According to the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology, not only do 50% of first marriages end in divorce, but 67% of second marriages end in divorce, and 74% of third marriages end in divorce. Essentially, this means that a lot of married couples are getting divorced, and a lot of divorced husbands and wives are not learning from the mistakes they made in their previous marriage. Although these numbers are staggering for the individuals who believe in marriage and love, what’s even more shocking about these numbers is the fact that, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, 60% of individuals who marry between the ages of 20–25 are likely to end up divorced at some point. And, if that wasn’t enough negativity about marriage to hear from a younger generation’s perspective, other studies have revealed that young men and women who get married between the ages of 20–29 have the greatest chance of getting divorced.
With all the marriage success strategies that are available to younger couples in America today, you would think that fewer young people would be getting divorced than in years past, but that’s not the case. I believe that people end up divorcing at a young age for a number of reasons, but Cory B. Honickman says it best in her blog when she says, “Most young couples get divorced early because they get married for the wrong reasons, they don’t know themselves well enough yet, they fail to discuss goals with one another, they don’t ask enough questions, and they don’t take the time to prepare and invest in the future marriage.” In essence, according to Honickman, young couples are divorcing more often than older couples because they do not take the time to fully prepare themselves for this lifelong commitment that we call marriage. In retrospect, I definitely found this be true in my previous marriage, and a study revealed that couples who participate in 12 marriage prep sessions before they marry decrease their chances of divorce by 50%.
Even though I have been fortunate to learn some valuable lessons in recent years, just six years ago I was ignorant about some of these marriage success secrets and experienced a horrible divorce because my ex-wife and I never took the time to really prepare ourselves for a sustainable marriage. In essence, we were in love, we were both great people, we both had great families, and most people thought we would be married for a lifetime, but because we never took the time to do what Cory B. Honickman discussed in her blog, we were both impacted immensely by an unhealthy marriage and an emotionally draining divorce.
As a result of the hurt, frustration, and failure that I experienced in my past marriage, instead of focusing on the negative, not only have I learned from my mistakes, but I have been inspired to write my newest relationship book, 50 Questions Before You Say I DO. The ultimate purpose of the book is to help couples experience marriage success and avoid the disaster of a bad marriage by working through fifty valuable questions that every married couple must ask themselves before they walk down the aisle and say, “I DO!”