Working women more likely to divorce

Telegraph ^ | 7/11/05 | Sarah Womack

[Crackingham]

Women working full-time are 29 per cent more likely to get divorced than those who stay at home and raise children. Research to be published this week in the European Sociological Review finds that the probability of divorce is in direct correlation to the number of hours a woman worked.

Marilyn Stowe, a female divorce lawyer, suggested that working women had the economic freedom to consider life beyond marriage.

She added that they had greater confidence in their ability to make new friends and find new partners. "You suggest going out to work to a woman who has been at home for 15 years and their response is often that of horror," she said. With both partners increasingly going out to work, the findings go some way to explain the country's rising divorce rate.

[mdmathis6]

Just some rhetorical questions!

You say "you divorced him" you did not say that he hated you and the kids so much that "he divorced you"? Did he ever express out right that "he didn't care for you or the kids"?

You say you were unhappy in your marriage and you saw your professional skills going stale. Did your husband react defensively to your unhappiness with him by becoming more distant and "uncaring" as you put it?

Did he ever cheat on you?

Was he a drunk?

Were you and the children in fact starving?

Did he hit you?

What would the kids say about the loss of dad and the loss of mom who has to work all the time?

Does dad visit them at all? Is he allowed to visit them at all?

My point is you come on here speaking about all these "uncaring" faults you describe but there is something in your posting's tone that perhaps you need to be a bit more self revealing

What would your ex husband have to say about you if we were to talk to him? Would he complain that you too cared little about your kids and the home caring more about the "loss of your professional skills instead?

How about a little cheese with that self serving whine of yours!

[TheWriterInTexas]

No insults from this end, RCA. That would be a wonderful option, if it was an option, and it was what we hoped for when our own children were born; however, medical complications and the ensuing medical debt were too overwhelming for us to overcome and I had to work.

Instead of going the daycare route, my husband and I work opposite hours, opposite days. It's been a real strainer for our marriage, but we live secure in the knowledge that our babies are being raised in trusted hands: our own.

If a couple can afford to have 1 parent stay at home, then they should. Those first few years of a child's life form their personality for a lifetime, and that is the single best investment of time that a parent can make. I realize, however, that this isn't a possiblity for a great many parents, for any number of reasons.

[Hildy]

Well, duh. It's easier to divorce if you have financial independence.

[CheneyChick]

Wow - sounds like your wife could use a copy of Dr. Laura's book: Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands

Women seem too quick to point out what they aren't getting out of their husbands, and somewhere along the line have forgotten some things they themselves need to do.

I'm not a huge Dr. Laura fan, but I do think she has some excellent points in this book. More women need to read it.

[F16Fighter]

Awww...your makin' me blush...Arasina (tee-hee)

[Al Simmons]

"Working Women" tend to be more selfish. They also have more unrealistic expectations about "having it all". When they can't have it "all", they often blame their husband - not making enough $$$, not helping enough, etc. They tend to be far more irrational.

But, once again, let me repeat (with special emphasis) the key here:

'WORKING WOMEN' TEND TO BE MORE SELFISH.

My experience (and the experience of an awful lot of other men victimized by them). They also tend to be far HARDER to please (again, see 'unrealistic expectations above), and probably suffer from far more guilt complexes once they have children which they (surprise, surprise) tend to transfer onto their husbands.

The only small consolation here is that, slowly but surely, the number of marriages where the wife has more assets is rising...so, when the irrational witch pulls the plug on a family, she, more and more often, gets a nasty surprise once she files in the court.

In these days of 'no fault' (read: no reason) divorce, that's as close as some men will ever get to seeing the perpetrator of a family tragedy punished, in one way at least.

[Hatteras]

"Not many women I know work all day, come home and veg out in front of the tv while waiting for someone to serve them dinner."

I could name one.

[Rebelbase]

"I hear men complaining that they don't want to be viewed as just a paycheck, but the fact is when they are the sole paycheck, the more likely their wife is to appreciate them for it."

You got it all wrong. The man needs to come straight home from work so he can take over all the household duties and watch the kids while the wife goes out with her girlfriends because staying at home with the kids is stressful.

Repeat many times each week, it's only fair.

[brwnsuga]

"Working women often don't care as much about their children as do women who sacrifice to stay home and raise their children."


Thats like saying working men don't care about their children ans non working men. It doesn't make sense. I have worked outside of the home and currently I am a homemaker. I didn't start loving my children more when I resigned my postion.

