Jacksonville Divorce Lawyer Blog

Ever since an economic study in 2003 revealed that couples with a daughter are five percent more likely to divorce – and that the risk for divorce goes up with each additional daughter – psychologists have been trying to explain the reason for the phenomenon. Now, one expert says the question being asked has been the wrong one.

According to University of Notre Dame psychology professor Anita E. Kelly, the question is not why men stay in marriages with sons, which has been the way many researchers have approached the “why” behind the statistic. It’s why do women with daughters leave marriages more than women with sons?

After all, Kelly says, divorce statistics show that in 73 percent of failed marriages, it is the wife who leaves the husband. She also said studies have shown that adult sons add more to the daily workload of their parents, while adult daughters lessen the workload.

A new study published in the October issue of the Journal of Family Issues says that when women are the breadwinners in their family, they are almost 40 percent more likely to get a divorce than lower income women.

Researchers at Western Washington University studied 2,500 women who were married between 1979 and 2002 and found that the divorce “tipping point” came when the wife provided at least 60 percent of the household income. WWU sociologist Jay Teachman said that it did not matter whether the couple was rich or poor – it just mattered who earned the most money.

He said that the generation of women studied entered marriage with certain economic expectations and expected the man to be the primary breadwinner. When that did not happen, the marriage became strained. He said that successful women with higher incomes might also resent a husband who does not “pull his weight” – and that extra hours at the office for women also translates into a higher level of stress.

The newlywed husband of a Westchester, N.Y. woman who lied about having leukemia to get a free wedding dress and honeymoon has filed for divorce.

Michael O’Connell told the New York Daily News that he is “disgusted and outraged” to discover that his bride, Jessica Vega, lied about having terminal cancer in order to evoke sympathy, not only from him but also from virtual strangers who gave the couple a free wedding and honeymoon, wedding rings and other merchandise and services when a story about them appeared in a local newspaper.

O’Connell said that Vega produced a “phony” letter from a cancer specialist confirming her diagnosis, although when he called the clinic where the letter came from, they told him she had never been a patient there. He also admitted to “slapping the fire” out of his estranged wife when he learned that her leukemia diagnosis was a lie.

“Gray divorce” – the new term given to divorces that occur after 20 or more years of marriage – is on the rise in the U.S. and Baby Boomers are leading the way, according to a recent article in the Sacramento Bee.

The divorce rate among those born between 1946 and 1964 is triple that of their parents, and most relationship experts agree that the main reason is because of Boomers’ spirit of independence and “make my own way in the world” viewpoint.

Experts also say that divorce is part of the Boomers’ “value system,” having grown up as divorce lost its social stigma and became more prevalent in American society. Boomers, who have always taken the “pursuit of happiness” proviso to an extreme, are finding that once the kids are gone, there is not much tying them to their spouse anymore because interests have diverged.

A new study of relationships has found that if a woman earns more money than a man, both will be more likely to cheat.

Cornell graduate student Christin Munsch studied the results of a national survey, tracking 9,000 people between the ages of 17 and 27. She found that men who make less than their female partners or wives feel a “gender identity threat” that made them more likely to cheat because of feelings of being powerless.

Women who make more than their male partner are also more likely to cheat, the study suggests, because having a higher income may make them feel they have more power to do what they want.

A New York Times columnist calls it “divorce porn” – married people’s fascination with the lives of the divorced.

In his Family Matters column for the Times, Bruce Feiler commented on the dichotomy of divorce in America these days: while the divorce rate is the lowest it’s been in three decades, a lot of our popular culture seems to be obsessed with divorce.

To wit: the big adult movie of the summer is Eat Pray Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling novel that chronicles her own journey of discovery after a divorce at age 32. That book sold over five million copies. The sequel, Committed, about her marriage to her second husband, has only sold 200,000 copies.

Women who are over the age of 50 and earning more than $100,000 a year are much more likely to divorce than men of the same age and income category.

A U.S. Census Bureau study – 2009 America’s Families and Living Arrangements – shows that 11.85 percent of American women aged 45-49 and earning over $100,000 a year are divorced, but that number almost doubles to 22.45 percent at age 50-54.

For men of the same age and income bracket, the divorced percentage drops from 8.4 percent for those aged 45-49 to 6.61 percent for those aged 50-54. Also, as men’s income climbs, the divorce rate drops, but for women, it’s the exact opposite – as their income grows, so does their divorce rate.