Do women initiate divorce more than men?

[modhatter]

I don't know the statistics on this, but it seems to me that men are better at marriage then women (and I am a woman). What I mean by this is, when there is trouble in a marriage, a man seems to be more willing to stick it out than a woman is. And if it does end, I think men have a harder time letting go. Which is kinda of funny since men seem to resist marriage more so than woman do, but yet once they are married, they don't want to give it up.

Now I know some of you are going to say it is for financial reasons, and I'm sure that's true for some, but I think there is more to it. I think it has something to do with the male and female nature.

Now this is only my personal observation. I think men will take more than women will. What has been your observations over the years?

 

[ziggy29]

Most studies I've seen suggest that women initiate divorce about 2/3 of the time. I have my own theories as to why this is, or at least some possible contributing factors.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I read about this study recently. This research seemed to find that relationships are better when the wife lets go of the fight

Lian Bloch, an assistant professor at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in Palo Alto, California and the lead author of the study, analyzed more than 80 couples' videotaped interactions following disagreements. She and her fellow researchers discovered that wives' recovery time after conflicts had a larger impact on the relationship than the husbands' both in the long and short term.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/marriage-study-wives_n_4214942.html

I have no idea if this is valid, or if, for example, the evolution of marriage roles over the past 50 years has something to do with divorce statistics etc., but the couples I know who are married seem to fit this model, and the divorces I am familiar with seem to fall into the percentage range Ziggy quotes above. Also no idea what it means or much else.

 

[robnplunder]

Woman catches DH in cheating. Gets a divorce & $$$$. Finds a young man and freedom. I thought that was the normal pattern. My wife spells alimony as a-l-l-t-h-e-m-o-n-e-y and is waiting for me to slip up .

 

[modhatter]

Men might cheat more, but still want to stay married. I think that is because men can separate sex from love easier. But that's not the question. Men seem to me to want to hold on to the marriage more and are willing to do more to hold on to it.

This is not true in every case of course. Is it that perhaps woman are not as realistic about marriage and expect too much out of it (their partner)?''

Even when a man was resistant to marriage in their youth, after they have been married a while, and then get divorced or become widowed, they can not stay unmarried. They seem to need marriage more than a woman does.

I think once a man is married, he then craves that intimacy (and mothering) that marriage brings. I know you guys will say no - sex, and yes I would agree that too, especially if they are up to getting a young honey. But, more important, I think a man likes and needs being married more once they have been married. Kind of like a role reversal.

Marriage is more important to woman prior to marrying, and less important to men. However, after a marriage, re-marrying is more important to a man than a woman. Any opinions?

 

[haha]

Marriage is more important to woman prior to marrying, and less important to men. However, after a marriage, re-marrying is more important to a man than a woman. Any opinions?

I know I did not want my marriage to fail. It was a long way from perfect, but no part of my life has ever been perfect, so why should my marriage be? I was happy in the relationship. No matter what anyone says, divorce is hard on the kids. My kids were older, and elected to stay with me.

However, I have now been separated and then divorced for 14 years. I would not remarry under any circumstances that I can think of. If my girlfriend said, "you have to marry me or I'll leave", I'd say well that would really make me unhappy, but being married might make me more unhappy, so bon voyage and best of luck, and let's have a goodnight kiss for old times sake.

Ha

 

[tmm99]

Women definitely ask for divorce more than men. And I would bet the reason for men asking for divorce (when it does happen) often involves another woman whereas when women ask for a divorce, theres is no other man around. I also bet most men who are hit by the divorce talk feel like they got hit by a freight train because they had absolutely no idea it was coming.

Just my wild guess.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Many wives work these days and still do the majority of the housework and childcare -

Irreconcilable differences: men, women and housework - Los Angeles Times

I suspect if those statistics changed, there would be less divorce initiated by women. Many married women with kids come home from their day jobs to work a second shift.

Having a husband actually creates an extra seven hours of chores for women -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/07/men-create-more-housework_n_95390.html

That is like a wife working every Saturday for the rest of her life while the husband does not.

Even women scientists do more housework -

http://chronicle.com/article/Female-Scientists-Do-More/63641/

 

[RitaR551]

I think women have such a romanticized view of men and marriage, the first married year is a real shock. They think they married the wrong man, but in reality, they believed movies and books. I think men also have unrealistic views of marriage, but not as much as women.
I agree men will remarry in a heartbeat and VERY quickly after divorce/death. Women....not so much. Why would they sign up for another person to take care of again?

 

[Amethyst]

It appears the statistical authority for the sex-based assertion is an AARP magazine survey from a while back (same-sex marriages wouldn't even be considered):

AARP The Magazine Study on Divorce Finds That Women are Doing the Walk... - AARP

Absent hard scientfic data, we are left with speculation: Do women and men base divorce decisions on the same factors? (Why wouldn't they?)

So people (generally) divorce because they're unhappy, and unhappiness is personal. What is it sensitive to? How about financial risks and benefits? It seems to me logical that the person with the most to lose financially would also be most able to endure his or her unhappiness.

