It has long been known that getting married at a young age makes it more likely that you will get divorced. Someone who is 18 years old when they get married simply has higher divorce odds than someone who is, say, 32 when they marry. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that everyone who gets married at 18 will get divorced or that people who get married at 32 do not, but you can see clear trends when you look at the data.
But why does this happen? Why does the age of marriage play a role?
There are many reasons, and every marriage is unique
There are a lot of potential reasons, varying widely from one marriage to the next. For instance, one is simply that getting married young means that you have to be married longer. You might have already gone through 10 years of marriage by the time an older couple ties the knot.
Another issue is that some people romanticize the idea of marriage. Maybe they believe they’re looking for a soulmate. Maybe they just think a wedding party sounds fun. If they have these sorts of light-hearted reasons to get married, they may not be taking it seriously enough, and that can increase the odds of divorce.
Finally, people still are going to change quite a bit as young adults. Some people change together and grow up together, and then they stay married. But other people change in ways they wouldn’t have expected, and eventually, they find out that the marriage is no longer a good fit for either of them.
If you’re considering a divorce, no matter why you’re doing it, the key is simply to know about all the legal steps you’ll need to take to protect your interests.
