Divorce Causes - Part 5 of 5

"In Sickness and in Health" - The COVID-19 Pandemic and Divorce

Apart from the Black Plague, which killed untold millions of people in Europe, North Africa and the Near East in the thirteen hundreds, the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the world more than any other widespread illness up to the present time. COVID has changed how and where we live, how and where we work, how we interact as human beings (at least six feet apart), how we travel (or don't), how we educate our children and even how we bury and mourn our dead (remotely). It has touched every aspect of our society. So, is it any surprise that the COVID pandemic has also affected the marriage and divorce rates in this country?

At the height of the pandemic, people found it almost impossible to get married, unless the couple were willing to forgo the reception they had always dreamed about. Wedding venues, farm settings, vineyards and beaches were closed to hopeful brides and grooms. Assuming you and your intended spouse wanted to go forward with your wedding and you could find a Justice of the Peace, priest, rabbi or clergyman willing to perform the ceremony, you still needed to wear those blue masks. And forget about the "you may now kiss the bride."

For those couples who managed to "commit matrimony" in spite of these restrictions the hardest trick was to stay married. All of the reliable statistics show that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a substantial uptick in the divorce rate across the globe. Like many of the divorce causes we have been exploring in this 5 part series of blogs, the pandemic did not, in and of itself, cause people to divorce but rather exposed weaknesses in the relationship and, often, combined with other divorce related circumstances hastened the death of the marriage.

Researchers, social scientists, and especially divorce attorneys, started to see the effect of the pandemic shortly after its appearance in 2020. Here in the United States, around the time that quarantining started, the number of people looking for divorces was 34 percent higher from March through June of 2020 compared to 2019, according to information collected by Legal Templates, a company that provides legal documents, such as separation agreements and other divorce forms.

Interest in separation and divorce continued its upward spiral even as the quarantine peaked on April 13 of 2020 — just about 15-20 days after the vast majority of states began their mandatory lock-downs. Additionally, early survey data showed that 31 percent of the couples admitted the lock-downs had caused irreparable damage to their relationships.

Surprisingly , COVID seemed to hit newly-weds particularly hard . Twenty percent of couples who sought divorce were married within the past five months or less, compared to the just eleven percent in 2019 – thereby doubling the rate. Thus, it appears that many of the newly-married did not really mean to commit to a lifetime of marriage "in sickness and in health."

For example, one soon to be bride recently caused an internet sensation when she demanded that her vow eliminate the "in sickness" part, in favor of being faithful "in happiness" only. Explaining her reasoning, the prospective bride said "this is harsh, but I hate taking care of sick people." She went on to say; "I just don't want to feel obligated to take care of anybody sick for years of my own and only life..." Not surprisingly, her fiance' was extremely troubled by her attitude and balked at the idea going forward with the wedding.

While the United States is one of the global leaders in divorce rate, we were not alone in the "splitsville spike" occasioned by the pandemic. Other countries noticed a similar surge as well. In Qatar, the divorce rate showed an increase of 88% in May of 2021 compared to the same month in 2020. In a country with only a handful of divorces (12) in the year prior to 2020, there were 230 divorce cases in the month of September alone, an unheard of number. Similarly, in December 2020 one of the leading divorce firms in Great Britain found a 122% increase in divorce inquiries, while an internet company observed an increase in online searches for ending a relationship. The pandemic crisis has inspired a significant surge in the number of divorces in other parts of the globe, including China, France, Canada, Italy, Sweden and Brazil.

Why is it that the COVID pandemic has had such a negative impact on marriages around the world? There are a substantial number of reasons. Let's take a look at some of them.

Quarantining - As noted above, mandatory lock-downs began during the spring and summer of 2020. Suddenly, husbands, wives, children and other family members began spending time together on a 24/7 basis. Prior to the COVID pandemic a typical family unit would spend 30 to 45 minutes together in the morning and only a few waking hours together at night, some of which was punctuated by singular activities such as television watching, gyms, work-outs or time spent on the computer or other electronic devices. And weekend time was further reduced by errands, chores, hobbies and nights out with the guys or the girls. But the pandemic has been a whole new experience.

