Study Says Divoced People Unhappy

N E W   Y O R K, July 11, 2002 -- It seems logical: If you're in an unhappy marriage, a divorce will make you a happier person.

But a controversial new study is disputing that logic with its findings that divorced people are no happier than unhappy couples who choose to stay married.

The report, "Does Divorce Make People Happier?," also says that most unhappy marriages become happier if couples stick it out. The study was released today by the Institute for American Values, which describes itself as a "private, nonpartisan organization devoted to contributing intellectually to the renewal of marriage and family life."

Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago and co-author of the book The Case for Marriage, is the lead author of the study. She says the unhappy couples in her study who decided to divorce are no happier than those who stayed married.

"Basically you don't improve your emotional well-being, on average, by divorcing," Waite said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "It's about the same as it is for staying in an unhappy marriage. Which, by the way, doesn't tend to stay unhappy."

The researcher used data collected by the National Survey of Family and Households, a nationally representative survey that extensively measures personal and marital happiness. Out of 5,232 married adults interviewed in the late 1980s, 645 reported being unhappily married. Five years later, these same adults were interviewed again. Some had divorced or separated and some had stayed married.

Flawed Study?

Pepper Schwartz, the author of the book Everything You Know About Love and Sex Is Wrong, says the institute's findings result from a flawed study. Schwartz says the researchers combined both divorced and separated couples in the study.

"Separated people are notoriously the least happy of all; they're in transition," Schwartz said. "So, if you take the separated people out of their data, only look at the divorced people, you find, indeed, that divorced people are happier than the people who stayed in the unhappy marriage."

Schwartz says divorced people become happier when the divorce is behind them, adding that she has seen plenty of data supporting her claim.

Waite does admit that divorce is necessary in some cases, but she believes the results of this study show that divorce is oversold.

C’mon, Get Happy!

Waite's research team also reported that two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stayed married reported that their marriages were happy five years later.

Schwartz says unhappy couples don't just become happy, she says they become resigned to the marriage.

"That just doesn't pass the smell test," Schwartz said. "They justify their choice, they stay there because of the children or because they believe in marriage as an institution and they're going to slug through it. But happier or happy enough to justify it in other people's opinion, no."

Susan Bacot and her husband were married for nine years before they decided to divorce. Bacot, who's going through the legal process, says she and her husband are happier now then when they tried to make it work.

She says divorced couples can't just depend on the separation as a source of happiness.

"I think a divorce in and of itself is not really the only answer. I think divorce in combination with a lot of self-reflection and looking at the marriage and where you've been and what you've done wrong and maybe why you chose the person you did."