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Divorce In The United States

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There is a staggeringly large amount of divorces in the United States (US). In total, the US had a recorded total of 2,140,272 marriages in the year 2014 alone, and of those marriages, 813,862 ended up in divorce or annulment (Center for Disease Control). This means that as recently as 2014, there was a divorce rate of approximately 40%. This supports the statistics that the divorce rate for the US has stayed within 40-50% since the 1970’s (Austin Institute, 2014). While the numbers themselves are important, it is also important that the causes for the high divorce rate be explored, so that it can be known what pitfalls to avoid when participating in such an important union as marriage. There are many causes of divorce in the US such as conflicting gender roles, socioeconomic status, religious conflicts, physical abuse, emotional abuse, alcohol addictions, and many more (Amato & Previti, 2003). This paper will look at many of these reasons, but it will also focus on the differing reasons reported by men and women. One of the largest reasons that couples in the US get divorced is because one member of the couple commits infidelity with an outside member. Infidelity includes being unfaithful to your spouse or leaving your spouse to be with another more desired partner (Amato & Previti, 2003). When it comes to infidelity, more often than not one spouse will cite the other as having been the offender than themselves (Austin Institute, 2014). Reports from the Austin Institute

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