ABSTRACT
Divorce continues to be widely studied among family scholars with nearly 2,000 studies on the topic published in the last decade (Amato, 2010). Although the divorce rate in the US appears to have declined from its peak around 1980, 2% of all marriages end in divorce each year and demographic projections suggest that between 43 and 46% of current marriages will end in divorce (Schoen & Canudas-Romo, 2006; Schoen & Standish, 2001). Marriages and cohabiting relationships in the US are also more likely to be dissolved than relationships in other Western nations. Comparatively, American women are more likely to marry; they marry and cohabit for the first time at an earlier age; and their marriages are more likely to end in divorce ( Cherlin, 2009). Within the first 5 years of marriage, more than one-fifth of American marriages end in divorce, twice the rate in other Western nations ( Cherlin, 2009).