Take one particular type of marriage, where one spouse is financially dependent on another. A dependent spouse, who can expect alimony, might find marital unhappiness harder to bear - because easier to escape - than the supporting spouse who invested his or her life in building up the joint assets.

OTOH, where assets are low and the supporting spouse couldn't be expected to continue to support the dependent spouse after divorce, the dependent may find his or her unhappiness easier to endure.

Of course I am thinking of a specific case with which I'm familiar, where the dependent spouse spent 10 of 20 married years in fuming anger at her husband for many good reasons, but didn't walk out (knowing she would get little money, and couldn't qualify for well-paid employment) until he got drunk one night and pointed a loaded gun at her. After leaving, she endured several years of being so poor, she couldn't get her teeth fixed, but at least she wasn't dead.

Amethyst

 

[pb4uski]

I think women have such a romanticized view of men and marriage, the first married year is a real shock. They think they married the wrong man, but in reality, they believed movies and books. I think men also have unrealistic views of marriage, but not as much as women.
I agree men will remarry in a heartbeat and VERY quickly after divorce/death. Women....not so much. Why would they sign up for another person to take care of again?

Spot on. I think many women have a Utopian view of marriage and if it is not utopia then the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

I have a divorced male friend who seems desperate to get back into a relationship. I suspect he subconsciously thinks if he has a successful relationship that it will validate that the failure of his first marriage was not his fault but was his ex-wife's fault. (As a third-party observer they had pretty equal roles.)

In any event, a couple of other male friends and I feel that while we love our wives, if something was to happen to them the last thing in the world we would do is rush into another long-term relationship. If it happened, then great but we wouldn't scour the earth for it like this other friend seems to be doing.

I think the reason that men initiate divorce less is because they tend to get screwed more in divorce (financially that is).

 

[MooreBonds]

I read about this study recently. This research seemed to find that relationships are better when the wife lets go of the fight



Study Says Wives Matter More When Resolving Marital Spats

I have no idea if this is valid, or if, for example, the evolution of marriage roles over the past 50 years has something to do with divorce statistics etc., but the couples I know who are married seem to fit this model, and the divorces I am familiar with seem to fall into the percentage range Ziggy quotes above. Also no idea what it means or much else.

I realize your article is just one example, and it's not trying to extrapolate to everyone...but with a sample size of just 80, I can't help but think that with a situation like analyzing marriages and failures, that can't be enough to account for the myriad of variables that lead to one person wanting to leave: financial differences, infidelity, in-laws, massive differences in personality traits (where one spouse finally can't take it anymore and grows a backbone and leaves), one spouse devoted to other pursuits and not the marriage, etc.

Also, because (just guessing, not based on any research) I get the impression that men are more often unfaithful than women in a marriage, the faithful spouse (wife) is more likely to say "oh, so that's how it is? Fine, see ya!" and simply cut ties and "more easily" leave....while the cheating husband - who could have been unfaithful for various reasons - is more 'willing' to stay, because he didn't necessarily want the marriage to end, but just wanted an experience on the side. If the husband wanted nothing to do with the wife and simply leave for another woman, he would have done so to begin with (and sometimes they do).

 

[Bestwifeever]

I realize your article is just one example, and it's not trying to extrapolate to everyone...but with a sample size of just 80, I can't help but think that with a situation like analyzing marriages and failures, that can't be enough to account for the myriad of variables that lead to one person wanting to leave: financial differences, infidelity, in-laws, massive differences in personality traits (where one spouse finally can't take it anymore and grows a backbone and leaves), one spouse devoted to other pursuits and not the marriage, etc.

Also, because (just guessing, not based on any research) I get the impression that men are more often unfaithful than women in a marriage, the faithful spouse (wife) is more likely to say "oh, so that's how it is? Fine, see ya!" and simply cut ties and "more easily" leave....while the cheating husband - who could have been unfaithful for various reasons - is more 'willing' to stay, because he didn't necessarily want the marriage to end, but just wanted an experience on the side. If the husband wanted nothing to do with the wife and simply leave for another woman, he would have done so to begin with (and sometimes they do).

I completely agree that the validity of this and really much other research is easily questionable. I thought it was interesting (and to me a little more valid, for some reason) that the sample group was from a long term study on marriage--from the article: "Study participants were selected from a larger pool of couples whose marriages have been studied at the university since 1989 by psychologist Robert Levenson -- a senior author of the study."

And who knew there was a publication called "Emotion" in which the article was first printed

I have two very close women friends whose husbands had affairs. Both marriages continue after counseling (and there were no kids to save the marriage for). I know some women who had affairs and left their marriages for the other person. But most of the marriages I know of personally that fell apart had other factors, such as gambling or substance abuse, as the cause, as far as I know (of course the real story might be different for all of these, who knows).

 

[modhatter]

So it appears most of you think that a marriage breaks up more often by woman because of infidelity in which many women won't tolerate. What about when a woman is unfaithful. Will men leave as readily? In order to justify that 2/3rds of the woman initiating divorce over men, you would have to say that 2/3rds of the woman feel they have gotten the sh...y end of the stick in some way.

