Why do people get divorced: the main reasons for divorces in Russia

When betrayal happens, the world falls apart. Why? For what? Something went wrong? And what to do next - break off the relationship or try to mend it? Psychologist with 35 years of experience, Janice Spring, wrote the book “Betrayal,” where she tells how to survive the crisis after betrayal, sort out your feelings and decide whether to save the relationship.

We chose an excerpt from the book about how men and women react differently to betrayal.

The main reasons for divorce according to statistics

In the “Reason” column in the application for divorce, people most often indicate the following.

Addiction of one of the spouses to alcohol and drugs

According to statistics, this is the most common cause of divorce, destroying about 30% of all families. Constant stress, high workload, and the frantic pace of life force people to seek solace at the bottom of the bottle. Men are more susceptible to alcoholism, because responsibility for the family most often lies with them. For many, this burden turns out to be unbearable, especially if there is no support from the spouse, but only constant reproaches and demands.

Domestic violence

Violence in marriage is not uncommon today, and this is exactly the case when you need to leave immediately. It's better to be divorced but alive than to be dead with a ring on your finger. And I am not exaggerating - many of those who expected their spouse to improve suffered this terrible fate.

Naturally, the role of the rapist is the one who is stronger. In 99% of cases it is a man. Those who believe that only some scumbags and marginal individuals resort to assault are wrong. Violence in families occurs when irritation, anger and resentment, without finding a way out, reach a critical level and put a person into a state of passion. He turns into a beast, unable to control his rage.

Having returned to consciousness after what happened, the man is overcome with a feeling of guilt, he cannot understand how he did such a thing, and begins to beg for forgiveness in all possible ways. If the wife decides to forgive him, they both fall into a trap from which it will be very difficult to get out later.

The woman will feel like a victim and expect compensation from her husband for his aggression. The man will be tormented by feelings of guilt and circle around his wife like her faithful page. And the factors that initially caused irritation and anger will not go away; on the contrary, new ones will be added to them. The next outbreak of passion will not be long in coming. A woman needs to know about this in order to break this vicious circle.

If you are a victim of domestic violence, do not tolerate it! Go live with your parents or girlfriend and prepare for a divorce. To figure out what to do, read our article “How to divorce your husband.”

Adultery

Dissatisfaction with sex life in marriage pushes people to look for relationships on the side. Most people consider cheating to be a betrayal, but not every betrayal leads to divorce.

Due to certain gender characteristics, male and female infidelity are perceived differently by spouses. Men cheat more often, but it is easier to forgive a woman for her husband’s betrayal than for a wife’s betrayal of a man. In addition, circumstances play an important role: with whom the spouse cheated, whether it was an unfortunate accident or a long-term vicious relationship, what kind of relationship he had with his lover or mistress.

Financial difficulties

Very often the love boat crashes in everyday life, especially among people who love to build castles in the air and soar in the clouds. Only men and women have different views on the problem, one might even say opposite. A woman, dissatisfied with the financial situation of her family, is inclined to place all responsibility on the man - he earns little, he won’t take me to the Maldives, I’ll go to someone else and I’ll live like a queen.

A man often perceives family life as an obstacle to his career growth. “Now, if I didn’t have to support all this horde and waste my time on them, I would have risen to the rank of boss a long time ago,” this is how the dissatisfied husband roughly thinks.

Such fantasies have little relation to reality, but people understand this too late.

Living with relatives under one roof

The housing problem has always been acute for residents of big cities; Bulgakov wrote about this in “The Master and Margarita.” Unable to move into separate housing, young couples usually live in a house with the parents of one of the spouses.

Very rarely does such cohabitation benefit the relationship. In especially severe cases, divorce occurs.

Long business trips for husband or wife

The occupation of many people involves constant travel and long stays away from home. These are athletes, military personnel, sailors, pilots, truck drivers, and artists. People who get married usually have little idea of ​​what awaits them.

Feelings of loneliness, worries about your spouse and jealousy can kill even the strongest love. Especially if your own life is boring and monotonous, and your spouse is the only light in the window.

Inability to have children

Infertility in married couples is not uncommon today; about 6% of marriages break up for this reason. A spouse whose fertility is fine may find it difficult to come to terms with the impossibility of having natural children, and he leaves. Most often this is a man; a woman in this situation can resort to artificial insemination.

Irreconcilable contradictions in views on life

When getting married, many people do not bother to discuss important life-changing issues among themselves: where they will live, how they will share responsibilities and manage the family budget, whether they will have children and how soon. As a result, very often views diverge, and none of the spouses wants to compromise. Everyone tries to bend the other, scandals and showdowns begin, and in the end people not only get divorced, but turn into their worst enemies.

