How To Choose The Right Mate

Everybody knows the statistics.  There's about a fifty percent chance that your marriage will end in divorce.  But actually, there is a way that you can bring that percentage down to almost zero.  How?  By simply choosing the right mate.  Of course your future mate needs to be a devoted Christian, but there's more to it than that.  There are other personal factors that influence your risk of divorce.  If you want to make sure that your marriage goes the distance, consider the following: 

• Don't live together before marriage.  Cohabiting couples have a 50-80 percent higher likelihood of divorce than non-cohabiting couples.
• Don't marry too early.  Those who marry after age eighteen have a 24 percent reduced risk of divorce. 
• Marry close to your age.  Marriages where there is a significant difference in age have twice the risk of divorce than those in which the couples are close in age.
• Marry a college graduate.  Only 27 percent of college graduates will divorce by middle age. 
• Get premarital counseling: Couples who have gone through a marriage education course before marrying are generally up to 30 percent more likely to enjoy marital success.
• Make sure they come from a strong family.  Having parents who have never divorced reduces divorce risk by 14 percent. 
• Think twice before marrying a divorcee. Being previously divorced markedly elevates one’s risk of subsequent divorce.
• Don't marry a deadbeat.  Having a collective annual household income of $50,000 or more is associated with a 30 percent lower divorce risk. 
• Marry someone who believes in the permanence of marriage.  Going into a marriage with husband and wife holding a strong personal conviction that marriage is for life protects substantially against divorce.
• Marry a strong Christian.  Those with a strong common faith and regularly attend religious services are 47 percent less likely to divorce. However, sharing a nominal faith has no protective effect.
• Wait until marriage to have babies.  Having one’s first child after marriage can reduce one’s divorce risk by 24 to 66 percent.
• Make sure he wants kids too!  A marriage in which the wife desires children but the husband does not is at a 50 percent greater risk of divorce.
• Find a virgin.  Marrying as non-virgins is associated with “considerably higher” risk of divorce and “dramatically more unstable first marriages,” as one leading researcher explains.
• Avoid smokers.  Couples in which one partner smokes and the other does not are markedly more likely to divorce compared to couples in which neither spouse does. Marriages in which both smoke were more than twice as likely to dissolve compared with non-smoking couples.

If your potential mate checks off all the boxes above, you can reduce your risk of divorce to almost zero.  

Source:  Why Your Risk For Divorce Is Probably A Lot Lower Than You Think