"I won't date someone whose parents are divorced"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's the type of thing you say until you meet an actual person that you are attracted to whose parents are divorced. Your fiance is already engaged to you so who cares?

My parents are divorced and honestly it's a pretty reasonable standard. I never had a model for a healthy romantic relationship and had to figure that out on my own. But I did, because it's not rocket science.

Plenty of people have zero baseline for a healthy relationship. MIL and FIL did not communicate well, and she is a narcissistic mess. Probably was such well before him, but I am certain that their relationship made each other worse people, not better people. In the past, I would have said not to get involved with people whose parents are divorced, but maybe they learned something from it. I know MIL didn't learn a damn thing from staying with someone miserable, it only made her more miserable.

Healthy relationships and good humans compliment each other, don't make you spiral - has nothing to do with divorce or not.

[Anonymous]

Children of divorced parents have a much higher rate of divorcing later themselves. That's just fact, there's research on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s the same as not dating someone who has a history of mental illness in their family.

everyone has mental illness in their families. It's just hidden in some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Children of divorced parents have a much higher rate of divorcing later themselves. That's just fact, there's research on it.

.

As a child of divorced parents, I understand if this is a boundary for people. It makes sense. But there are just so many ways to be unhappy and dysfunctional, divorce is just one of them and one of the most obvious. If you start cutting out broad swaths of people with criteria like this, not many people will be left.

[Anonymous]

With that kind of criterion you won’t be able to weed out the adult children of sexually, physically, and emotionally abusive parents whose non-offending parent chose to look the other way. Feel free to insert any other type of familial dysfunction you can think of as well.

The criterion’s premise is flawed in that it assumes an intact marriage is the desired goal at all costs.

[Anonymous]

Just like hereditary diseases, there is a higher chance of people with emotional trauma, physical abuse, alcoholism, divorce, infidelity, bankruptcy etc to bring more emotional burden to their relationships.

Is it a given? No, obviously not. Is it likely? Unfortunately yes.

There was a recent study concluding that couples who have friends who divorce have a 75% increase in the risk of their own marriage ending. Why wouldn't a family history of divorces increase their chances of divorce? Even if they are consciously trying not to, subconsciously, they may mess up unless they went through effective therapy to overcome it.

[Anonymous]

My in laws are 65 and 70 and getting divorced- should I divorce my DH because of that?

My parents divorced when I was 23, 4 years into dating DH. Should he have moved out and called it quits?

[Anonymous]

In communities where abuse and abandonment of partners and children is common, aren't their chances of getting into similar patterns higher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My in laws are 65 and 70 and getting divorced- should I divorce my DH because of that?

My parents divorced when I was 23, 4 years into dating DH. Should he have moved out and called it quits?

I say (genuinely) good for them - especially the older couple!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My in laws are 65 and 70 and getting divorced- should I divorce my DH because of that?

My parents divorced when I was 23, 4 years into dating DH. Should he have moved out and called it quits?

No one is saying that, they are only suggesting to may be having a better criterion for how you screen your options to improve odds of longevity and compatibility in your future relationship, if it matters to you.

[Anonymous]

Though there are no guarantees in life.

[Anonymous]

"if a woman’s parents divorced, her odds of divorce increased 69%, while if both a husband and wife’s parents divorced, the risk of divorce increased by 189%."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-the-generations/201902/if-my-parents-are-divorced-is-my-marriage-doomed-fail?amp

[Anonymous]

Divorced parents are a red flag, but I would like to know the story first.

[Anonymous]

Did the OP marry him? If so, how is your marriage so far?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe so many of you have taken the side that this makes sense. It's so judgmental. I am not the same person as my mother. I'm a competent adult with my own thoughts and values and I make my own choices. If you're not competent enough to do the same, then you make a bad partner whether or not your parents are married or divorced. It's inane that I would be judged based on my parents' choices (and my parents aren't divorced, just saying this hypothetically). If you judge me based on them, then good riddance to you, I dodged a bullet.

What if cancer runs in someone's family? Would you not marry them because either your kids might get cancer on the early side, or they might get cancer and you'd become a widow/widower? I don't agree with this either but it actually makes more sense because cancer is actually something that's genetic that you can't control. Choices are under your control, assuming you're mentally healthy to start with.

I don't see so many agreeing. It is a judgement based on statistics. It's not even a huge discrepancy in statistics. Clearly people need to see others as individuals and not percentage points of likelihood to do something or not.

I think the thing here is that the PP (above this last one)who is feeling “judged” is taking it personally as though the guy is saying she isn’t “worthy” of dating bc of her parents’ divorce. And I get where anecdotally it feels icky and offensive if you fall into that group bc you totally could make a different choice than your parents and get married and stay married! But as this PP pointed out, statistically, if the goal is to make sure you stay married, it’s a better bet to date a girl whose parents are not divorced. That’s just a fact.
It’s like it you want your kids to grow up going to church just like your family did, then statistically you should aim to date and marry someone whose family also went to church every week. Doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who are converts after having kids OR who go to church even though their parents didn’t! It just means that if you want to better your odds at being a church-going family, you marry someone whose family of origin already shares that as a valued norm and practice.
No need to get offended. There are always exceptions. And maybe that fiancé missed out on dating some great girls...but he set the parameters based on statistics, not on you (or anyone else) personally so that he could heighten the odds of achieving his no-divorce goal.

Too many words. Is the goal a happy marriage, or not getting divorced? Those are two separate things. Avoiding potential partners whose parents who are divorced does nothing to further the goal of a happy marriage as far as I can tell.