Don’t Cave to Temptation
When a married couple’s relationship goes wrong, the desire to get out of it can be tempting. When your husband or wife is the source of your unhappiness, it seems obvious that getting away from them will solve the problem. You can assume that it will improve your quality of life. This conclusion often leads to separation, and separation often leads to divorce. Evidence shows however that divorce seldom leads to the happiness people hope for.
The most unhappy of these marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds. Click To Tweet
Don’t Assume!
Let’s 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.
A team of leading family scholars did an interesting study. (1) They compared a number of couples who were going through difficulties in their marriages. Some decided to divorce, and some didn’t. Five years on they wanted to know if happiness had been achieved. Amazingly they found no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced were typically any happier than unhappily married people who stayed married! The happiness they expected to achieve had eluded them.
Another aspect of the study was pretty astounding. For two-thirds of the unhappily married spouses (who stayed married), their marriages improved! In fact, they reported that their marriages were happy five years later. The most unhappy of these marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds so what conclusions can we draw? The study explains that ‘among those who rated their marriages as miserable, almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce were happily married five years later’.
Don’t Give Up!
It seems the divorce assumption is incorrect. While you may have assumed that unhappily married spouses are condemned to stay married and miserable that’s not the case! It seems like if they remain committed to their relationship in time the result will be that they become happy in their marriage relationship. This was true whatever their level of unhappiness. If, however, they choose to divorce, the study suggests they place themselves on a path that will not result in happiness.
When a marriage turns bad the best advice we can give is to stay committed to the relationship and seek a way to work through the problems. There is no glory in staying married and miserable, but there is in working to better your relationship.
(1) Headed by University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite.