The lock-downs allowed people time to reflect on how well they really knew their spouses and whether they really wanted to continue the marriage. In many instances the increased time together turned one spouse’s little annoying habit, peccadillo or personality problem into a full blown “I can’t take it anymore” obstacle that cratered the relationship.

As Robert Anderson, an American playwright, once observed; “In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find and continue to find grounds for marriage.” Simply put more and more Americans could not figure out the grounds to stay married.

On top of this since people had more time on their hands and could not go anywhere, many turned to the internet where they found information and advice about the process of separation and divorce, along with the forms necessary to terminate the marriage - as explained above.

Increase in Stress, Depression and Domestic Violence - Even after the mandatory lock-downs diminished and ended, spouses continued to experience heightened stress, anxiety and depression from dealing with COVID related isolation, illness, the deaths of family members and friends, loss of employment, loss of savings and other economic misfortunes. Getting out and getting away from each other became even more challenging. Unfortunately, episodes of domestic violence also increased dramatically. There is a growing body of evidence that the COVID pandemic made intimate partner violence not only more common but also more severe.

Often, victims of domestic violence were unable to extract themselves from their households due to government restrictions, isolation from family and friends, economic forces, such as lack of employment or savings, and family court closures. It is not an overstatement to say that Domestic Violence became a pandemic within a pandemic.

Nor is this phenomenon limited to the United States. Surveys around the world have shown domestic abuse spiking since January of 2020. The United Nations group U.N. Women, found that when the pandemic began, incidents of domestic violence increased 300% in areas of China; 25% in Argentina, 30% in Cyprus, 33% in Singapore and 50% in Brazil.

Economic Fallout - Another of the divorce stressors occasioned by the COVID pandemic is the combined economic crunch visited upon spouses and their families. Across the United States people experienced loss of employment, devastation of their savings and retirement accounts, threatened home foreclosures and evictions from their rental units. These circumstances not only heightened the stress experienced by spouses but also a re-evaluation of where they were going with their lives and with whom did they intend to travel.

Differences in Parental Views and Decisions - One of the common experiences over the last few years is the diverse range of views that people had about the pandemic itself - ranging from a "historic health crisis" to "a global hoax." The increased family time together often highlighted the parents' differing views about how best to protect children medically and how to educate them, thereby increasing the tension and acrimony in the marriage.

Former stay at home parents who were used to be handling the decisions relating to the children alone were now literally confronted with the newly stay at home parent's view of life, health and education. These differences in turn became another marital stressor - a circumstance which continues to separate parents post divorce, as explained in my recent blog "COVID 19 Vaccinations, Children and Custody."

Conclusion

As with many issues in life there are two sides to every coin. Some commentators have suggested that COVID has had little to no effect on the divorce rate in the United States and indeed brought spouses closer together. Such pundits have pointed to the per capita decrease in the number of divorces granted during the pandemic years. Of course, such numbers are skewed by the decreasing number of marriages consummated during this period, as explained above, and the fact that the family and divorce courts were largely shut down during the height of the pandemic (thereby making divorce impossible) and are still struggling to catch up with the back-log of divorce cases ever since.

I, for one, unhappily take the position that years from now we will have collected sufficient information to prove empirically that the pandemic significantly increased the divorce rate. For now, I will rely upon the simple fact that since 2020 there has been a noticeable, huge increase in requests for divorce consultations all across the United States.

Divorce Causes - Part 4 of 5

CHILDREN OF DIVORCE - NATURE, NURTURE OR NEITHER

This five part series of posts has been devoted to an examination of the root causes of divorce. We are familiar with most of the usual suspects - infidelity, lack of commitment, money problems, addictions, lack of intimacy, domestic violence, etc.. Another significant one, explored in a prior post, is a remarriage following a prior or series of prior unsuccessful relationships. Here, the chances of divorce go up proportionally with each previously failed relationship.

However, other divorce correlations are not as well known. They remain hidden, like giant icebergs lying silently, just below the surface of the water, until they cause the marriage to break apart. In this vein we have looked at certain less well known divorce factors such as the length of the engagement and the amount of money spent on the wedding and the engagement ring.

