About Me: If you’re new to my blog, read this first. I’m a committed Evangelical Christian. I attend, tithe, serve, volunteer, and lead Bible studies. I began leading Christian divorce-recovery groups in conservative churches in 1998. Despite what many of us were taught, most divorces are not sought for frivolous reasons. I write especially about “life-saving divorces”—divorces involving serious circumstances such as abuse, adultery, abandonment, addiction, or profound neglect. These make up nearly half of U.S. divorces. Read the definition of a life-saving divorce, learn why Christians need a nuanced view of divorce, or watch the biblical case for permitting divorce. Although I believe some divorces are treacherous, immature, or sinful, I also believe that some are gifts from God that protect innocent spouses and their children.
Will I Find Happiness Again After Divorce?
Remarry or Stay Single: Finding Love Again Without Losing Yourself
If you type “will I find…” into Google, one of the first suggestions is “love.” That question weighs heavily on many divorced people: Will I find love again? Will I remarry? Or will I stay single?
Wanting love and belonging is deeply human. But not everyone wants another marriage. Some divorced people hope to remarry; some are unsure; and others discover that a single life can be peaceful, meaningful, and full of love.
This article looks at several common myths about remarriage, happiness, and long-term singleness after divorce.
Myth 1: Everyone wants to remarry.
Some people want to remarry; others do not. Usually younger people wish to remarry, and three in four women who divorced at ages 15-44 do remarry within ten years.[1] The remarriage rate is very high for those under twenty-five.[2]
Of women who divorce at age forty or older, however, more than two in five (43%) say they do not want to remarry. And for men who divorce over age forty, one in three (33%) say they don’t want to try again. Another 26% of women weren’t sure (and 24% of men), and the vast majority say they don’t want to run the risk of having another bad marriage. Many say they don’t want the trouble of finding another partner. Some say they like the freedom to make their own plans and decisions.[3]
For people who divorced when they were age forty or over, many prefer to stay single:
Nearly half of women in this age group do not want to remarry. Men are much more motivated to find a new spouse than women are: 27% were sure they wanted to remarry, compared to only 17% of women who said the same. As a group, women are very wary (“once burned, twice shy”), and so it’s not surprising that we find that the men’s remarriage rate is twice as high as women’s.[4]
Remarriage Can Be a Hope—and Sometimes a Genuine Economic Need
For some divorced Christians, remarriage is not simply about finding love again. It may also be about housing, health insurance, childcare, transportation, debt, retirement, disability, or the practical reality of trying to support a household on one income.
Some divorced people will eventually get back on their feet financially. Others may never fully recover from years out of the workforce, caregiving responsibilities, inadequate child support, medical problems, debt, or the economic losses of divorce. For them, a future marriage may be one of the few realistic paths to long-term financial stability.
There is nothing shallow, faithless, or calculating about acknowledging those needs. Marriage has always had an economic dimension. It is reasonable to hope that a future spouse may bring not only love and companionship, but also shared housing, income, insurance, labor, and retirement security.
If You Have Kids, Move Slowly
There is also an important caution for parents: children do not need two married parents in order to turn out well, but they generally do best with fewer family transitions. A transition is a major change in the adults who occupy a parent’s romantic and family life—for example, introducing a serious partner, becoming engaged, marrying, separating, or beginning another serious relationship. The concern is not that children cannot adjust. Most do. The concern is that repeated entrances and exits can disrupt their routines, attachments, loyalties, and sense of security.
Andrew J. Cherlin, a leading American sociologist of marriage and family life and the author of The Marriage-Go-Round, warns against treating remarriage as an automatic cure for single parenthood:
“The stable home a single parent can provide to her children may be more beneficial than a quick repartnering or remarriage.”[5]
Cherlin advises single parents to search longer and more carefully for a partner and to be confident that the relationship will last before bringing a new spouse into the home.
So the balanced message is not “stay single no matter what,” and it is not “remarry as quickly as possible.” A future marriage may genuinely improve your emotional and financial life, and it is okay to hope for that. But financial desperation can also make people vulnerable to overlooking red flags. The goal is to build as much stability as possible while choosing a spouse carefully, rather than feeling forced to accept a rescuer.
A wise remarriage can include love, faith, character, safety, practical stability, and the good of the children all at once.
Myth 2: Your second marriage is likely to end in divorce and won’t be any happier because you bring your problems with you.
The first part of this myth is only partially true. The divorce rate for second marriages nationwide is indeed higher than first marriages: 60%. (And for third marriages, it is 65%.)
But that likelihood is for all remarriages, not remarriages after a life-saving divorce.
Research shows that people whose marriages had been very unhappy for a long time—people who needed a life-saving divorce—are likely to have a happier second marriage.
Researchers Hawkins and Booth studied people who were in long-term unhappy marriages—a minimum of twelve years of being unhappily married. They followed these couples for many years beyond the twelve-year point. They compared those who stayed married and those who divorced, and they tracked their well-being in several different ways.
They concluded that both those who divorced and remarried, and those who divorced and stayed single, were much better off on average than they would have been if they had stayed in the bad marriage:
“Divorced individuals who remarry have greater overall happiness. And those who divorce and remain unmarried have greater levels of life satisfaction, self-esteem and overall health than unhappily married people.”[6]
Myth 3: You will never remarry, and you’ll live a miserable, lonely life.
As I’ve mentioned online and in my book, I was single for more than twenty years after my divorce. Yet I was very happy once I got past those first two terrible years.
