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Divorce is 38% more likely to occur if the wife earns 60% or more of family’s income

Let's Talk about Divorce
Let’s Talk about Divorce

What’s the first thing you think to yourself whenever you hear the news that a friend of yours is getting a divorce?

Usually, it’s “Why?” 

And it’s not always because you care about the people involved with the marriage — usually it’s just morbid curiousity.  Sometimes the marriage has just run its course and it’s time for both parties to move along to the next phase in their lives.  Sometimes there are personal, philosophical, moral, financial, or other extended circumstances that just make for juicy neighborhood gossip.

Web Watch knows one couple whose marriage was dissolved within 30 days of the wedding. It’s not important that it ended up being the right thing to do for the people involved, that entire event is still a topic of conversation many years later, in part because it’s just a great dramatic (and slightly amusing) story.

Which brings us to another reason why some marriages end in divorce, as seemingly brought up in the news when Sandra Bullock won her Oscar — sometimes men don’t want to be married to women who are more successful than they are.

According to A 25-YEAR LONG STUDY PUBLISHED IN THE OCTOBER 2010 “JOURNAL OF FAMILY ISSUES”, women who are the major money earners in a household are 38% more likely to have a marriage that ends in divorce.

The magic number happens when the wife makes at least 60% of the family income.   In some cases, the wife leaves because she considers herself more independent and self-sufficient.  When the husband leaves, it could be due to feelings of inadequecy or a bruised ego.

While the exact cause-and-effect isn’t entirely clear, the researchers believe it has to do in part with the time period being studied; they are hoping to redo the study with a younger set of respondents who may have been raised with different values than the traditional “husband works, wife stays home” concept that was often seen during the timeframe the study was being conducted.