The conventional wisdom about “children of divorce” is that they’re more likely to get divorced themselves. Indeed, studies have found that divorce rates are higher for people with divorced parents than for those with married parents.
Why is this? Speculation looks at many potential reasons, and every situation is different, so it’s hard to say for sure. One reason could be that parents set an example by getting divorced, so children are more likely to follow that example. In some cases, it could also be that unhappily married couples stay together for fear of what their married parents think, whereas those with divorced parents wouldn’t have this concern.
However, there is another way that having divorced parents can impact a marriage, and that is by influencing people to stay together. As one man put it, he had witnessed the issues and mistakes his own parents made. He knew why they got divorced, not just that they did.
In some senses, this also set an example for him, though it was a cautionary one. To keep his own marriage intact, he actively tried to avoid doing things that were in line with that example. He used his parents’ marriage as a blueprint of how not to do things.
Taking this line of thinking doesn’t always come naturally, though. It takes a certain type of person. Again, all marriages are different and the impact of a parental divorce on children will be different in every case.
If you do decide that you want to get divorced, just be sure you look carefully at all of your legal options.