Intense Commitment vs. Divorce's Role in Ultimate Happiness: Annotated Results of a Study (#2)

Does Divorce Make People Happy? is a very interesting study of the effects of divorce on happiness compared to that of couples who remained together in attempt to resolve issues within their unhappy marriages. The findings are quite interesting and well-approached--probably the most scholarly approach to the subject at hand than any of the other resources I've noted this far.

The study was conducted by the Institute forAmerican Values, founded in 1987, which states is goal as serving to contribute to the renewal of civil society. The institue is widely praised, by many publications, professors, and politicians. David Blankenhorn, author of Fatherless America and numerous articles on family and civic issues, is the Institute's president and founder. Throughout his career, he has worked for numerous nonprofit and advocacy organizations.

The study itself was conducted by Linda Waite, a leading sociologist at the University of Chicago, leading a team of other family scholars.

This article linked above summarizes the conclusions of the study, which ultimately seems to indicate the significant value of sticking out the rougher times.

In confronting the "divorce assumption," that

a person in a bad marriage has two choices: stay married and miserable or get a divorce and become happier

the study showed

no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced were typically any happier than unhappily married people who stayed married.

(One question that arose for me, in reading this was what constitutes a "bad marriage?")

But furthermore, according to the findings

Two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stayed married reported that their marriages were happy five years later.

This is surely a testament to the value of commitment. Marriage not just a matter of blind abidance--or the mere endurance of whatever agony the union may impose until death finally parts you--but is actually a matter of active responsibility and following through on the commitment and vows made that brings results, then. Or so it seems, based on this aspect of their conclusions.

So, yes working at it, or "making it work" has its place, but I'm wondering if it really resolves the issues that made this "bad marriage" bad.

Is it ever more that the people involved figure out make their peace with that bad element because they know they mean to stick it out lifelong, and may as well just get used to whatever it is they're unhappy with? I don't know, but I'm just wondering how much of this happiness that surfaces within that hypothetical five year span is actually in the name of resolution, genuine compromise, or just learning to endure something you'd still rather not deal with. And does this matter in the overall scheme of things? Does one or the other hold more value in the determination and validity of this "happiness" of which the researchers speak?


Another significant finding was that

average unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier than unhappily married adults who stayed married when rated on any of 12 separate measures of psychological well-being.

Furthermore, the researchers noted

Even unhappy spouses who had divorced and remarried were no happier on average than those who stayed married.

And finally, we arrive, from their conclusions, at an answer to my first question:

They found that many currently happily married spouses have had extended periods of marital unhappiness, often for quite serious reasons, including alcoholism, infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, depression, illness, and work reversals.

Thus

Marriages got happier not because partners resolved problems, but because they stubbornly outlasted them. With the passage of time, these spouses said, many sources of conflict and distress eased: financial problems, job reversals, depression, child problems, even infidelity.

So it's kind of like the learning curve idea, calling for a need to be mature enough to sustain the relationship even as things get worse in order to ever see them get better, as the oftenwill--according to this study's conclusions--given time and genuine mutual effort. So we must factor in to what extent a person's immediate happiness is important to them, versus their long-term happiness--and a person's decision to focus on either are perfectly valid, as far as I'm concerned.

But even all this said, at what point do we know the learning curve has spun out of control and really is approaching the limit of no up-side? At what point should a couple assume that it's actually never going to get better, and it's "safe" to give up and walk away from it? I'm thinking, given discussion in a previous post regarding marriage as eternally binding is that the answer is "never," once you've made that commitment. It's a drastic thing, requiring a massive amount of faith. Being married, truly, means you actually do not even resort to giving up, ever, as an option--and hopefully, this works out in all cases that the issues can be dealt with and overcome in a way that ultimately contributes to the overall happiness of all parties involved, even if not immediately.

The summary of the study finally poses the inevitable question

Were the marriages that ended in divorce much worse than those that did not? There is some evidence for this point of view. Unhappy spouses who divorced reported more conflict and were about twice as likely to report violence in their marriage than unhappy spouses who stayed married. However, marital violence occurred in only a minority of unhappy marriages . . .

On the other hand, if only the worst marriages ended up in divorce, one would expect divorce to be associated with important psychological benefits. Instead, researchers found that unhappily married adults who divorced were no more likely to report emotional and psychological improvements than those who stayed married.

Is this actually another argument that sticking it out possibly would have yielded greater effects in favor of later and long term happiness, in even the violent marriages that ended?

The most unhappy marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: among those who rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce were happily married five years later.

This would seem to indicate the latter, in answer to my question just above... And this, I'm not sure I appreciate. I have to decide how I feel about this indication, that perhaps even marriages on the abusive side could yield significant turnarounds toward happiness, with the passage of time. I agree with the possibility. But is it worth the risk?