"The Law" is an arse...

[AmyRichardson]

Apparently you're most likely to be divorced if you married in 1987.

However, I don't think 1987 is special, just a point where duration of opportunity and social trend optimally combine. Other years will get their 15 minutes.

[Somewhatfoolish]

Part of the way crazy divorce statistics like the 2/3rd thing arise (as well as the more than one marriage meaning greater likelihood of divorce, in much the same as more sexual partners means greater likelihood of relationships failing, almost by definition) is that they're often devised by dumbly dividing the number of divorces in a year by the number of marriages. This would be fallacious even if marriage rates and population were stable. Since they're not it's basically a meaningless number.

[mac96]

Somewhatfoolish said:

Part of the way crazy divorce statistics like the 2/3rd thing arise (as well as the more than one marriage meaning greater likelihood of divorce, in much the same as more sexual partners means greater likelihood of relationships failing, almost by definition) is that they're often devised by dumbly dividing the number of divorces in a year by the number of marriages. This would be fallacious even if marriage rates and population were stable. Since they're not it's basically a meaningless number.

They also disregard the fact that marriages nowadays are less likely to be ended by premature death, giving more time for one or both parties to want out. Average length of marriage is probably a better measure of success rather than proportion of marriages ending in divorce.

[geeks]

mac96 said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

Part of the way crazy divorce statistics like the 2/3rd thing arise (as well as the more than one marriage meaning greater likelihood of divorce, in much the same as more sexual partners means greater likelihood of relationships failing, almost by definition) is that they're often devised by dumbly dividing the number of divorces in a year by the number of marriages. This would be fallacious even if marriage rates and population were stable. Since they're not it's basically a meaningless number.

They also disregard the fact that marriages nowadays are less likely to be ended by premature death, giving more time for one or both parties to want out. Average length of marriage is probably a better measure of success rather than proportion of marriages ending in divorce.

Although I have been defending the bullst of the stats as well, my family are not one to really measure such things. On both of my parents side, both of their parents divorced and remarried, then they (as in my parents) divorced (did not remarry) and all of their siblings have divorced and remarried (dad has 3 siblings, mum 4). So yeah.... marriage, the number one cause of divorce and all that

[Somewhatfoolish]

geeks said:

mac96 said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

Part of the way crazy divorce statistics like the 2/3rd thing arise (as well as the more than one marriage meaning greater likelihood of divorce, in much the same as more sexual partners means greater likelihood of relationships failing, almost by definition) is that they're often devised by dumbly dividing the number of divorces in a year by the number of marriages. This would be fallacious even if marriage rates and population were stable. Since they're not it's basically a meaningless number.

They also disregard the fact that marriages nowadays are less likely to be ended by premature death, giving more time for one or both parties to want out. Average length of marriage is probably a better measure of success rather than proportion of marriages ending in divorce.

Although I have been defending the bullst of the stats as well, my family are not one to really measure such things. On both of my parents side, both of their parents divorced and remarried, then they (as in my parents) divorced (did not remarry) and all of their siblings have divorced and remarried (dad has 3 siblings, mum 4). So yeah.... marriage, the number one cause of divorce and all that

In my "direct descent" line, no one has got divorced for many generations. Go a little bit further out to cousins or whatever and it's constant.

My wife's is ridiculously complicated due to coming from a polygamous-until-recently-then-just-doing-same-with-a-different-name culture but basically stloads of it.

Generally speaking in the UK it's the wife who initiates the divorce.

I am prone to doing very stupid things that ps off family members, friends, and colleagues.

My wife is considerably younger than me and far more attractive (I weigh over 3 times as much... she still gets ID'd). She also has a higher sex drive.

While I have no reason whatsoever from how things are going (ridiculously awesomely actually) to think it will come to it, statistically I think it's wise for me to try to keep up to date with divorce law

[Silvanus]

Somewhatfoolish said:

geeks said:

mac96 said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

Part of the way crazy divorce statistics like the 2/3rd thing arise (as well as the more than one marriage meaning greater likelihood of divorce, in much the same as more sexual partners means greater likelihood of relationships failing, almost by definition) is that they're often devised by dumbly dividing the number of divorces in a year by the number of marriages. This would be fallacious even if marriage rates and population were stable. Since they're not it's basically a meaningless number.

They also disregard the fact that marriages nowadays are less likely to be ended by premature death, giving more time for one or both parties to want out. Average length of marriage is probably a better measure of success rather than proportion of marriages ending in divorce.

Although I have been defending the bullst of the stats as well, my family are not one to really measure such things. On both of my parents side, both of their parents divorced and remarried, then they (as in my parents) divorced (did not remarry) and all of their siblings have divorced and remarried (dad has 3 siblings, mum 4). So yeah.... marriage, the number one cause of divorce and all that

In my "direct descent" line, no one has got divorced for many generations. Go a little bit further out to cousins or whatever and it's constant.

My wife's is ridiculously complicated due to coming from a polygamous-until-recently-then-just-doing-same-with-a-different-name culture but basically stloads of it.

Generally speaking in the UK it's the wife who initiates the divorce.

I am prone to doing very stupid things that ps off family members, friends, and colleagues.

My wife is considerably younger than me and far more attractive (I weigh over 3 times as much... she still gets ID'd). She also has a higher sex drive.

While I have no reason whatsoever from how things are going (ridiculously awesomely actually) to think it will come to it, statistically I think it's wise for me to try to keep up to date with divorce law

She told me you'd lost a little bit of weight recently

[Somewhatfoolish]

Silvanus said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

geeks said:

mac96 said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

Part of the way crazy divorce statistics like the 2/3rd thing arise (as well as the more than one marriage meaning greater likelihood of divorce, in much the same as more sexual partners means greater likelihood of relationships failing, almost by definition) is that they're often devised by dumbly dividing the number of divorces in a year by the number of marriages. This would be fallacious even if marriage rates and population were stable. Since they're not it's basically a meaningless number.

They also disregard the fact that marriages nowadays are less likely to be ended by premature death, giving more time for one or both parties to want out. Average length of marriage is probably a better measure of success rather than proportion of marriages ending in divorce.

Although I have been defending the bullst of the stats as well, my family are not one to really measure such things. On both of my parents side, both of their parents divorced and remarried, then they (as in my parents) divorced (did not remarry) and all of their siblings have divorced and remarried (dad has 3 siblings, mum 4). So yeah.... marriage, the number one cause of divorce and all that

In my "direct descent" line, no one has got divorced for many generations. Go a little bit further out to cousins or whatever and it's constant.

My wife's is ridiculously complicated due to coming from a polygamous-until-recently-then-just-doing-same-with-a-different-name culture but basically stloads of it.

Generally speaking in the UK it's the wife who initiates the divorce.

I am prone to doing very stupid things that ps off family members, friends, and colleagues.

My wife is considerably younger than me and far more attractive (I weigh over 3 times as much... she still gets ID'd). She also has a higher sex drive.

While I have no reason whatsoever from how things are going (ridiculously awesomely actually) to think it will come to it, statistically I think it's wise for me to try to keep up to date with divorce law

She told me you'd lost a little bit of weight recently

You're confused, that was my mum