What is the biggest threat to your happy marriage? Well, that answer is sure to be different for any individual and couple. However, it is worth taking a look at the risk factors that have recently been introduced, whether due to technology or changing social factors. In the 2020s, there are many new or changed risk factors leading to divorce that previous generations might not have dealt with. Here is a collection of some of the top potential threats that you should be aware of.
The smartphone in your hand that has become your link to the entire world is right at the top of the list. Studies have often shown that such technology interferes with relationships at least some of the time, and there are numerous elements to consider here.
For starters, it’s often a distraction that gets in the way of direct communication or quality time. If you’re always on your phone, you’re not fully present with the person you share that time and space with. At the same time, social media has made looking at someone else’s photos a constant game of comparison and envy, impeding one’s happiness. Meanwhile, dating apps and porn, both available 24/7 from your phone, have added new risk factors toward infidelity and sexual risk or unhappiness.
Another of the biggest threats to happy marriages will continue to be the use and abuse of opioids. A 2018 American Psychiatric Association survey showed that the use of opioids or prescription painkillers affects 45% of adults in some way: 5% report that they themselves have abused or been addicted, 9% say that have taken without a prescription, and 31% say they know someone who is or has been addicted. With that kind of staggering prevalence, opioid addiction will negatively impact potentially millions of marriages across the United States.
Finally, don’t forget what you might call the changing values of the generations and all the socioeconomic factors that impact a person and a couple. Young people are graduating from college burdened with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, equality in the workplace and elsewhere is increasing though not yet perfect, people’s expectations of what they want in their life and when they want it have evolved, and people are more willing to pursue personal happiness and make major life changes even at older ages, as is the case with gray divorce. All of these issues affect whether or not a person is likely to marry, how happy she will be, and whether she is more likely to stand her ground or seek a divorce.
People are always going to get married, and a fraction of them are always going to get divorced too. It is worth considering how society changes and evolves in terms of the potential factors that impact those decisions and end up becoming the leading causes of divorce and threats to happy marriages.