A USA Today feature story and an American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers press release bring together many new insights from several studies showing fundamental changes in post-divorce cohabitation, remarriage, re-divorce, and stepfamily dynamics. Here are the most exciting excerpts, grouped by topic:
REMARRIAGE
In 2011, just 29 of every 1,000 divorced or widowed Americans remarried, down from 50 per 1,000 in 1990
RE-DIVORCE
Some couples worry about the odds of a successful remarriage, but long-term data is relatively non-existent because of federal cutbacks that stopped data collection. "There is no good, recent data on divorce among remarried couples that I know of," says marriage researcher Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
However, new research does suggest those who have been divorced once are less likely to stay in an unsatisfying marriage a second time. "It's not that the couples are less happy with each other and it's not that they're fighting more than first-married couples," says psychologist Sarah Whitton of the University of Cincinnati. "It seems that if a relationship starts deteriorating, they're quicker to move towards divorce." Her study of 1,931 married individuals was published this spring in the Journal of Marriage and Family. ...
STEPFAMILIES
"In the first marriage, the couple has time alone to set up their own culture — the way they do things. But in the second marriage, you have a single parent who has been living alone with his or her children and they are deeply, deeply bonded and have a culture of their own. The stepparent walks into that and doesn't know the first thing about it.
"The American delusion is you can pop in a new parent like a replacement figure and you have a new first marriage. You actually have a very different marriage ..."
COHABITATION
"Cohabiting isn't going to make it easier," Olson says. "In many ways, it makes it more complicated. ... It doesn't signal to the kids 'this is permanent.' "
Between 1990 and 2012, the percentage of unmarried couples living together more than doubled, from 5.1% to 11.3%.
37% of cohabiters have been married before.
Remarriage rate declining as more opt for cohabitation -- AAML
Based on USA Today story with same title, 9/12/13