Most Women Who Divorce ‘Good’ Husbands Have The Same Complaint Right Before They Leave, Says Research
Pheelings Media | Canva Most stats say that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, but in reality, that figure is technically slightly less, and it turns out that your boss might deserve a surprising amount of credit for keeping you and your spouse together.
Marriage counselor Justice Schanfarber explained that in his own practice, he has seen a pattern of women who leave men they still love, men who are good fathers, good providers, and genuinely kind people. He has concluded that they come down to feeling taken for granted in a marriage that had slowly stopped being a partnership. While women file the majority of divorces, the factor influencing their decisions isn't always what men assume.
Most women who divorce good husbands have the same complaint right before they leave: a lack of employment or financial contribution
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A 2016 study from Harvard University revealed that the main reason women divorce their husbands and the leading cause of divorce for women is a lack of employment.
This study may come as quite the old-fashioned blow to your work-life balance. But at least it will give you something to keep in your back pocket the next time that you have to stay at the office through dinner — you know that you did it for love.
Researchers from the study had looked at a whopping 46 years' worth of data of over 6,300 U.S. straight married couples, obtained by the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1968 to 2013. After 1975, they found that men who were not employed had a 3.3 percent chance of getting divorced, compared to a 2.5 percent chance of divorce for men who were employed.
While a 0.8 percentage difference may seem slight, the study also took into account several other relationship factors like household responsibilities, economic co-dependence, and finances, but none of them had as strong a correlation with an increased chance of divorce as the husband’s employment status did.
And though this might hardly seem fair for you, it does work out well for both your wife and your daughter. Ironically, you can blame these arguably dated employment expectations on feminism, because another woman did first.
Sociology professor Alexandra Killewald concluded that before 1975, women who did less housework were more likely to get divorced
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But second-wave feminism had made it so that women could become more career-focused and be able to have more freedom in their marriages
The study also found that men have contributed to more housework over time, on top of full-time employment expectations. Killewald concluded that a husband's income did not matter as much as simply having a job at all.
As she explained, “When I show that husbands’ lack of full-time employment is associated with risk of divorce, that’s adjusted for income. It’s not how high-earning he is. My results suggest that, in general, how much someone earns does not determine whether couples stay together or separate.” Research from 2014 backs Killewald's findings up, reporting that financial issues are one of the biggest reasons for divorce.
However, it's important to remember that every husband who goes through a rough patch of unemployment is headed for divorce. Marriages thrive and die in the patterns couples build together, and modern wives are finally paying attention to whether their partners are showing up as equals.
Lauren Vinopal is a freelance journalist who writes about health and science. She is a staff writer for MEL Magazine and has appeared in MTV News, Vice, GQ, and more
