Meeting Places and Romance

One reason for this is what we might call the divorce echo effect. Older individuals are more often in remarriages, not first marriages, and remarriages have long been more likely than first marriages to end through divorce. People who have been divorced in the past are more willing to divorce again in the event a marriage becomes unsatisfying. In contrast, some proportion of those in first marriages are unwilling to divorce even if they have an unsatisfying marriage. more »

There were five of us seated around the table — circular, so much better than rectangle where an empty chair would have been haunting. Four dear friends, who didn't want me alone on my aborted 15-year wedding anniversary, treated me to dinner at a favorite neighborhood restaurant. It was the same spot Tommy and I, and this very same group, celebrated at each year. more »

Julia Sneden writes: We are not so much proud of our ancestors as we are just grateful to them, for being tough enough and stubborn enough to have picked up and moved when they needed or simply wanted to do so. Crossing the Atlantic (or any other ocean) in a tiny little wooden ship must have taken huge amounts of courage, and once here, huge amounts of energy and brain power to keep from starving to death. more »

"This study explores the relationship between using social networks sites (SNS), marriage satisfaction and divorce rates using survey data of married individuals and state-level data from the United States. Results show that using SNS is negatively correlated with marriage quality and happiness, and positively correlated with experiencing a troubled relationship and thinking about divorce. These correlations hold after a variety of economic, demographic, and psychological variables related to marriage well-being are taken into account." more »