[BureaucratusMaximus]

Nobody posted the Captain Obvious pic...I'm very disappointed. :(

At any rate, IMHO...(flamesuit ready)...married women w/kids shouldn't work. They should stay home and raise their kids. Dads should be there after work too...not at the bar or parked in front of the TV watching nonsense. People (and I mean the majority of American middle to upper middle-class here) believe they need or have to have WAY too many things anyway. SOOOO much money wasted on nonsense. You can get by on one income just about anywhere if you take about 30 mins out of your time and do something called "planning ahead"...its revolutionary, I know. I mean you don't need 2 new cars every three years, if you can't afford something new find something second hand at a garage sale or something, you don't need a $50-$80 haircut every 2 months, you don't need your yard completely filled with Christmas figurines during Christmas, you don't need seven TV's in your house, etc., etc. I mean, your kids, and raising your kids are way more important then feeling "inferior" to the Jones's next door, any trinket, or any object that you can acquire. Your kids are your kids for life...and with some of the manners, disrespect, and overall thugness and smut I see from alot of kids today...more people need to realize this.

/rant off

BTW I'm a 31 year old dad...so I'm no old-fashioned old-fart, and my wife stays home with our kids...so I'm no hypocrite either FYI. ;)

[Melinda in TN]

Amen sister! Good to see you again!

To everybody else. I would have loved to have been able to stay home but I worked so that we could live in a decent neighborhood and my daughter could go to a decent school. I've been at the same company for thirty years, have job security and excellent insurance, life and medical, along with six weeks vacation each year. I've never "cheated" on him and don't plan to. My husband retired twelve years ago and I keep working to provide that great insurance. Without my insurance, he would depend on Medicare and I would have nothing.

My married life didn't start out this good. My first so-called husband thought that because I wasn't working and was dependent, he could cheat on me, hang out in night clubs, etc. He even brought his boyfriends into our home. I didn't have any luck changing him so yes, I got a job and filed for divorce. The job didn't cause the divorce, he did, but it gave me and my daughter a chance at a better life instead of living at his mercy.

[walden]

No, I don't need to be a bit more self-revealing. My children are adults now, my youngest is off to college in the fall, and I'm one of the happiest people I know. The lives of my children and myself have worked out fine, but thank you for your concern.

I merely stated a fact that marital problems may be the cause of women working rather than a result, something that seems to bother you enormously. Perhaps you should get some help with that hostility problem?

[HitmanLV]

Imo, it is "morality"; a satisfaction and security within that relationship; and respect for the relationship that prevents such behavior.

That doesn't explain many perfectly moral people who value their relationship with their spouses who have strayed. Few people set out to cheat. They have an attraction that is fanned, is reciprocated, and then in a moment of bad judgment they surrender to it.

That bad call often costs them their marriage. That's perfectly fair - a cheated-on spouse has the moral high ground in this case, all else being equal.

Like I said, most people were trustworthy before they cheated. So what's morality got to do with it? It creates the dynamic that keeps people from putting themselves in the kind of circumstance and exposed to that kind of opportunity. That's not to say avoid the opposite sex. It is to say that they should take minor steps to avoid that temptation.

Like I said, it's really "trust me to not put myself in that circumstance and be open to that opportunity." As I also said, protestations based on trust usually happen when one party actually IS putting themselves in a circumstance/opportunity that the other party in the marriage is uncomfortable with.

"Trust me" doesn't mean much to someone who knows what trust means and who has thought about infidelity maturely.

[HitmanLV]

I do my best! How's it going? :-)

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

"Where do you work? We had to work so hard that we hardly had time for lunch. I never met a man at work with whom I would want to have an affair. I loved my husband.

Anyone can have an affair anywhere. However, if you really love your spouse, you won't. It doesn't matter how many good looking men you meet, or women if you are a man"

Congratualtions on your mores, at three score plus six and jaded, I long ago stopped believing in Santa or the tooth fairy.

[k2blader]

Truly interesting.. Thank you for the illumination. :-)

[k2blader]

Definitely. Relationships (or marriages) founded upon morality (i.e. Jesus Christ) and mutual commitment work a *lot* better than those lacking those two qualities.

People can say, "Well, look at the divorce rate among Christians--it's as high as that among non-Christians," and they would have a point. Divorce of Christian parents is a terrible, awful thing. But I'd hazard a guess that most Christians who get divorced are either unequally yoked or have set themselves before their Lord and their families, so they really shouldn't be surprised when they run into problems.

[Delphinium]

I said often, not always. I too was a working woman. I worked to support my children because their father chose to abandon them. I did not work to get away from my children, or to buy new cars, fancy furniture, etc.. There is a big difference.

[Delphinium]

I agree with shrubbery and did not need a study to figure it out. Just look around?

This thread is not about women having to work, it is about women divorcing. Being divorced myself, I know it is not so simple. Divorce is horrible on kids, worse then mothers working.

Free Babtist has it right, the Bible, if followed is the instruction manual for abundant life.

[Delphinium]

I agree with shrubbery #219 and did not need a study to figure it out. Just look around?

This thread is not about women having to work, it is about women divorcing. Being divorced myself, I know it is not so simple. Divorce is horrible on kids, worse then mothers working.

Free Babtist has it right, the Bible, if followed is the instruction manual for abundant life.