Don’t End Up A Statistic!

This is the first of a three part series on divorce, remarriage and the effects on children.

According to the Stepfamily Association of America, and many other research organizations, by the end of this year, 2010, blended families will become the dominant family form in the USA. Currently blended families surpass traditional nuclear families by a whopping 60%!

Jeanette Lofas, PhD of the Stepfamily Foundation, Inc. shares some other statistics:
The average divorce will cost the parties $15,000, and take a year to finalize. Whether it is short or long term, the economic fallout of divorce will tend to reduce the standard of living of both ex-spouses.

The impact of divorce on children is harder to measure. Each year one million of America’s children experiences divorce firsthand. Most of these children will not be in single parent homes for long, why? Statistics have shown that when divorcing under the age of 45, 80% of men and 75% of women remarry within three to four years. It has been calculated that half of all children born since 1970 will live in a blended family. Because of the unique challenges facing blended families 65% of second marriages end in divorce. The risk for divorce goes up even higher with subsequent marriages.

If you have already hit the eject button once, you are more likely to hit it again when times get rough. So my message is to avoid going there in the first place. Except in extreme cases, most people divorce over unmet expectations and a failure to communicate those expectations to one another. Also, an inability to repair arguments, leads to broken intimacy in a marriage. You can divorce proof your marriage, but you need the right tools. We are a “Do it ourselves society!” We don’t want other’s to know when we are struggling. This happens in the Church as well. We show up every week trying to be the picture of Christian unity in our marriages, when that may be far from the truth. The truth is that Church is precisely where we need to “get real” with each other and ourselves. You don’t have to be a statistic. Whether you are in a traditional marriage, or a blended family, you can make it and make it great.

My husband and I blended our families 18 years ago. It was hard. We stepped in it big time! But we made it, and we made it great. We also learned some important things along the way that we wish we had known earlier. MUCH EARLIER! I will share some of those things with you soon, so tune in next week…. there is hope for your marriage!