Not everything according to researchers from Australian National University who have identified what it takes to keep a couple together. They conducted the study, entitled “What’s Love Got to Do With It.” The study tracked nearly 2,500 couples(married and living together).
Between 2001 to 2007 the researchers identified factors associated with those who remained together compared with those who divorced or separated.
Among the factors;
- A couple’s age
- Previous relationships
- Whether they smoke or not
- A husband who is nine or more years older than his wife is twice as likely to get divorced, as are husbands who get married before they turn 25.
- 20% of couples who have kids before marriage separated compared to just nine percent of couples without children born before marriage.
- Women who want children much more than their partners are also more likely to get a divorce.
- A couple’s parents also have a role to play in their own relationship, with the study showing some 16 % of men and women whose parents ever separated or divorced experienced marital separation themselves compared to 10 percent for those whose parents did not separate.
- Partners who are on their second or third marriage are 90 percent more likely to separate than spouses who are both in their first marriage.
- 16 percent of respondents who indicated they were poor or where the husband — not the wife — was unemployed saying they had separated, compared with only nine percent of couples with healthy finances.
- Divorce was twice as likely in marriages in which the man was two or more years younger than his wife.
- Relationships in which one person smoked and the other did not were between 75 and 90 per cent more likely to end than those of non-smoking couples.
- Couples in which both people had been previously married had a 90 per cent higher chance of splitting than those marrying for the first time.
Factors that were not important included country of birth, religious background and education levels.As well as the number and age of children, a woman’s employment status and years in paid employment did not play a role.