The one thing that all these divorce factors have in common is that are within the control of the parties to the marriage. You decide how long to remain engaged. You choose to have an affair. You choose to remarry. You choose to spend $20,000 on an engagement ring or $100,000 on your wedding. But not every divorce factor is within the control of the marital partners.

In the context of many of life's circumstances, social scientist have explored the link between the shared traits and characteristics of parents and their children - e.g. intellect, personality, disease, criminal behavior, alcoholism, domestic violence, etc. But what about divorce? Is there a correlation between your parent's divorce and the likelihood that you will be following them down this same unhappy path? Are the "sins of the father (or mother) visited on the son (or daughter)?” Is divorce "generational" - passed down from grandparent to parent to child? And, if so, is it a matter of nature or nurture? In other words is divorce a matter of "genetics" or “learned behavior"?

The short answer is that researchers have been aware of the connection between a parent’s divorce and a child’s divorce for nearly a century. Social scientists such as Paul Amato and Danelle Deboer have concluded that, “parental divorce is one of the best documented risk factors for marriage dissolution.” Significantly and ironically, people with divorced parents are disproportionately more likely to marry other people with divorced parents.

So what kind of impact does parental divorce have on their children? Going back to Amato and Deboer, they indicated that if a woman’s parents divorced, her odds of divorce increased 69 percent, while if both a husband and wife’s parents divorced, the risk of divorce increased by 189 percent. Said differently, where both children have divorced parents they are twice as likely to get divorced themselves as compared to the children of parents who have remained married.

Given this established link, is this another reason for parents to stay married - for the sake of their children's future marriages? Is this link a matter of nature or nurture? What is the reason for this connection?

For many years experts concluded that divorce was a learned behavior - we modeled what we saw and experienced as children. The accepted explanation was based upon two things.

First, children of divorce did not observe their parents engage in positive relationship skills such as open communication, negotiation and compromise. The proponents of this theory opined that this lack of parental skills led directly to the lack of such skills in their children, thereby fostering divorce.

Second, the devotees of this theory also concluded that children who watched their parents’ divorce experienced a reduced commitment to the institution of marriage and lower confidence in the ability of marriages to remain intact long-term. Plainly put, "children of divorce are haunted by the ghosts of their parents’ divorce and are terrified that the same fate awaits them." Notwithstanding these fears, they jump into marriage anyway, often with disastrous partners, since they are convinced that it won't last anyway. In such cases divorce is a matter of when, not if.

However, a more recent study has concluded divorce is not a matter of fate but rather genetics. Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and Lund University in Sweden tackled the question why does divorce run in families?” What they found was that the prior studies overlooked an important fact - not all children are the same. The Swedish study focused on adopted children versus biological children. When this variable was added they found that people who were adopted resembled their biological — but not adoptive — parents and siblings in their histories of divorce. Understanding this new dynamic should help people and their therapists to focus on individual personality traits rather than fate alone.

So where are we? Yes indeed the marital bliss or the dysfunction of your parents has a discernible impact on the your likelihood of divorce. However, once you are aware of this link you can mitigate its effects by introspection, therapy or by adding a new parameter to your marital search - marrying someone whose parents are happily married.

Stay tuned for the fifth and final part of this series

Divorce Causes - Part 3 of 5

Infidelity - The Marriage Killer

People often ask what is the leading cause of divorce? Opinions vary. Depending upon which study you read you will see different causes identified - lack of commitment, lack of intimacy, money problems, domestic abuse, etc.. However, infidelity is always near the top of every list.

Before embarking on this discussion, it is important for me to note that the statistics used and generalizations made herein are simply that - beliefs, statistics and generalizations formed during my 40 year practice as a divorce lawyer and the research I have conducted.

In this five part series of blogs I have posited the notion that rather than thinking of divorce from the perspective of absolute causes which individually will cause the demise of the marriage, it is more appropriate to think of this construct as a collection of divorce correlations. In other words it is rare that a single divorce cause inevitably and inextricably leads to divorce. Rather it is the result of a collective of multiple risk factors, many of which I discuss in this series of blogs.

