women . . . who have thrived after initiating their own
divorces. . . . [T]heir lives improved immeasurably, and their
self-esteem soared." In an op-ed in the New York Times,
Katha Pollit asks, "The real question . . . [is] which is better, a
miserable two-parent home, with lots of fighting and shouting and frozen
silences and tears, or a one-parent home (or a pair of one-parent homes)
without those things" (June 27, 1997). In a review of The Good
Divorce by Constance R. Ahrons in Booklist, we are told that Ms.
Ahrons "offers advice and explanations to troubled couples for whom
'staying together for the sake of the children' is not a healthy or
viable option."
2. Spouses were asked to
rate their overall marital happiness on a 7-point scale, with 1 being
the least happy and 7 the most happy. Those who rated their marriage as
a 1 or 2 were considered to be very unhappy in their marriages. Almost 8
out of 10 adults who rated their marriage as a 1 or 2 gave that same
marriage a 5 or more when asked to rate their marriage five years later.
------------------------------
The Religion, Culture, and
Family Project is based at the University of Chicago Divinity School and
conducts research into the religious dimensions of historical and
contemporary family issues.
More information about the
project can be found at our website, http://divinity.uchicago.edu/family
Previous issues of this
newsletter can be found at http://divinity.uchicago.edu/family/backissues.html
| So what do you
think? We'd like to hear your views of this study, and the
issue in general. Please
send a note and we'll post all responses here. |
A visitor comments:
One voice for divorce
[7-24-02]
We recently reported on a study (above)
which suggests that people who get
divorced are no happier than those who remain in unhappy marriages.
Here's one comment saying that's not always the case:
Perhaps this survey on divorce did not include statistics from older
people who divorce after a long marriage. Children are no longer an
issue but peace and harmony become a priority when one is over 50. The
decision to divorce in my 50's was the best decision I ever made
although it was not made in haste. In the last ten years I have been
happier, more focused, and have grown spiritually in my faith. If I had
stayed married, I would be doing maintenance work on a relationship
that needed to end. Some marriages are broken and are not made in
heaven.
Karen L. Kiser
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