User:Drafan9098

Mr J Smith

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ing in the marriage, and having a long-term view of the relationship. Other research suggests that people are particularly likely to be thinking about the desire to have a future together, when thinking about commitment. As such, respondents here may be saying that they lacked a desire or vision for a future that was sufficient to overcome their difficulties.

Among the other reasons given for explaining their divorces, the Oklahomans’ responses parallel the extensive empirical literature on risk factors for marital distress and divorce. For example, it is noteworthy that so many Oklahomans said that marrying young was a key contributor to their own divorces. The data presented elsewhere in this report clearly support their assessment: Marrying young is a significant contributor to the risk of divorce in Oklahoma. Likewise, there is extensive literature documenting the potency of negative interaction and conflict to erode and destroy the bond between partners in marriage. Those findings, combined with the 30% who said domestic violence played a role in their getting divorced, suggest a considerable number of divorces in Oklahoma may occur in higher conflict marriages, though we cannot estimate precisely how many, or how high the level of conflict (and the level of dangerousness), from this data. There are differing kinds of domestic violence, and respondents were not asked questions that would differentiate between types.

A high percentage of respondents indicated infidelity was a cause of their divorce. Infidelity may be a very strong contributor to marital failure in Oklahoma. However, such responses are hard to evaluate in the absence of more precise questioning, because a significant amount of infidelity occurs after one or both partners have clearly decided to end the marriage.

Most of the reasons differed significantly by gender of the respondent. Only three reasons did not differ appreciably by gender: lack of commitment, lack of support from family members, and religious differences between partners. Women were more likely than men to indicate the following reasons had been major contributing factors to their divorce: too much conflict and arguing, infidelity or extramarital affairs, little or no helpful premarital preparation, financial problems or economic hardship, and domestic violence. Men were more likely than women to cite getting married too young. Table 13 breaks down the reasons cited by gender. For many, infidelity is also a sign of low commitment and a destructive way of handling the inevitable conflicts in marriage.