Indeed, some people have posited the notion that infidelity is not a cause of divorce but rather the consequence of an already crumbling marriage. Nevertheless, based upon my many years as a divorce attorney I would have to say that infidelity is often identified by the majority of my clients and prospective clients as the circumstance which has brought them to my office. Moreover, unlike other divorce causes which often work in combination, it alone, can be the death knell of the marriage. So let‘s take a closer look at infidelity by asking the questions "what", "who", "with whom", “when" and "why."

WHAT IS IT?

First, we need a working definition. What is infidelity? Infidelity is the act of cheating on a spouse or a committed relationship partner. It can be either emotional infidelity or sexual infidelity, otherwise known as adultery. In most instances it is the latter and the one which I will focus on here. Once again, I have had many prospective clients sitting in my office talking about their spouse's "adultery" (and other words not suitable for this blog) but almost none of these people have told me that their spouses were having an "emotional affair" with someone else.

WHO IS CHEATING?

So how prevalent is sexual infidelity in America? Surprisingly, 90% of all people surveyed believe that committing an adulterous act is morally wrong and 61% believe that it should be treated as a criminal act as discussed below. Notwithstanding these beliefs, the most recent surveys indicate that 22-25% of married men and 14-17% of married woman have had at least one adulterous affair during the marriage. Among divorced ex-spouses, 44% of men and 40 % women indicate that they have had multiple extramarital affairs during the marriage. In other words, philanders are often serial offenders, which belies their promise that it will never happen again.

If anything, the above cited statistics on cheating are on the low end of the scale. By its very nature, spouses go to great lengths to hide their affairs. 70% of married women and 54% of married men did not know of their spouses’ extramarital activity. In many cases, infidelity never gets discovered. However, despite the generalization that "the wife is always the last to know", in point of fact nearly 85% of the women are right when they think their partner is cheating on them while for men it is around 50%.

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WITH WHOM DO PEOPLE CHEAT?

Infidelity appears to be a "crime of opportunity". Most of us are familiar with the scenarios where Rock Stars and Professional Athletes are beset by individuals who are pressing notes into their hands with telephone numbers or provocative messages or throwing their room keys at them during a performance. We are also aware that such glitterati have boasted of their many sexual conquests. For example, in his 1991 book "A View From Above", Wilt Chamberlain, the professional athlete, nicknamed the Big Dipper presumably for his basketball prowess, claimed he'd slept with 20,000 women over the course of his career. Charlie Sheen, the actor, claims to have had sex with at least 5000 women - half the 10,000 men claimed by Gwyneth Montenegro. In all fairness I don't think that Montenegro should count since she did that for a living rather than as a consequence of her living.

However, the vast majority of men and woman who stray are not famous icons or sex workers. Nevertheless, even for the regular Joe and Jane, infidelity is still a "crime of opportunity." The percentage of men and women who admit to having an affair with a co-worker is 36%, the same 36% of people who also admit to infidelity on business trips. Keeping it all in the family, the percentage of men and women who admit to infidelity with a brother-in-law or sister-in-law is 17%.

WHEN DO PEOPLE CHEAT?

Infidelity can take place anytime during the marriage or the committed relationship. Sometimes the cheating occurs under circumstances which seem particularly cruel, egregious or ill-timed, such as those instances where the husband cheated with one of the bridesmaids on the night of the wedding or the fiance who cheated on his betrothed right around the time that she was nursing their hours old newborn in the hospital. However, there are certain predictable times when the chances of infidelity seem to be greater.

For example, the time period right after the first year of marriage. Around this time the glow and excitement of the marriage (sometimes referred to as the "honeymoon phase") begins to fade and it is not uncommon that spouses also begin looking for adventure or excitement outside of the marital relationship. Similarly dangerous is the time right after the birth of the first child, when priorities change from the couple alone to a new construct involving a child. Due to the need to give your attention to someone other than your husband or wife, the emotional feelings between the two change a great deal. So, illicit affairs often begin after the birth of first child.

When else? Many of us are also familiar with notion made famous by the movie "The Seven Year Itch", starring Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell. The movie was based upon the popular belief, sometimes cited as having psychological backing, that happiness in a marriage or long-term romantic relationship declines around the seven year mark. These same professionals have recently revised their estimates and have now concluded that the unhappy period generally occurs 5 years into the marriage or relationship instead of 7 years. Researchers have also found that affairs occurring in this unhappy period will continue for the longest period of time as well.

