7 Signs Your Marriage Will End In Divorce, According to Science

When couples tie the knot, it’s usually not with the idea of going separate ways after several years. Lovers mostly intend to stay in love and grow together as they get older. And yet, divorce is a reality that affects too many families across the world these days.

As the statistics show us, many see divorce as a necessary solution for serious marital struggles such as, say, an unfaithful spouse, or irreconcilable differences, among others.

According to the American Psychological Association, about 40 to 50% of married couples in the United States alone end up in divorce and divorce rate for subsequent marriages, the website specified, “is even higher.”

Although there isn’t a 100% sure way to tell that a marriage is headed towards that direction, social scientists have pinpointed signs that could at least predict separation.

Here are 7 common factors, according to experts:

#1. Getting married too early or too late.

A research conducted by Professor Nicholas Wolfinger of the University of Utah said that couples who marry in their teens or in their mid-30s (or later) have higher risks of getting divorced. Besides, Wolfinger pointed out, the odds of divorce increase by about 5% each year after the age of 32.

“For almost everyone, the late twenties seems to be the best time to tie the knot,” wrote Wolfinger in an Institute for Family Studies blog.

#2. The husband doesn’t have a full-time job.

According to a Harvard research, money isn’t always a huge factor but the unfair division of labor can be. As published in the American Sociological Review, the 2016 study mentioned that heterosexual marriages that began after 1975 had a 3.3% divorce rate the following year if the husband didn’t have a full-time job.

Alexandra Killewald, the researcher, came to the conclusion that many couples still look at husbands as the family’s breadwinner and it can affect the strength of a marriage.

#3. Failure to finish high school.

Yes, even lack of education can be a factor for a marriage to end. The Bureau of Labor Statistics website has shared information from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and that’s exactly what we see in the patterns.

The post said:

“The chance of a marriage ending in divorce was lower for people with more education, with over half of marriages of those who did not complete high school having ended in divorce compared with approximately 30 percent of marriages of college graduates.”

This is probably because of the fact that education directly affects a couple’s income, psychologist Eli Finkel believes.

Finkel explained:

“What I think is going on is it’s really difficult to have a productive, happy marriage when your life circumstances are so stressful and when your day-to-day life involves, say three or four bus routes in order to get to your job.”

#4. Treating your partner badly.

While that is a general scenario, John Gottman, psychologist at the University of Washington and founder of the Gottman Institute, teaches that certain relationship behaviors can be considered the “four horsemen of the apocalypse” namely contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling.

#5. Being too affectionate as newly weds.

Sure, it’s good to be sweet during the early years of marriage but if you’re not consistent, that could result to the relationship eventually going stale.

Ted Huston, a psychologist, studied 168 couples for 13 years and found out:

“As newlyweds, the couples who divorced after 7 or more years were almost giddily affectionate, displaying about one third more affection than did spouses who were later happily married.”

Meanwhile, Aviva Patz wrote in Psychology Today:

“Couples whose marriages begin in romantic bliss are particularly divorce-prone because such intensity is too hard to maintain. Believe it or not, marriages that start out with less ‘Hollywood romance’ usually have more promising futures.”

#6. Withdrawing during conflict.

When you or your partner has the tendency to step away from difficult discussions, then that’s not a good sign, according to the experts.

In fact, a 2013 research published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, found that husbands’ “withdrawal” behaviors led to bigger risks of divorce. This was according to 350 newlywed Michigan couples interviewed by the researchers.

#7. Speaking negatively about your relationship.

In 1992, Gottman and a team of researchers from the University of Washington came up with an “oral history interview” procedure and they asked couples to talk about various aspects of their relationships. Surprisingly, the researchers were able to predict which ones were headed towards divorce after reviewing the conversations.

According to Gottman, it all boils down to a couple’s lack of fondness for each other, lack of unity, and speaking negatively not only about the marriage but also about each other.