Divorce is trending: why attitudes towards marriage are changing

Over the past year, several “star” couples broke up: Garik Kharlamov and Christina Asmus, Pavel Priluchny and Agata Mutsenietse, Timati and Anastasia Reshetova, Olga Kabo with her husband, Nadezhda Obolentseva and Rezo Gigineishvili. And far from stellar partners also diverged more often: after the end of the self-isolation regime, the number of divorces increased. This, among other things, was influenced by the need to stay in the same territory with a partner for a long time.

During the long winter holidays, many spouses will not go anywhere again and will spend this time alone with each other. There is a danger that the number of divorces will rise again.

“To fix or throw away?”

“I got married at 19, and for 29 years my husband and I have been living together. At a meeting of classmates – and we studied with him at the same school, in St. Petersburg – we are the only ones who got married early and did not divorce. Most have a divorce behind them, or even more than one,” says 48-year-old Irina.

There is a parable: an elderly couple who lived together for 50 years was asked how they managed to do it. They replied: “You know, in our time it was customary to fix broken things, and not throw them away.” Anti-divorce opponents like to cite this story as weighty evidence.

But in the matter of preserving marriage, there are no and cannot be universal formulas common to all people and situations of answers. Without evaluating divorce as a good or bad event, we will try to figure out why their number has increased and what influenced it.

Fashion theme

Statistics show that over the past 70 years, the number of divorces first increased rapidly, peaking in 2002, then gradually decreased. In 1950, there were 100 divorces for every 4 weddings. In 2002, this figure rose to 84%, and by 2019 it had dropped to 65%*.

This means that for at least two generations, divorce has been perceived as a very real option if family life does not work out. At the same time, divorce does not discourage family life at all. Systemic family therapists have noticed that roughly the same people get married and divorced repeatedly. That is, if a person “knows how” to marry, then they are more likely to do it again after a divorce.

“Divorce is in trend,” says Irina. – It seems that if you did not get divorced, then as if you lacked some experience. At the time of our parents, the public could condemn the collapse of the Soviet family. And now, it seems, they criticize if there is no divorce stamp in the passport.”

“Modern man has less reason to look for a partner in order to survive”

Ekaterina Klochkova, family systems therapist

In recent centuries, our way of life and ideas about the world order are changing especially rapidly, and with them the functioning of such long-known and seemingly reliable institutions as marriage.

Due to the short life expectancy and high mortality, people managed to get married only once during their lives, and the conclusion of a second marriage was most often associated with the premature death of a spouse. A modern person has much less reason to look for a partner in order to survive: the mistress of the house is not such a necessity for a city dweller, and the absence of a master in the house for a city dweller does not mean an inevitable need and the status of an old maid in the community.

Thus, for us, marriage has become a space where, first of all, emotional needs are realized, which can change significantly throughout life, since the duration of our existence has increased significantly and 30 years is not even its middle by modern standards.

It is also necessary to note the influence of culture on our ideas about marriage: each successive generation of writers contributes to the expectations of the quality and possibilities of a family union. Fiction is not always believable, but as a rule, the images created by writers are vivid and attractive and can have a significant impact on the expectations of many people.

The era of industrialization established and made widespread the nuclear – that is, consisting of parents or parent and children – form of the family. And in a post-industrial society, such a form of family as binuclear is gradually being established. Former spouses create subsequent unions, and their joint children become members of the new families of the mother and father. And the relationship with the previous partner, if a significant part of life was lived with him, does not completely stop, but acquires a new distance and boundaries.

Of course, such a form has not yet become intuitive and even more easy to implement. But a “good divorce” and the subsequent creation of a binuclear family makes it possible to ensure that the separation of the parents does not become the main traumatic childhood event for the child. The conditions for his calm growing up are preserved, both parents are equally emotionally available to children even after a divorce.

And for an adult, this form of relationship allows you not to delete a significant part of your life history. Divorce has become a frequent occurrence, not because it is “good” or “fashionable”, but because people are adapting to new realities and opportunities. We began to understand that maintaining a dysfunctional relationship is pointless. We learn to build a more comfortable life and give ourselves the right to happiness in new relationships.

^* https://www.planeta-zakona.ru/blog/razvod-v-tsifrakh-statistika-razvodov-v-rossii.html/