Another popularly held belief is that affairs frequently start up when someone is experiencing a "mid-life crisis". Once again this concept finds support from the psychological community Generally, a midlife crisis occurs when people are between the ages of 45 and 65, often stimulated by a person's growing age, inevitable mortality, and a perceived lack of accomplishments in life. Stereo-typically, in men the mid-life crisis often finds expression in a brand new Corvette convertible, a Rolex watch and a voluptuous young girlfriend. Again stereo-typically, women experiencing a mid-life crisis are more inclined to turn to that really skilled artist known as a plastic surgeon, trips to exotic locations and an affair with that segment of the male population know as "boy toys."

WHY DO PEOPLE CHEAT?

Now we come to the $64,000 question. Why do people cheat? There are so many reasons why people cheat on their spouse or life partner that it almost defies categorization. Lack of intimacy in the relationship, opportunity, lack of sex, variety, danger, revenge or a desire to blow up the relationship have all be cited as culprits.

Recently, a highly successful book was launched which dove headfirst into this controversy entitled "Cheatingland: The Secret Confessions of Men Who Stray." The author, an anonymous journalist, spent four years interviewing men for his investigation. What he found was that "Cheatingland" was like a clandestine oasis - sort of like the "Fantasy Island" show of TV fame - a place which has its own customs and mores, where wedding vows are forgotten in favor of mind numbing sex.

So what did the men who were interviewed have to say? One said he cheated because his mistress offered something that his wife did not - a perfumed partner with sexy undergarments who was entirely attentive to his needs. Another said he cheated for the pure thrill of it, since he and his married mistress were close friends with the spouses of each other. Explaining the danger of this dynamic, the man glibly observed that if his girlfriend's husband found out about their affair, “he would kill me and then my wife would revive me so that she could kill me.” This palpable danger made the affair even more enticing.

Finally, one man explained that cheating was like having a "Frankenstein girlfriend" or in his case multiple girlfriends. One was better in bed, one was prettier, one was smarter and more fun to talk to. If one of them didn't do something he liked the others would. As for me, I am waiting for the sequel to this tome where women discuss their time in "Cheatingland."

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF CHEATING?

As you can probably imagine, often, the direct consequence of infidelity is a divorce. Not in all cases but in many. Moreover, that hurt or wound runs so deep, that in most instances, it is unforgivable and unforgettable by the party who was cheated on.

Ironically, most judges across the United States take the view, consistent with our no-fault divorce statutes, that infidelity has no bearing on the economic outcome of the divorce (the division of assets or the payment of spousal support) or the issue of child custody and visitation. While infidelity may not matter to a judge try explaining that to the divorce client who is deeply and bitterly hurt by their spouse's cheating. From my personal experience as a divorce attorney I can tell you that it is going to take some time, often a long time, for the hurt spouse to separate their anger and resentment from the pure economics of the case, as well as the issue of custody - i.e. this is not going to be a simple, quick, negotiated settlement without rancor.

Finally, it bears mention that not only is adultery morally wrong, as indicated by 91% of the surveyed population, but also it is a crime in 21 of the states of this nation. While most of these states categorize it as a misdemeanor, a few states, including Idaho, Michigan, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, treat it as a felony. As a practical matter very few District Attorney's offices prosecute adultery cases but it has happened and could happen again. Thus, divorce attorneys have to be wary of having their clients admit to adultery not only for strategic reasons but also for avoiding criminal liability.

Moreover, the adultery could lead to loss of employment. Take for example CNN chief Jeff Zucker who "resigned" from the network based upon his long-standing affair with a network colleague. Additionally, the Military has the right to dishonorably discharge servicemen and women for such an offense. In the past eight years, 30% of the military commanders who were fired lost their jobs due to sexual misconduct, including adultery.

In the final analysis, infidelity is a multi-headed monster which shatters lives and visits enormous consequences on spouses, committed partners and their children. Caveat Emptor! Be very careful. Think long and hard before travelling to Cheatingland.