Header
Naomi Dunne's picture

In-Laws Send Korean Couples to Court

Posted by Naomi Dunne on Fri, 04/04/2008 - 11:10am

When you have a Google News alert for the term "divorce," you get some crazy stuff in your inbox. Most of it gets immediately thrown into the virtual round file, but this recent piece in the Korean Times stopped me in my tracks.

"There may be many factors driving couples to a divorce, but what makes them run out of patience the quickest?" Hmm. Good question.

According to a statistics from the Korea Wedding Culture Research Center, when there's cheating involved, couples tend to hit the courts between seven and eight years post "I do." Family troubles bring the split after 3.7 years and money drama comes in at around 5.9. Drug addiction — drug addiction! Did that really make the list? — causes a split after around 6.6 years, and physical illness comes in at 5.3 years.

Interesting stuff, but what does it mean?

What I took away from it is the fact that people will stay with a crack addict or an adulterer longer than they will stay with someone who has a pain in the ass mother. Crazy stuff, and it makes me realize my mother wasn't so archaic when she told me I wasn't marrying the man, I was marrying his family.

Also noteworthy are the answers from the couples who didn't necessarily get divorced. Apparently, Korean couples lose sexual chemistry with their spouses after three or four years, causing researchers to suggest that Koreans get a three-year-itch to coincide with our seven-year-itch. Who knew?

Click here for more.

More from this Author

Naomi Dunne • 4/17/2008
Women's rights activists are up in arms about a contentious divorce case in...
Naomi Dunne • 4/15/2008
I have never been so angry in my life. Coming from a woman who separated...
Naomi Dunne • 4/10/2008
It looks like, once again, people are in an uproar about the divorce process...
Naomi Dunne • 3/28/2008
Today I read about a man who really, really wants to stay married...
Naomi Dunne • 3/16/2008
Like everywhere else in the world, divorce rates are rising in Egypt....
Naomi Dunne • 3/09/2008
When I was a little girl, my father used to call me his "petit chou,"...
Naomi Dunne • 3/05/2008
It seems like judges outside of the West are starting to understand the...