When people think about divorce, they often assume that it stems from someone being unfaithful. It’s a natural assumption, often because of how common this is in media: Movies, songs, TV shows, novels, etc.
It does happen in real life, of course, but it’s hardly the main reason for divorce. The actual reasons look like this:
- Getting married because of outside pressure or expectations from others.
- Feeling like the marriage took away your individual identity.
- Not working toward the same goals as your spouse.
- Losing the romance and intimacy that existed before the marriage.
- Having expectations for the marriage that the marriage fails to meet.
- Running into financial troubles, such as excessive debt.
- Having vastly different interests and focusing on different priorities.
- Not knowing how to work through conflicts and disagreements.
As you can see, the reasons tend to be a lot more mundane, just part of normal life. These things can really wear on a marriage.
Of course, every relationship is different. A lot of it comes back to an inability to compromise. Maybe you and your spouse have different goals in life. If you both refuse to budge and help the other, it could lead to divorce because you will both just feel like the other person is holding you back. The problem isn’t being different from one another, but not knowing how to deal with that after the wedding day.
If you do end up getting divorced for any reason — including infidelity — just make sure you understand all of your legal rights and the steps that you need to take.
