The odds that any specific couple will get divorced are going to vary based on their own personal factors. You can look at the overall trends to get a general sense of how often divorce happens in the United States, but this doesn’t shed much light on a case-by-case basis. To do this, you need to look at more of the root causes and the specific reasons that divorce happens.
As it turns out, one of those reasons is the age at which you get married. It may be wise to consider what this means about your potential divorce odds in the future and how you can prepare if they are higher than you realized.
What age should you get married?
What studies have found is that the odds of divorce are higher for couples who get married at a younger age. For instance, when you study couples who got married at age 18 or 19, they typically have some of the highest divorce rates later in life. You can see this drop as they move through their 20s.
Interestingly, though, the drop does not continue forever. Once a person gets into their 30s, there is a swing at age 32. This is the point where the divorce odds start going back up again for every year that someone isn’t married. In this sense, 32 has been deemed the “ideal” age to get married, with the lowest divorce rates. Getting married before or after that age just makes it more likely that the marriage will end.
This is only one thing that causes divorce, however. If you’re splitting up for any reason, you must know your legal options.