Updated on May 2, 2024
Divorce is a complex legal matter, and it signals the end of a relationship that the couple intended to last. The old adage that half of all marriages end in divorce is more of a saying than a statistic that’s based on fact, and in the end, it’s much more complicated than that.
Better understanding divorce statistics and trends in this country can give you greater insight into your own, and if you are facing a divorce, it’s always in your best interest to consult with an experienced Killeen divorce attorney.
Divorce Rates Are Trending Downward
The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reports the following marriage and divorce statistics for 2022:
There were 2,065,905 marriages, which is a marriage rate of 6.2 per 1,000 total population.
There were 673,989 divorces, which is a divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 total population.
CDC shares that, in 2022, marriage rates returned to pre-pandemic rates in the United States. Overall, the divorce rate in the country is continuing in a longstanding downward trend. Marriage rates have also decreased over time.
A Brief History
Divorce rates in this country stood at 22.6 per 1,000 married women in 1979 – according to a study out of Bowling Green State University, and the general trend since then has been downward.
During the pandemic – in 2020 and 2021 – divorce rates reached a record-breaking 40-year low. This steep drop, however, balanced out to that steady decline we have seen over the last four decades – once court dockets opened back up, and couples could move forward with their filings.
The State of Texas is in the bottom 50 percent when it comes to divorce rates – ranking in the 29th spot. Second and third marriages are significantly more likely to end in divorce than first marriages are. And although divorce is more costly for women, they are significantly more likely to initiate the divorce process.
Women Tend to Initiate Divorce
It is interesting to note the American Sociological Society Association’s finding that women initiate divorce 69 percent of the time. While many postulate that this means women are more attuned to relationship problems, this is not supported by the fact that women are not more likely than men to initiate breakups when they are in non-married heterosexual couples.
The U.S. Census
The U.S. Census finds that up to 56 percent of young adults – or those between the ages of 18 and 24 are living with their parents – rather than marrying young. Further, up to 16 percent of adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are remaining in their childhood homes in response to factors like the following:
To help their aging parents
To address financial concerns
To continue their educations and advance their careers
The Pew Research Center adds that more and more couples who share children are choosing to live together rather than marry.
Gray Divorce
A divorce trend that continues to strengthen throughout the country is gray divorce – or divorce after many years of marriage when the spouses are generally empty-nesters and have better-established financial circumstances.
CNBC reports that gray divorce has doubled since the 1990s – and for those over the age of 60, it has tripled. This is all while divorce rates, in general, have slowed. In fact, in a recent year, 9 percent of everyone who divorced was at least 65 years old.
The financial strain of gray divorce is even more significant for women, and factors like the following bolster this effect:
Women from this generation are more likely to fill traditional roles, which means they may not have worked over the course of their marriages or may have given up their own careers to support their spouses’.
The persistent pay gap in the U.S. ensures that women earn less – overall – than men to begin with.
Gray divorce ensures that women have less time to make up for earning discrepancies by bolstering their financial circumstances.
Common Reasons for Divorce
Every divorce is unique to the couple involved, and every divorcing couple has their own unique reason for divorce. Most primary reasons, however, fall into categories like the following:
Lack of commitment
Lack of intimacy
Basic incompatibility
Financial issues
Substance abuse
Commitment
Marriage is nothing if not a commitment, so it may come as no surprise that one of the most common reasons voiced when it comes to divorce is a lack of commitment. Often, however, both spouses point to the other as not having fully committed to the relationship.
While many people think of extramarital affairs when it comes to a lack of commitment, this category is actually much broader, including relationship issues such as lack of communication or lack of a firm commitment to shared financial goals.
Ultimately, every marriage that ends does so for a variety of personal reasons that are unique to the family involved, which makes categorizing the reasons for divorce as challenging as pinning down the divorce rate.
Your Divorce
If you need a divorce, what matters most is addressing your unique concerns, protecting your parental and financial rights, and seeking terms that work for you and your children. In this pursuit, it’s always wise to work closely with an experienced Killeen divorce attorney.
Child Custody
Your child custody arrangements will guide the schedule by which you and your ex divide your time with your shared children, which makes it a critical determination. In Texas, child custody is grouped into both physical custody – or the parenting time schedule – and legal custody.
Physical Custody or Parenting Time
Physical custody sets your parenting time schedule, and Texas courts always make these determinations in light of the children’s best interests. Toward this end, the court takes the following factors and others into account:
Each parent’s preferences
Each child’s reasonable preferences – as deemed appropriate
How involved each parent has been in caring for the children to date
Each parent’s level of commitment in terms of continuing to support the other’s ongoing relationship with the kids
Each child’s needs, including any special needs, and each parent’s ability to meet these needs
Whether domestic violence or child abuse is a concern
Any other factors the court deems applicable
When it comes to parenting time, the basic options include one of you becoming the primary custodial parent and providing the children with their primary home or both of you dividing your overnights with the kids more equally.
