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ISSUES: Marriage
Chapter 2: Divorce
The nine most common reasons couples
get divorced
Relationship counsellor Peter Saddington explains some of the reasons more than
four in ten marriages fail.
By Elsa Vulliamy
S
tatistics show 42 per cent of
marriages end in divorce, and
34 per cent of married couples
divorce before their 20th wedding
anniversary.
However, a study from Relate found 87
per cent of couples said they were in a
good relationship, and that half rarely or
never argued.
The
statistics
show
that
many
couples who were previously in good
relationships end up getting divorced
within 20 years of their nuptials.
Relate counsellor and sex therapist Peter
Saddington has given the nine most
common reasons for divorce he sees in
couples.
1. Money problems
Problems can arise when it comes to
money if husbandandwifehavedifferent
value bases; for instance, if one person
likes spending money freely and the
other is more frugal and prefers saving.
2. Affairs
If one person is having an affair, this is
likely to break down trust and lead to
difficulties in establishing honesty in a
relationship.
3. Interfering ex-partners
When establishing a new relationship, an
ex getting your partner’s attention can
create tension.
It can feel like they’re still married to the
ex, or that the ex is more important.
4. Differences in sexual libido
It’s a stereotype but not far off the mark.
Many men want more sex than women
and if couples have different levels of
sexual libido this will lead to problems in
the relationship.
5. Children fromprevious
relationships
There is a big difference between how
people react to their own children
and how they react to children they
have become parent to. Parents make
different allowances for children
who are their own. When they are
somebody else’s children, it may be
more difficult to establish the same
relationship.
6. Intrusive parents
If parents are interfering, or if a partner
perceives them to be, this can be a
problem.
If one partner spends too much time
talking with their mother, for example,
this can create a breakdown of
intimacy in the relationship.
7. Difference in how you resolve
conflict
If someone has grown up in a family
where arguing is very common and
they’re in a relationship with someone
who doesn’t like arguing or isn’t used
to it, this can cause difficulty.
Since you have different ways of
solving problems, it’s likely that these
problems will never get resolved.
8. Differences in communication
If one partner is the type of person
who shares all their intimate thoughts,
but their partner is not, this can cause
problems.
If one partner isn’t sharing with the
other, this will often be interpreted by
the other as meaning “they don’t love
me, they’re not interested in me”.
9. Privacy problems
Another problem can be when one
person has a different view of what
should be kept within the relationship.
If one person shares all the intimate
details of the relationship with their
friends or over Facebook, this can be an
increasingly difficult thing to manage.
16 February 2016
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The above information is reprinted
with kind permission from
The
Independent
. Please visit www.
independent.co.uk for further
information.
© independent.co.uk 2017
