Posted on 04/11/2026 4:57:35 AM PDT by DoodleBob
Raise your hand if someone close to you – friend, relative, co-worker – has been personally touched by divorce. Sadly, I’ve been able to raise my hand for all three at certain points of my life, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you can as well. Perhaps you’ve even been divorced yourself.
The prevalence of divorce in our culture is likely why so few say anything against it. Afraid of stepping on toes, we dance around the topic, telling divorcees that they’re “so brave” for separating from their partner, or that they did the right thing to get out and “find themselves.”
Allow me to say what everyone else is scared to say: Such sweet nothings are plain hogwash. In reality, divorce – particularly the easy, no-fault divorce of which so many couples have taken advantage in the last several decades – is likely at the root of many of the societal ills we are dealing with today, particularly those which affect today’s children – children who will become tomorrow’s adults.
“Divorce introduces instability, confusion, and questions of loyalty into the already complex nature of childhood,” Katy Faust and Stacy Manning write in “Them Before Us.” They go on to mention at least four major issues our culture deals with today that have a logical connection to the prevalence of divorce in American families.
Cancel Culture
Can’t deal with the opinion a friend holds? Cancel him. Can’t maneuver the quirks and disagreements of extended family members? Cut them off. Don’t want to come up with rational arguments for an online debate? Block the account. All these are forms of the cancel culture which has spread across our country like a rash in the last 10 years or so.
But is it possible that cancel culture is so prevalent because many in our society learned from their parents’ example that cancelation is the easiest way to deal with problems?
One child of divorce interviewed for Faust and Manning’s book thinks the answer is yes. She recounts how her father disappeared for several weeks, then returned for a brief time, only to leave again, sitting in the car sobbing as he left his family behind, presumably forced out by his wife. “Mom never acknowledged what her decisions caused,” this woman writes. “We learned ‘cancel culture’ at home, and it’s all we know how to do.”
Healthcare Problems
Many of our wallets took a hit earlier this year when higher insurance costs kicked in. Those same high costs are often what drive people to say that healthcare is a right which the government should provide.
Surprisingly, there may be a connection between the high costs of healthcare and divorce. According to Faust and Manning, “Parental divorce has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and asthma. It’s also been shown to double the likelihood kids will have trouble with their gut, skin, nervous system, genitals, and urinary organs.” Such statistics lead them to conclude, “The correlation between divorced parents and their children’s compromised health are so direct, any serious plan to reduce the cost of healthcare should begin with reducing the divorce rate.”
A novel idea? Yes. But does it make sense? Absolutely. And perhaps the only reason we haven’t acknowledged or thought about this sooner is because too many adults would rather put their own feelings over the physical health and wellbeing of their children.
Falling Test Scores
It’s no secret that American academics are abysmal. According to the most recent Nation’s Report Card, only 35% of 12th-graders are proficient in reading and only 22% are proficient in math. Poor standards and other weak education policies deserve partial blame for such scores, but does home environment impact more than we realize?
“Ask any educator to identify the common factor among kids who struggle in school, and most would agree: It’s a broken home,” Faust and Manning write. “Navigating the transition between two houses, an exhausted single parent, or the merry-go-round of cohabiting parental partners and/or stepfamilies leaves kids with little time or mental energy to memorize multiplication tables.”
Teachers continually say that classroom behavior problems prevent them from teaching. But consider that the instability of broken homes can cause children to act up. Perhaps if we had fewer broken homes, we’d have more orderly classrooms, which in turn would allow teachers to focus on teaching rather than wasting time on discipline, leading to more knowledgeable graduates who can later contribute to the economic and entrepreneurial growth of the nation.
Family Formation
Late last year, Pew Research revealed that only 67% of 12th-graders say they’ll likely choose to get married, down from 80% in 1993. One can only surmise that if these declining marriage rates hold, birthrates will decline also – dangerous territory considering that the “U.S. fertility rate … reached a record low in 2024.”
Researchers have long connected the hesitation to marry and have kids with those whose own parents divorced when they were children. What many may not realize, however, is how high the likelihood of divorce actually is for these kids. Faust and Manning write:
Children of divorce whose parents never remarried are 45 percent more likely to divorce, and those whose divorced parents married stepparents were 91 percent more likely to divorce compared with adults raised in intact biological families. … [O]ne and done ought to be your mantra because the second time is no charm.
If we really want to change culture, then we must confront the uncomfortable realities that are causing problems in that same culture. Just from these few examples alone, it seems divorce is a major root of many of our issues. Is it time we swallow our pride and our own emotional comfort as adults and do away with no-fault divorce?
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the answer to you question is in post #19.
Agree maturity in action
Ever soon some of the kids those people have who don’t have it most end up with a record if they live that long.