I never dreamed I would be single for twenty years,
and I definitely never dreamed that those years would be
so rewarding, purposeful, and meaningful.
But researchers could have predicted that. They had already found that people were happier once they got out of a destructive long-term marriage. Based on their findings, it doesn’t matter whether you remarry or not. You will be happier, on average, than if you had stayed.
If you choose to stay single, your life is likely to be healthier and more satisfying, and you’ll have more self-respect.
Researchers Hawkins and Booth concluded this about these long-term unhappy unions:
“Remaining unhappily married rather than divorcing is never beneficial to the psychological wellbeing or overall health of the individuals in this study.”[7]
Happiness and Long-Term Singleness after Divorce
In Chapter 8 on Safe Churches and Friends, I tell the story of how my best friend and I started a divorce recovery group at our church and how it provided a lot of great friendship and support. Those women are some of the strongest and most courageous people I know. They are amazing survivors. I was honored to hear their stories and get a front-row seat to watch how the Lord healed them and gave them a new passion for growth.
In addition to that group, I also joined groups made up of men and women who were interested in the same things I was: friends who loved photography, business, travel, and books. My circle of friendships grew. Between my children and my close friends, I found the love and belonging I craved.
Here are some reasons to stay single, adapted from my article originally published by Psych Central:
- Being single can force you to be a better person. As a single person, you are more likely to have built-in motivation to be a good employee, friend, relative and neighbor. You have no automatic safety net in the form of a spouse, and because of this, many single people create and nurture their own circles of people who are important to them. They are reliable and responsible, whereas some married people stop growing and just coast.
- Being single gives you time to contemplate life and become deeper. You get to know yourself when you are alone. You find out what really matters: integrity, self-awareness, and your core values. You don’t have to conform to peer pressure. You can be authentic.
- Being single allows you to be available for interesting adventures. Married people spend a lot of time with each other. In fact, they feel obligated to spend a majority of time together. But single people have the freedom to explore new ideas, new places, and new people.
- Singles have rich friendships. Most married people spend time with their spouse and kids, and maybe a handful of friends. Singles develop deep relationships with all kinds of people,[8] including their extended family members.
Has Anyone Ever Surveyed the Happiness of Christians After Divorce?
Yes, Baylor University—the largest Baptist university in the world—has collected data that indicate that 7 in 10 Christians are happy after divorce. Five in 10 are “somewhat happy” and 2 in 10 are “very happy” after divorce.
So, yes, most people are likely to be happy after divorce, once they get past those first two miserable years.
Footnotes
[1] M. D. Bramlett and W. D. Mosher, “Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States,” Vital and Health Statistics 23, no. 22 (2002): 78.
[2] Valerie Schweizer, “The Retreat from Remarriage, 1950-2017,” Family Profile 17 (2019), accessed 12/12/19, https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/schweizer-retreat-remarriage-fp-19-17.html.
[3] Xenia P. Montenegro, “The Divorce Experience: A Study of Divorce at Midlife and Beyond,” AARP The Magazine (2004), A-23, accessed 12/18/19, https://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/general/divorce.pdf.
[4] Schweizer, “The Retreat from Remarriage.”
[5] Andrew J. Cherlin, The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), 11.
[6] Daniel Hawkins and Alan Booth, “Unhappily Ever After: Effects of Long-Term, Low-Quality Marriages on Wellbeing,” Social Forces 84, no. 1 (September 2005): 464. The authors of this study mention an earlier study by Waite and colleagues that received substantial attention from religious organizations. That study used only one item to determine marital quality and reported that two-thirds of unhappily married couples who stayed married for five more years were happier. The Hawkins and Booth study was different. In addition to being more thorough, it specifically focused on people who had been very unhappily married for more than twelve years, used several items to measure marital quality, and found that those who divorced from these chronically low-quality marriages were significantly happier after divorce than they had been before.
[7] Ibid., 464.
[8] Bella DePaulo, “Put a Ring on It—A Singleness Ring,” Psych Central (2017), accessed 12/12/19, https://blogs.psychcentral.com/single-at-heart/2017/09/put-a-ring-on-it-a-singleness-ring-guest-post-by-gretchen-baskerville/.
For More Information: Start Here
Happiness and Healing After Divorce
- Will I Find Happiness Again? Remarry or Stay Single After Divorce
- 12 Positive Outcomes of Divorce That Nobody Told Us
- You Might Be Happier After Divorce
Finding Love Again (or Not)
- Will I Find Love Again? Will I Remarry or Stay Single After Divorce?
- Afraid You’ll Never Find a Healthy Relationship After Abuse?
Research That Challenges Divorce Myths
- Psychology Today Got the Waite Divorce Study Wrong—Here Is What the Data Really Show
- Does the Waite and Gallagher Study Really Say Your Marriage Will Become Happy If You Stay 5 Years? No!
- The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: What Counselors, Students, and Divorcing Parents Need to Know
- Are They Telling the Truth About Divorce? What the New Study Really Says
Life After Divorce
- Christians: Life After Divorce—Real Stories of Challenge, Healing, and Hope
- 5 Christians Who Divorced and Are Thriving Now
- Does A Divorce Mean My Faith Is Weak? No, It Might Mean the Opposite
For Christians, Pastors, and Helpers
- Free Book Study Videos for The Life-Saving Divorce
- Pastors Who Accept Abuse as Grounds for Divorce
- Safety-First vs. Marriage-First Counseling
- Recommended Books and Resources
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