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The Divorce Assumption
September 25, 2003
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Transcript
Have you ever watched talk shows like Jerry Springer or TV shows like Married With Children where marriage is pictured as unhappy or ugly? And the only option is to end the relationship! Some have called it the “divorce assumption,” and assume that a person in a bad marriage has only two options: stay married and miserable or get a divorce and become happier. But a team of leading family scholars out of the University of Chicago studied over 5,000 married adults over five years. They found no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced were any happier than couples that stayed together. More importantly, two thirds of unhappily married spouses that stayed together reported their marriages were happy five years later. In a closer look the study found that divorce did not reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-esteem or increase a sense of mastery. Though some divorces are necessary, it seems the so called “benefits of divorce” have been oversold, especially compared to working to strengthen a present marriage.

*Click here to learn more about the new study "Does Divorce Make People Happy? Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages" from the Institute for American Values.

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