Intercultural and interfaith marriages are at risk. The traditions and customs of different peoples are very different, and this, naturally, leaves an imprint on family life. I know couples who separated after 10 years of marriage, unable to agree on what name to name their child. This could be funny if it weren't so sad.

We have found out the main reasons that lie on the surface and are visible to the naked eye. But if you dig deeper, it very often turns out that they are only a consequence of the psychological and personal problems of two people who happen to be nearby.

People are not always able to reflect on these internal problems and draw the right conclusions. If, after a divorce, a person blames his ex-spouse for all the sins, but does not see a drop of guilt behind himself, with a high degree of probability we can say that his next relationship will end in failure. Therefore, psychologists advise always maintaining mental hygiene and always working on yourself.

What might be missing in a marriage?

When entering into marriage, each spouse expects something from their partner.
When a husband or wife no longer meets the needs of their other half, things move towards divorce. A man, starting a family, dreams of receiving the following from a woman:

• selfless love;
• true feeling;
• accepting all his shortcomings;
• understanding a man;
• general views on life;
• compatibility with partner;
• sex appeal;
• mutual respect;
• opportunity and desire to have children.

When a woman gets married, she expects the following from her relationship with her partner:

• feeling of security;
• respectful attitude;
• male fidelity;
• financial well-being;
• selfless love;
• dreams of having children, the desire to help raise them:
• common interests;
• sexual compatibility.

Stages of conflicts that lead to divorce:

• dispute for leadership in the family, constant rivalry;
• visible cooperation - the distribution of roles in the family ceases to coincide with the desires of each spouse, but the realization comes that one needs to live by the rules, follow certain boundaries. Such behavior leads to the fact that everyone begins to live their own lives. Often in such a situation, they decide to save the family for the sake of the well-being of the children or the reluctance to share living space. Problems arise in sex, intimacy is mechanical in nature. At this stage, relationships on the side often arise.

Psychological aspects of divorce

The cornerstone of all human problems, including those related to the inability to build family relationships, is the psychological immaturity of the individual. In other words – infantilism. The phenomenon is widespread and very difficult to eradicate in our time due to blurred values ​​and lack of moral guidelines.

It manifests itself in the reluctance and inability to take responsibility, the refusal to rely on oneself, and the search for external sources of emotional and material comfort.

It is not surprising that the initiators of divorce are more often women - gender stereotypes allow them to remain weak and dependent almost into old age, but such indulgences, as a rule, have to be paid dearly. The faster a person grows up, the more successful and happier his life will be.

One of the consequences of personal immaturity is egocentrism. It eats away at a marriage like rust - gradually but inevitably. A family union of two egocentrics is doomed to a quick divorce and rarely lasts longer than three years. If in a couple only one spouse suffers from egocentrism, the other can carry everything on himself for quite a long time. But sooner or later the cup of patience is overflowing, and he leaves, leaving the second one in bewilderment and confusion.

This topic is covered well by a male psychologist in the video.

Statistics.

According to Rosstat, the number of official divorce proceedings in Russia is decreasing compared to previous years, although it remains at a high level. Thus, in 2022, 985 thousand marriages and 608 thousand divorces were registered.

If we take into account the statistics of recent years 16,17,18, the trends indicate an improvement in the situation. For comparison, the following data can be provided.

According to statistics for 2022, the largest number of divorces occur in the following regions:

• Penza region;
• Kirov region;
• Saratov region.

The fewest official applications for divorce are in Tatarstan, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. In the republics, no more than 200 divorces were recorded over the past year.

Statistics confirm that traditionally the Caucasus regions have the least number of official cases of family breakdown.

This is associated with the cultural values ​​and customs of local peoples. Among the leaders in the number of divorces are the Leningrad and Magadan regions.

On opposite sides of the barricades: divorce from the point of view of a man and a woman

We have already found out that women are more likely to initiate divorce. Let's look at some more gender-specific features of divorce.

Well, firstly, it’s worth saying that divorce is much less beneficial for a man than for a woman, especially in a marriage with children. Children in 80% of cases remain with their mother, and the father, often unable to fully communicate with them, must bear the burden of their material maintenance. You need to know this and always keep it in mind.

Therefore, prudent men try to save the marriage until the end, or at least separate without scandal.

In addition to the above, husbands identify the following motives and grounds for divorcing their wives:

• dissatisfaction with sex life;
• interference of the wife's parents in the family affairs of the young;
• demandingness and constant dissatisfaction of the wife;
• woman's wild lifestyle.

Wives understand that it is time to divorce their husbands based on the following signs:

• lack of a sense of security and reliable rear;
• too heavy a load at home;
• lack of attention from the husband;
• a man’s bad relationship with his wife’s children from a previous marriage.

Why?

