If you’ve already been married once and it has ended in divorce, you may still be thinking about getting married again. Say that you got married right after college and you were already divorced by 30. You still feel like you’re very young, and you want to be involved in a relationship and have a family.
But you may also be wondering if you will get divorced again. You may assume that the odds are lower that you’d split up the second time. Whatever caused your divorce the first time around, you feel like you learned from it. But does that actually mean that your second marriage is more likely to last?
Divorce odds go up in subsequent marriages
There are certainly situations in which people learn from a failed first marriage and make their second marriage work. It does happen, and all situations are unique.
That said, from a statistical standpoint, this is uncommon. It is much more likely that the second marriage will also end in a divorce. Experts have found that the odds of divorce simply go up with every subsequent marriage.
For example, some claim that the divorce rate for first marriages is roughly 50%, but that it jumps to 65% for second marriages. Even though the exact percentages are going to change a bit from year to year, this does show that it becomes more likely that a second marriage will have the same result.
Considering things carefully
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get married again, but you do need to be wary about your odds of divorce. Make sure you carefully consider your rights if you are getting a divorce and your options, such as using a prenuptial agreement, if you’re just getting married.
