A wacky new study called “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” followed 2,500 couples who are married or have lived together for at least six years and discovered there are, gasp, lots of factors that lead to the success (or failure) of a relationship besides just falling in or out of love.
For example — this is going to shock you — women who want babies much more than their husbands are more likely to divorce than women who marry men who want kids just as much as they do! People whose parents divorced are more than 50 percent more likely to divorce or separate than those whose parents stayed married. And people who are on their second or third marriage are 90 percent more likely to divorce than spouses who are both on their first marriages.
One in five couples who have children before marriage, either from a previous relationship or their current one, will separate, compared to just one in ten couples who do not have children before getting married. Just one in ten? That figure seems to contradict the finding that a quarter of all relationships will end within six years and half within 25, but maybe I’m splitting hairs here. Age is another factor that determines the success of marriage — men who marry before 25 are twice as likely to get divorced as those who marry after turning 25, as are men who are more than nine years older than their wives. Stuff that doesn’t matter so much?
A woman’s employment status, country of birth, religious background and education levels.
Original by Wendy Atterberry