Photo by RODNAE Productions: Pexels
The main formal reasons are as follows:

• Limited financial resources
• Cheating and jealousy
• “Differing in character”
• Loss of mutual understanding
• No children

Perhaps such explanations will suit sociologists. But what should we do with them? What's really behind these points?

The 21st century gives us great opportunities. But it also makes huge new demands.

The concepts of marriage, family, and relationships are being rethought. Divorce is no longer something seditious and socially condemned. Almost every second child grew up in a single-parent family, and - consciously or not - considers this the norm.

At-risk groups

Psychologists identify several factors that increase the likelihood of divorce. The first of them is age. The optimal period for starting a family is considered to be from 23 to 30 years. The person has already completed his studies, separated from his parents and entered into an independent adult life.

Too early marriages, as a rule, are concluded solely on emotions without taking into account common sense and prospects for the future. Young people have an idealized and romanticized idea of ​​marriage. They project beautiful stories from films and books onto their lives, but in them, as a rule, they are silent about the mortgage, socks scattered around the apartment, division of family responsibilities and other “delights” of family life.

After thirty, an individual becomes completely self-sufficient, acquires social status and financial opportunities, and it becomes difficult for him to fit another person into his well-established and comfortable life.

The second factor contributing to the breakdown of a family is the excessive passion of one of the spouses for their career. Workaholism is becoming increasingly widespread today. But this is also an addiction, like gambling addiction, shopaholism and compulsive overeating - sooner or later it leads to the destruction of personality.

The only difference is that workaholism has recently become a socially acceptable type of addiction, in some cases even encouraged. A man who works around the clock seems like a good option for starting a family, in contrast to a slacker who disappears around the clock in the virtual worlds of computer games.

When harsh reality reveals itself in all its glory, it is usually too late. The passport is already stamped and the rings are on.

Marriages of convenience also very often end in divorce. Material wealth cannot in any way compensate for the emotional component of a relationship. In addition, as a rule, these are unequal marriages. Needless to say, age, culture, and financial gaps have a negative impact on family life.

Social reasons and factors provoking divorces

Social trends and processes cannot but leave their mark on the institution of the family. And although this is not a direct influence, but an indirect one, I could not ignore it. Let's figure out what factors can provoke such a huge number of divorces.

• Propaganda of childlessness

The motto of modern youth is to live one day at a time and don’t worry. Everything that does not fit into this doctrine - namely, any responsibility, hard work, moral and ethical principles - is considered harmful and destructive. We see how the idle and selfish lifestyle is idealized in films, modern literature and show business.

Naturally, there is no place for children in such a picture of the world. And childless marriages break up much more often - this is a fact confirmed by statistics. The total number of divorces is 65%.

• Exaggeration of the role of sex in people's lives

Sexual stimuli today lie in wait for us everywhere - on the street, on TV, on the radio, on the Internet; the only place you can hide from them is in a kindergarten or church. Particularly “progressive” sections of society constantly strive for sexual liberation, although there is no room for liberation.

Against the backdrop of such aggressive brainwashing, married people begin to feel somewhat damaged and deprived, because marriage imposes certain restrictions on male and female libido. They begin to look with envy at their single friends and come to the conclusion that they did not have time to have fun. And having escaped to the long-awaited freedom, as a rule, they bitterly regret the broken family.

• Body cult

First of all, of course, women's. The deification of girlish beauty has always taken place, but today it has acquired completely grotesque forms. It’s a paradox, but it is the fair sex themselves who suffer from this state of affairs first of all.

A woman loses her external attractiveness before a man - the birth of children leaves its mark, sad as it may be. Closer to 40, she can no longer compete with young girls for the attention of the opposite sex, while the target audience of men, on the contrary, is expanding. Having reached his fifth decade, he can be a desirable gentleman for both a twenty-year-old and a fifty-year-old lady.

When young photoshopped beauties with perfect bodies look at him from Instagram pages, he begins to critically evaluate his wife. All her services to him and the years spent together fade into the background. It is at this age that men often leave their wives and demand a divorce.

Statistics of marriages and divorces by federal districts for January-July 2022

News publications are full of headlines that the number of marriages and divorces in Russia has increased in 2022. Let's figure out what this conclusion is based on.

Statistics from 2022 are taken and compared with those from 2021. But such an analysis is unlikely to show real results.

We remember that due to the pandemic, registering a marriage or filing a divorce in 2022 was difficult. Therefore, many couples have postponed the official process until 2022.

It turns out that the number of marriages and divorces in 2022 has increased due to citizens who were unable to formalize their marriage or divorce in 2022.

To confirm this version, you can view statistics for 3 years. The table below shows marriage and divorce rates for January-July 2022, 2022 and 2022. Most federal districts have the highest figures for 2022. Therefore, the conclusions that the pandemic was the cause of most divorces in 2022 do not have sufficient grounds.