Sex and Love - Experts and Resources

Silver Divorces On The Rise

Why are divorce rates for older couples going up?

Posted to Relevant News by Rachel Small on Wed, 07/27/2011 - 7:53am

At a time when divorce rates are falling, it turns out that people over 60 are divorcing at an alarming rate. What are some of the reasons for dumping a spouse after 40 or 50 years?

In a study by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) people aged 40-79, it was found that 66 percent of the women instigated divorce actions. Some said they could no longer endure drug or alcohol addiction. Others divorced because of physical and emotional abuse or for infidelity.

Researchers claim retirement is a strain on marriage, just as the empty nest may start the process of thinking about divorce. In Japan, women called retired husbands a nuisance. Some women can't stand their spouse home all day. In the U.K., gray divorce is becoming an epidemic. In Italy, married couples 55 and over seeking legal separation rose by three and a half percent, and those filing for divorce grew by three percent from 2000-2004.

Communication Is Everything

Posted to Relevant News by Amanda Lockhart on Sat, 06/18/2011 - 7:36am

If there's one simple truth about marriages — or any relationship, for that matter — it's that communication is everything. You get an idea just how important it is when you consider some numbers I saw from a Japanese survey.

According to these statistics, nearly 40 percent of Japanese married couples speak to each other less than 30 minutes a day. Slightly less disturbing, nearly half the women surveyed said they had contemplated divorce at some point.

Now, the numbers were collected by an insurance company. I'm not sure what motivation they'd have in showing that marriages are struggling. But the survey also found that the chief complaints women had about their husbands was that they smoked and drank too much. Maybe it's part of some healthy living initiative.

Separate But Happy

Do two people in love have to always be together?

Posted to Relevant News by Naomi Dunne on Fri, 06/17/2011 - 7:38am

Because I’ve been known to have a one-track mind, I’m still thinking about what I wrote about last week: Should some people just stay single?

My partner and I have been talking about this a lot lately. We are two of the most compatible people I’ve ever known. We live together. We run a business together. We work in our home office together.

And we are completely and utterly sick of each other. Actually, that’s not entirely true. We’re not sick of each other, we’re sick of not being alone.

Here’s the thing: We’re both very independent people. We’re both people pleasers. We both go out of our way to make the other person desperately, completely, ragingly happy. It’s exhausting, and I don’t think we want to do it any more.

We want to eat what we want for dinner. We want to stop discussing the color of paint on the walls. We want to stop planning and talking and communicating. We both just want to be left alone.

Suffering From Sudden Wife Abandonment?

Posted to Relevant News by Jennifer Bailey on Thu, 06/16/2011 - 7:03am

I think we are all aware of the phenomenon of men suddenly leaving their marriages with no warning, with nothing more than a final "It's over". No months of discussion, no signs of unhappiness, just that final pronouncement. Well, now they have a term for it. It's called Sudden Wife Abandonment.

The term was coined by Vikki Stark, a family therapist who was married for 21 years until her husband announced that their marriage was over while she was preparing dinner. She called it Sudden Wife Abandonment, and started the Sudden Wife Abandonment Project, with the apt acronym "SWAP".

Affairs: Most Common Reason For Divorce

Was there ever any doubt?

Posted to Relevant News by Katherine McKee on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 6:58am

In case you had any doubt about it, extramarital sex and infidelity are the most cited reasons for divorce in more than 150 cultures, according to research from The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at Indiana University.

The respected sex researcher reports that about 20 to 25 percent of men and 10 to 15 percent of women engage in extramarital sex at least once during their marriage, and 11 percent of adults who have ever been married or cohabited have been unfaithful to their partner.

Among those surveyed, more than 80 percent of women and 65 to 85 percent of men reported that they had no partners other than their spouse while they were married. In addition, 94 percent of married men and women had only one sex partner (their spouse) in the past 12 months, 4 percent had 2 to 4 partners and 1 percent had more than 5 partners.

How To Tell If You're Headed For A Divorce

Top Five Divorce Signs

Posted to Relevant News by Katherine McKee on Fri, 02/11/2011 - 7:44am

Did you know that couples typically wait six years too long to start marriage counseling? Often, by then, too much resentment has built up and it can be too late to repair the relationship.

I read an interesting piece by relationship expert, Dr. Joshua Coleman, who set out the Top Five red flags that you're headed for a divorce. Take a look and see if you agree:

1. You Often Fantasize About Divorce

Fantasizing about divorce offers a feeling of freedom. "During a crisis or during a particularly bad time in a marriage, reminding yourself that you can always leave can be a reassuring thought. However, chronic fantasizing about divorce may indicate that you're stuck in a dynamic from which you don't know how to escape and need more help to solve."

2. The Frequency of Your Negative Experiences Far Outweighs the Number of Your Positive Experiences with Each Other

More 20 to 30 Somethings Are Getting Divorced ...

even though less are getting married

Posted to Relevant News by Amanda Lockhart on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 8:32am

I read an article recently that had a lot to say about the future of marriage as an institution.

According to statistics cited in the story, the number of 20-somethings who have never been married rose sharply between 2000 and 2006, and has continued to rise since. Among both men and women, the number of people in their 20s who had never been married increased nine percent over that initial six-year span. And yet, divorce amongst this age group is on the rise. Go figure?

But it's the actual percentages that are particularly interesting: 73 percent of men and 63 percent of women weren't married before age 30.

There are a lot of reasons why this is happening. Perhaps a fear of divorce has something to do with it, but the piece mentioned one possible reason is that it's becoming more and more difficult for 20-somethings to achieve financial independence. And with the housing market the way it is, that's only likely to continue.

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