While divorces have, according to national statistics, been on the decline for the last decade or so, there are still a large percentage of marriages that end in divorce. Marriage counselors, divorce attorneys and sociologists have studied divorcing couples for years and are generally able to point to a certain set of “risk factors” that indicate a greater likelihood of a marriage ending in divorce.
Here’s a quick sampling of some of those risk factors.
- Young age: Couples who marry particularly young are more likely to get divorced than couples that get married closer to the average age (late 20s). There is a very large percentage of people who get divorced when married at age 18 or 19, for example.
- Kids before marriage: People who have children before married are more likely to get divorced than those who have children after getting married.
- Financial stress: Certain financial stresses such as low income or high debts and liabilities can put a strain on the marriage that makes divorce more likely.
- Lower education: People with a college education are much less likely to get divorced than people without a high school education. The largest risk factor in terms of education is an incomplete high school education.
- Family history: People whose parents were divorced are more likely to ultimately get divorced themselves than people whose parents stayed together.
For more information about some of the most common divorce risk factors, contact an experienced Minnesota divorce lawyer at Appelhof, Pfeifer & Hart, P.A.