The Reality Behind Divorces Within the Military

2015-01-09T12:03:34-05:00

Though it is often said the divorce rate for members of the military are higher than that of civilians, statistics reveal that military status does not seem to influence divorce rates. That said, are you surprised by the seemingly low number of divorces within the military? Do you think there is a reason more enlisted personnel get divorced than officers across the branches?

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Response by SPC Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 9 at 2015 12:22 PM

2015-01-09T12:22:37-05:00

RallyPoint Team. I think the answer to this question is fairly simple. Enlisted personnel get divorced more than officers because living as a lower enlisted man even by todays standards is pretty terrible. Firstly, usually, barracks are underkept by no fault of the soldiers living in it. Broken washer/dryers with months wait time on repair orders. Kitchens never seem to be clean enough to cook. another reason in my experiance and most of what I've heard from many other lower enlisted is Meal Cards are dam useless 9/10 times. Soldiers pay around 350$ a month for food, yet barely manage to eat most days. Yes this is on "leadership" to ensure that soldiers get time to eat but sometimes its not even that. A lot of DFACs either don't have enough food and also underfeed the single soldiers with the Dfac hours being also unreasonable. many other things as well push enlisted into jumping into marriage instead of taking time to be with the person they want to marry and take time to think of it. This is what I believe leads to many rushed and unsuccessful marriages in the army.

Frankly to a single lower enlisted and even some of the lower NCO ranks, it is more beneficial to be married in the army and than to be single.

Response by Capt Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 9 at 2015 3:30 PM

2015-01-09T15:30:14-05:00

You should post the numbers for nurses. Last time I read something about divorce rates it was one of the higher ones.

Response by SFC Michael Jackson, MBA made Jan 9 at 2015 5:29 PM

2015-01-09T17:29:10-05:00

The short version is or (BLUF) More money problems, more divorce. Enlisted have more money problems

One of the leading causes of divorce is financial problems. I think the numbers are higher for enlisted because they have more financial problems. Several factors contribute to this, but I believe some of the variables for the problems are:
1) financial education -officers tend to be versed in the area, but certainly not always
2) budgeting/ financial planning
3) bad decision-making (buying things you can't afford)
4) disparity in enlisted/officer pay. (officers usually make more than enlisted) meaning, they can maintain a higher quality of life if they chose. Enlisted tend to get in trouble trying to live like a colonel on a private's salary
5)Money shortage- overspending leads to excessive bills and concern about affording necessities (creates stress and insecurities) this is when you really get in marriage trouble
6) uncommon vision in the household- arguing over who spent what/why instead of working together

Response by Sgt Jimmy Williams Jr. made Jan 10 at 2015 2:26 PM

2015-01-10T14:26:35-05:00

I am surprised by the low numbers overall, but not that surprised by the differences between enlisted and commissioned. It seemed a lot higher when I was on active duty. As one who was divorced during my first deployment in the wayback, and now a pastor who has studied relationships and counseled many couples, the reasons are multiple. First, enlisted tend to get married younger (i.e., more immature-my situation), lack the finances, lack the stability, etc. that it takes to make a marriage work. Couple that with deployments early in the marriage, and problems get magnified. For a 21 year old E-3 and a 20 year old wife, that is stressful. It's easier to walk away from a one year marriage when you haven't seen each other in six months. Since the majority of officers are in the mid-twenties or later when they reach active duty and have a longer time period of active duty before first deployment due to longer OCS, longer MOS training, etc., those few short years of life are a lifetime's worth of experience when it comes to marriage. Add a better financial situation, and the odds improve. I would be interested in a breakdown of E-5 and above compared to officer. I think the stats might be a bit closer.

I'll throw one other less obvious but I think a partial contributor to the stats: if you study the family backgrounds of both groups, I am willing to bet that a significant percentage of the officers' parents remained married at least through their childhood. why does that matter? Because single and divorced parents lack the financial resources that allow a kid to go to college, and single parents as a group have a lower education level. The result is that two equally educated kids have different opportunities based on the home they grow up in. If both are interested in the military, the one with the greater chance of going to college first is of course the one from the family with better resources. and more likely to receive a commission when entering. That same family stability that allows for college also sets an example of long term relationships that those of us who came from broken homes rarely saw. Kids of two parent households fare better in all aspects of life: college, successful marriage, etc. Two parent households have a higher average household income by a significant margin.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 11 at 2015 10:43 AM

2015-01-11T10:43:43-05:00

I'd be interested in seeing how the AC numbers differ from the Reserve/Guard. My wife and I met in the Reserve, and at 9 years are still a dual-military family (as well as an Officer-Enlisted one, though that may change once she finishes her Nursing degree).

