Most Couples Are Getting Divorced Because Of This Sad Reason, Study Says
There's good news and there's bad news.
getty By Lindsay Mannering
There's good news and there's bad news.
The good news is that couples are divorcing less these days due to infidelity. But the bad news? The bad news is that they're divorcing more because they've fallen out of love. Well, that's depressing.
In 2011, according to research done in the form of a survey by leading family law firms, it was found that the most common reason cited for divorce was a couple falling out of love.
This was the main reason that couples were giving the go-ahead to the proceedings for getting a divorce.
I honestly don't know which is more depressing: having an extra-marital affair, or just deciding that you'd rather be alone than to have to look at your spouse's face every night for the rest of your life.
They both sound kind of awful to me, but I'd rather have my husband cheat on me than have him fall out of love with me. Imagine you're married for all those years, and suddenly, your partner forgets what brought you together in the first place?
Cheating is something that you can work through. I mean, if bull-headed Miranda Hobbes could forgive Steve, can't we all? (That's a Sex and the City reference, for those who don't know.) An affair, depending on its circumstances, seems like an obstacle between two people that can be overcome.
While I wouldn't forgive my husband if he had a second family in Arizona or something like that, I would be open to forgiveness if his affair was a one-night sort of deal. Of course, I'd be devastated (as I hope that he would be, too), but there's still therapy and counseling and crying and friends that can mend the tear in the relationship.
And, who knows, you could even emerge stronger and more in love than you were before the harrowing process.
And if you do decide to get a divorce after the affair, it would be an easier pill to swallow than getting a divorce because you've fallen out of love.
If he were to come up to me and say that he's fallen out of love with me — that he's willing to re-enter the dating pool, that he's gotten an apartment downtown, and that I can keep the house because he just doesn't want to be around me anymore — that just seems way more harsh.
It's so much more personal that way!
While cheating would kill me, it wouldn't deflate me as much as it would to have someone admitting that they're so over me that they'd like to legally separate themselves from my life. Even after all we'd built together.
(By the way, I've knocked on wood after each sentence, because it's not like either scenario is at all desirable.)
Lindsay Mannering has contrinuted to the Huffington Post and Styleite, and was featured in Tara Stiles' yoga book, 'Slim, Calm, Sexy.'
Editor's Note: This article was originally posted in September 2011 and was updated with the latest information.