You need to know: The divorce rate for society as a whole is not 50% and has never been anywhere close.
Everyone believes there is a 50% divorce rate. There isn’t, and there never has been, for society as a whole. For high-risk groups, yes. (If you get married as a teenager, that group hits that rate—but that is less than 5% of the population!)
What’s the divorce rate, then? Let me say that understanding this is incredibly complicated, controversial, and there is no way to know one “real” number. That is why it took us 8 years before we published The Good News About Marriage (and why we need to point you to the book for the hundreds of citations and sources!) But the bottom line is this: in looking at data from the Census Bureau and other reliable sources, it appears that somewhere around 25% of first marriages end in divorce—and the divorce rate has only continued to decline since we published the book! That’s still too high but it’s a universe different from what we think it is!
This means, if you’re getting married, you can be assured of this awesome fact: Most marriages are strong and happy for a lifetime!!!
Jeff and I have seen in our research with thousands of people for our books, that when people get into trouble in their marriage, there’s a sneaking feeling that arises: “If the ship is going to sink anyway, why bother trying to bail it out?” It makes an enormous difference if you think to yourself (or tell a troubled friend), “The ship isn’t going to sink! You’re going to make it. Most marriages do.”
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