I contend that men (other than fidelity) get the sh...y end of the stick just as often, and are less likely to throw in the towel.

 

[ziggy29]

I've seen "emotional abandonment" as one of the most common reasons cited for women seeking divorce. That, of course, covers a wide array of men's actions and inactions, ranging from cheating to being detached to substance abuse-induced behavior changes to just not listening to......

That said, in the average case, men have a lot more to lose from divorce than women do.

It also seems that women who divorce or become widowed are a lot more capable of emotionally coping with it than men are and generally more able to "go it alone". Men often remarry quickly when they can and, when they can't, especially if they are older and widowed, seem more likely to "give up" on life and die quickly.

 

[martyb]

With regards to men getting divorced & then re-marrying quickly....my first wife said to me that I was the type of man who couldn't be alone, that I would be re-married within a year. Two years after our divorce, she re-married. more than 10 years after our divorce, I finally re-married. So much for that theory, at least in my case. Also...I had full custody of my 2 daughters during that 10 yr period. The ex suggested splitting them, she take one & I take one. Of course, I refused. Either she or I would have them both. If she had them, I would pay child support. They were 17 months and 4 yrs at the time. I ended up with both, and no child support or any other kind of financial support. I didn't care, and would have given everything to have them. So....with the exception of being divorced, I got what I wanted. Current marriage is 17 yrs & counting. Current wife & ex wife get along better than might be expected.

 

[Thormole]

I've always thought Einstein had a good point with this quote:

“Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed.”

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Current wife & ex wife get along better than might be expected.

We know two couples where the wife and ex-wife are best friends, and so are the husband and ex-husband. The wives even go on vacations together without the husbands.

 

[ziggy29]

We know two couples where the wife and ex-wife are best friends, and so are the husband and ex-husband. The wives even go on vacations together without the husbands.

It can happen if you don't let jealousy get in the way, particularly when the divorces were amicable and by mutual agreement. I think back to my one significant relationship before my wife, an on-again-off-again thing. The first time, she dumped me and I was bitter and a little jealous. The second time, I dumped her and she was a little jealous. The third time, we agreed that we cared for each other a lot but simply could not make a go of it together. THAT is when it becomes easy to become friends, especially before divorce, lawyers, alimony or child support are involved.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

It can happen if you don't let jealousy get in the way, particularly when the divorces were amicable and by mutual agreement. I think back to my one significant relationship before my wife, an on-again-off-again thing. The first time, she dumped me and I was bitter and a little jealous. The second time, I dumped her and she was a little jealous. The third time, we agreed that we cared for each other a lot but simply could not make a go of it together. THAT is when it becomes easy to become friends, especially before divorce, lawyers, alimony or child support are involved.

These folks are older, they all love the kids and grandkids and they seem old enough to let bygones be bygones. The wives have similar hobbies and the husbands have similar hobbies.

I think it is a pretty cool.

 

[Al in Ohio]

Many wives work these days and still do the majority of the housework and childcare -

Irreconcilable differences: men, women and housework - Los Angeles Times

I suspect if those statistics changed, there would be less divorce initiated by women. Many married women with kids come home from their day jobs to work a second shift.

Having a husband actually creates an extra seven hours of chores for women -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/07/men-create-more-housework_n_95390.html

That is like a wife working every Saturday for the rest of her life while the husband does not.

Even women scientists do more housework -

http://chronicle.com/article/Female-Scientists-Do-More/63641/

That's just an "ole wives tale"

Not as common in today's equal role dual career marriages unless the husband is a redneck.

 

[Hermit]

...
Even when a man was resistant to marriage in their youth, after they have been married a while, and then get divorced or become widowed, they can not stay unmarried. They seem to need marriage more than a woman does.

I think once a man is married, he then craves that intimacy (and mothering) that marriage brings. I know you guys will say no - sex, and yes I would agree that too, especially if they are up to getting a young honey. But, more important, I think a man likes and needs being married more once they have been married. Kind of like a role reversal.

Marriage is more important to woman prior to marrying, and less important to men. However, after a marriage, re-marrying is more important to a man than a woman. Any opinions?

DW died 4.5 years ago. I haven't been on as much as a date. I would be scared to death of the emotions that come with a new relationship.

I know! I'll get a place in the middle of the mountains and become a Hermit!

 

[Meadbh]

I know of one European family in which both spouses had affairs. The cheated spouses met and discovered that they too were attracted to each other. The end result was two new marriages involving the same four people in different configurations. AFAIK they are all living happily ever after.

 

[haha]

I know of one European family in which both spouses had affairs. The cheated spouses met and discovered that they too were attracted to each other. The end result was two new marriages involving the same four people in different configurations. AFAIK they are all living happily ever after.

Still having affairs with one another no doubt.

 

[robnplunder]

That's just an "ole wives tale"

Not as common in today's equal role dual career marriages unless the husband is a redneck.

Agreed.