There are many cases when someone who is getting divorced for the first time says that they made mistakes. Maybe they got married too young. Maybe they didn’t really know their partner well enough. Maybe they just didn’t understand how difficult marriage was going to be, and it led to the breakdown of the relationship.
Regardless of the specifics, they believe that their second marriage will do much better. They feel that they learned from the problems and mistakes in the first marriage and that they won’t repeat those things the second time around. But does this happen? What do the statistics tell us?
A consistent trend
The fact of the matter is that second marriages do end more often, and studies that have looked into this have stated that the second marriages “consistently demonstrated higher divorce rates.” The exact reasons for this are not always clear, and there are obviously outliers – second marriages that last for decades – but the overall trends say that this doesn’t work.
As to why this may be, there are many different things to consider. For one example, studies have found that getting married at a more advanced stage, such as in your 40s or 50s, also makes it more likely that you’ll get divorced than if you got married in your 30s. Since second marriages always come after one failed marriage, more of them happen later in life, and this could just mean that the pool of remarriages that contribute to these statistics will contain more couples who are already more likely to split up.
Additionally, there are some couples who do not believe in divorce and would never ask for one. They may even stay in an unhappy first marriage. By virtue of circumstance, everyone who is getting married after a divorce has already been through that divorce process. Does this make it more likely that they will choose to do so again? It at least means that they may be more open to the idea.
The challenges of a second divorce
A second divorce can be challenging because you may have more assets, you may have a blended family, you may be closer to retirement age and much more. Be sure you know your rights and legal options before getting remarried. Consider protecting your assets and your children’s future assets and inheritance; consider a Marital Agreement.