What no-fault divorce actually does is outlaw marriage, i.e., a voluntary commitment for life. If you do not want to make that commitment, don’t get married.
The Law’s heavy bias against men in divorce is clearly causing less men to get married.
"I’m 65 and going through a divorce."
I love how these threads never disappoint. They always turn into women blaming.
Binding people into a marriage that they desperately want out of is definitely going to be helpful to children. 🙄
"stop draining his credit cards"
And hopefully when changes in the law are made, women who falsely accuse their husbands of domestic abuse or violence or child abuse, get sent to the slammer and the husband may be granted a divorse (and full custody of the kids, if any), if he so wishes.
+1000!!!
There are too many true crime incidents of women being murdered by their serially abusive husbands or boyfriends. The murders most often are committed at the time the woman actually leaves, and/or takes out a TRO on him.
The Restraining Order, instead of fulfilling its intended purpose, is the trigger for him to go next-level.
These are not marriages and never were. These are/were contracts with the government as an unwelcome third party.
In the United States in particular, the government outlawed polygamy - because it's already the polygamist in each marriage.
Their plan of importing third world replacements doesn't work because the "magic dirt" of western countries doesn't change the minds and behaviors of these third worldians who can't run the systems.
The world population quintupled in the last 150 years. The population explosion and migrations, to fuel global industrial work over the last century and a half, are an unnatural series of events. Expect an adjustment downwards.
Their plan of importing third world replacements doesn’t work
The goal is not no immigration. The goal is good immigration.
How do we identify good immigrants, we do need some.
The United States has already poached from every country in the world over the last two centuries. There's only so many times you can go back to the same well before it's run dry.
Without migration at gunpoint, we're on our own.
My son (30s) says he's seen this in his colleagues - they have been dragged through court repeatedly, are forced to pay a good percentage of their salaries to their exes, gave up their homes, see their kids on weekends, maybe - and lead miserable lives after divorce.
A lot of his friends have internalized this and are very very hesitant to get married (him included).
I once read a memoir from a New York 1950s beatnik girl. She’d make extra money working for divorce attorneys and couples who wanted amicable divorces but needed a legal reason. She’d go to a hotel, meet the couple, their lawyers, and a private detective. Then she and the husband would go up to a room, undress, and get into bed together. A few minutes later the detective would come in the unlocked door, snap a photo as evidence of adultery, then they’d get dressed and all go out to breakfast together.
“They always turn into women blaming.
Binding people into a marriage that they desperately want out of is definitely going to be helpful to children. “
Get out of here with your BS about ‘women blaming - family and children’
80% of divorces and 100% of abortions are initiated by the woman.
homewreckers and baby killers
Sometimes I wonder if _affluence_ is part of the divorce problem. In the long past, it was the rich and celebrities that divorced. Today, technology and debt has put a lot of things into the hands of just about everyone, no matter their income.
In the past, when people had comparatively few things and less money (or access to it), they spent more effort and time with their families.
People now how have affluence to funds and travel and now put effort into things rather than each other or their family.
They learn too late that their wealth and things, and the effort spent chasing them, didn’t make them happy nor satisfied. They never developed nor nurtured they family they could have had if their priorities were different.
“The Law’s heavy bias against men in divorce is clearly causing less men to get married.”
Doubtful.
Here is some interesting data: https://theharvardpoliticalreview.com/marriage-money-youth-priorities/.
…young Americans identifying as Republican place more importance on traditional goals like marriage (74% of Republicans vs. 56% of Democrats), children (70% vs. 45%), and homeownership (74% vs. 53%) than their Democrat counterparts… young Americans with college degrees, who are disproportionately Democrats, are less likely to perceive marriage as necessary for economic stability.
At the same time, R or D, people in love will tend to get married. A man and woman who want to get married, on the whole get married without a prenup or a divorce predestination mindset. Indeed, only 15% of married couples get a prenup, and of that 15%, 56% reported they had a previous marriage. https://www.lawdepot.com/us/resources/family-articles/prenup-survey/
Further, in 2023 the percentage of married adults at 46.3% was way higher than the 9.1% cohabitation rate.
https://www.datingadvice.com/studies/marriage-vs-cohabitation-statistics
That said, the marriage rate and cohabitation rate trends are negatively correlated. The likely driver isn’t the law, but likely divorced fathers who probably initiated the proceedings to trade up for a younger model told Johnny “ah, don’t get married kid…da beyoch will take you to the cleaners.”
Now, we can argue about the extent to which my example is an R vs D.
Regardless, we must preach it widely that the moral decline in society is coming from selfish divorced PARENTS, and stop blaming it on the law, the media, Ukraine, women, or Soros.
Children model Mom and Dad. It’s hard to raise a thoroughbred when the parents are asses.
Sounds like something divorce attorneys would support.
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