Reasons for divorce often simmer, rarely boil over

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony may have divorced because of (alleged) infidelity, but according to marriage and relationship experts, theirs is not the typical reason for separating. Milwaukee residents, like most other normal people, are less likely to divorce because of one major reason and more likely to end their marriages because of reasons that are simple, everyday and “boring.”

That last adjective comes courtesy of Pamela Haag, a marriage expert who wrote a book called “Marriage Confidential.” She said most couples divorce because of a build-up “mundane, dreary, boring problems,” like dissatisfaction with intimacy, the slow accumulation of small annoyances and the snuffing out of the romantic flame.

Around 60 percent of divorces in the U.S. come from “low-conflict marriages,” according to marriage researcher Paul Amato. The term “low-conflict marriage”
basically refers to couples who do not have many explosive fights or frequent long-running disagreements, but do have simmering points of unhappiness or dissatisfaction.

In fact, in many divorces, there is not even one distinct reason that drives people to file, said Edward Hallowell, the director of the Hallowell Centers for Cognitive and Emotional Health and an author on the topics of marriage and divorce. Rather, it’s a collection of small things – a bundle of straw that breaks the camel’s back rather than a single strand, so to speak.

If you are not pleased with your marriage, it might not be a bad idea to spend some time alone and do some thinking. Are you interested in keeping the marriage intact? If you are, a consultation with a relationship or marriage therapist might do the trick, or at least give you the feeling that you did what you could to keep the marriage going. If you realize you are just not happy with your marriage, hopefully this information has dissuaded you from thinking that you should not seek a divorce just because there is not one big reason making you feel divorce might be a good idea. Many people divorce because their marriage has simply come to its natural endpoint, so you would be far from the only couple to do so.

Source: The Kansas City Star, “Till tedium do us part: Couples who want to avoid divorce had better sweat the small stuff,” Heidi Stevens, Sept. 8, 2011