Legal Custody
As parents, we have to make a wide range of important decisions on behalf of our children that guide their upbringing. Legal custody determines how you and your ex will address this responsibility. You have several options, including the following arrangements:
Continuing to make these decisions together the way you did while married
Continuing to make these decisions together but affording one of you the power to break a tie if you cannot reach an agreement
Splitting this responsibility between you according to the kind of decision that needs to be made
Granting one of you sole legal custody
The following list explains the kinds of decisions at stake in legal custody:
Decisions about your children’s healthcare
Decisions about your children’s extracurriculars
Decisions about your children’s religious education
The decisions that parents need to make on a moment-by-moment basis remain the responsibility of whomever the kids are with at the time. If a decision needs to be made in the face of an emergency, the available parent will be called upon to do so.
Child Support
Along with child custody, there is child support to determine. The State of Texas requires parents to support their children financially, and when the parents are divorced, child support is employed to help balance this support between both parents.
Consider these primary factors that affect the determination of child support:
Each parent’s ability to earn
Each parent’s age and overall physical and mental health
Each parent’s separate assets
How many overnights the children spend with each parent
While many factors go into the calculation process, the parent who earns more typically has the child support obligation – even when the parenting time schedule is shared evenly.
The Division of Marital Property
Every divorcing couple must address the division of marital property. In Texas, the assets that you come to own while you are married are considered marital, and this is true regardless of who made the purchase or who signed for it. The only exceptions are gifts and inheritances that either of you receives in your name alone.
These marital assets – or their overall value – must be divided between you and your divorcing spouse in a manner that is deemed fair given the relevant circumstances, which include factors like the following:
The contributions each of you made to the marital estate, including contributions in the form of taking care of the home and the children
Each spouse’s separate assets
Wrongdoing that the court considers relevant
Each spouse’s earning power and current income
Anything else the court finds applicable
While separate assets will remain the separate property of the spouse to whom they belong, it’s important to note both the following considerations:
For an asset to be considered separate, the spouse to whom the asset belongs must keep it separate throughout the marriage, which can prove challenging.
Any increase in the value of the separate asset will be considered marital and will need to be addressed as such. Common examples include retirement accounts and other financial tools.
Alimony
Alimony only factors into those divorces in which there is a considerable discrepancy between the divorcing spouses’ financial circumstances.
For example, if one spouse is not able to continue supporting themself at the same standard of living – or near the same standard of living – they enjoyed while married and the other has the financial means to help, alimony may be ordered.
Generally, alimony is intended to provide the recipient with the financial assistance necessary to gain the education or job skills necessary to become more financially independent.
The Court’s Role
The court will need to sign off on the terms of your divorce even if you and your divorcing spouse are able to resolve every applicable term yourselves. This is part of the finalization process, and the court is almost certain to rubberstamp your terms.
However, if there are any terms that have stalled your negotiations and that you are unable to resolve, you may need the court to intervene. At this point, a divorce becomes contested, and you and your divorcing spouse give up your decision-making power in the matter.
Before you get to this point, you have several options to help you resolve the remaining terms:
Continuing to negotiate between yourselves while looking to your respective divorce attorneys to help you guard your rights throughout the process
Allowing your respective divorce attorneys to negotiate on behalf of each of your rights and best interests – if your ability to communicate freely with one another has broken down to the point that open negotiations are no longer possible
Heading to mediation, where a professional mediator works in the capacity of a neutral third party to help you and your soon-to-be ex – along with your respective divorce attorneys – explore your best options from a fresh perspective
It’s important to recognize that, even if you go to court for your divorce, you retain the right to resolve the remaining terms until the court rules on the matter. Simply scheduling a court date can motivate some otherwise stubborn spouses to dig a bit deeper during negotiations – rather than leaving these very personal matters in the hands of the court.
How Your Attorney Can Help
Divorce tends to be a very tumultuous process. In fact, setting your divorce priorities and continuing to focus on them can be exceptionally difficult. Your trusted Killeen divorce attorney will help in all the following important ways:
Succinctly establishing what your marital assets are and drawing a firm line regarding your separate assets
Skillfully advocating for your parental rights and for a parenting time schedule that honors these rights and works for you and your children
Helping you better understand the divorce process and helping you make carefully considered decisions that bolster your rights throughout
Keeping your divorce moving forward smoothly
Skillfully negotiating with your spouse’s divorce attorney for fair terms that you can both live with
An Experienced Killeen Divorce Attorney Is on Your Side
Brett Pritchard at The Law Office of Brett H. Pritchard in Killeen, Texas, takes great pride in his impressive track record of guiding challenging cases like yours toward optimal outcomes, and he is here for you, too. Learn more by contacting us online or calling us at 254-781-4222 today.