Response by COL Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 12 at 2015 10:27 AM

2015-01-12T10:27:03-05:00

While the information you provide is interesting since your graphic does not depict the total percentage nor do you provide the civilian statistics to compare the data to, it is difficult to answer the question as posed. In fact your statistics may bias any answer solicited since the percentage you show as married may have had a divorce in the past and remarried.
DATA required:
Of the total number of US military personnel who have been married at least once what percentage have divorced at least once?
_____________
According to the APA approximately 40-50% of American marriages end in divorce (http://www.apa.org/topics/divorce/). Again this is a total percentage and does not take into account 2nd, 3rd etc marriages. The US active duty military is less than 2% of the total national population. I would submit that the military total divorce percentage reflects fairly closely the national average percentage of around 50%.

I have looked for this statistic in the past and discovered that most Services report percentage of divorces by year. The DOD can report that divorce rates are continuing on a downward trend; for example the "Military Times" in a Dec 2013 article reported that in 2011 the divorce rate among military women was 8% and in 2013 had dropped to 7.2%. So only about 7/100 military women got a divorce in 2013 as compared to the 8/100 in 2011. This is meaningless data without the civilian comparison to the total divorce rate among American women overall for those years, without knowledge of how many total women this statistic represents, and does not capture re-marriage and overall national percentage rate.
"How the military divorce rates compares with that of civilians also is problematic because the civilian world does not track data like DoD and the military population is demographically very different than the public at large." (Tilghman, 2013, Military Times)
source:
(http://archive.militarytimes.com/article/20131219/NEWS/312190026/Military-divorce-rate-ticks-downward)

Response by RallyPoint Team made Apr 15 at 2015 10:32 AM

2015-04-15T10:32:00-04:00

In case you missed it, we've made some updates:

Response by SFC Mark Merino made Apr 15 at 2015 1:14 PM

2015-04-15T13:14:12-04:00

We make our leaders responsible for every aspect of our subordinates, but the education that our junior service members need isn't made mandatory. I got married by our BN Chaplain and therefore he made pre-marital counseling mandatory. I had so many service members referred to us in mental health for problems that arose from just not knowing how to be an adult. "I'm not able to get the new Call of Duty PS4 game cause all my money goes towards diapers. I'm getting a divorce!" How many kids do you have? "None.....but my wife has 3."............Ummmm, ok.

Response by SGT Bryon Sergent made Apr 15 at 2015 2:09 PM

2015-04-15T14:09:52-04:00

We are obviously asking the question not about the private that goes out, marries a stripper, robs him blind and then divorces his ass!

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Apr 15 at 2015 2:13 PM

2015-04-15T14:13:51-04:00

I am assuming the disparity of the age at the time of marriage is the reason for the delta between officers and enlisted.

Response by TSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 15 at 2015 2:29 PM

2015-04-15T14:29:01-04:00

I'm not surprised when the simple fact that due to our lifestyle of moving every 2-4 years it often makes couples feel obligated to marry faster than they might if they weren't faced with that decision.

Response by MSG Brad Sand made Apr 15 at 2015 3:06 PM

2015-04-15T15:06:26-04:00

I do not think you actually have a single factor...which is probably the case in most things. It has to do with income, social back ground, education and age when married. All these factor play against the enlisted soldiers more than the commissioned officers.

Response by LTC Paul Labrador made Apr 15 at 2015 5:04 PM

2015-04-15T17:04:01-04:00

One reason that may point to why there is a higher divorce rate among enlisted could be age (and ergo maturity). Enlisted tend to get married at a younger age than officers.

Response by Lt Col Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 16 at 2015 12:14 AM

2015-04-16T00:14:21-04:00

I am surprised by the seemingly low number of divorces, because I certainly know plenty of people I work with who are divorced or on marriage 2, or even 3.

Response by CW5 Sam R. Baker made Apr 16 at 2015 10:21 AM

2015-04-16T10:21:08-04:00

Interesting, out of my entire flight school class, 64 people, not a single one is married to the person they graduated school married to, that is a 100% warrant officer divorce rate in a rather small pool of folks.

Traditionally, I think the civilian population gets the sensationalism and we all do, from the media that everything in the military is higher. Crime, divorce, sexual assault, suicide, but actually our 1% is such a small sample, but we tend to have the same or slightly lower rates when it comes to negative statistics.

I say that except for flight school!

Response by PO1 Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 16 at 2015 1:00 PM

2015-04-16T13:00:35-04:00

I feel this break down does not take into account "remarriages" because yes the data may say you are currently "married" but how many times or for how long? I believe the divorce statistics are skewed due to this. From what I have witnessed personally, most divorces happen later in a member's career or when children are involved after they move out. After this I have found the service member will make two different choices: remain single and enjoy their new founded "freedom" or remarry within a few years.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made May 4 at 2016 4:43 PM

2016-05-04T16:43:48-04:00

i saw way too many relatioship problems when i deployed, girlfriends, wives from my deployment 2 sncoes divorced wives, 1 officer and one snco lost girlfriends/boyfriend,