You could be next, according to researchers
Do you have a divorced friend? You might be next. It turns out that divorces are contagious.
Laura Soncrant, of Chicago, filed for divorce in February, after her two best girlfriends got divorced. One ended her marriage three years ago, and the other got divorced six years ago.
“I had asked for marriage counseling, and I tried to apply what I saw was happening there to us,” Soncrant said, explaining how she tried to use her friends’ experiences to better her marriage.
But when that didn’t work, she used a different tactic.
“I watched what they did and I learned from them very quietly,” she said. “Their journey gave me the strength I needed and the information and the knowledge that I needed to make it feasible for me.”
In the most recent study available on the topic, researchers from Brown University, Harvard University and the University of California at San Diego found that you’re 75 percent more likely to become divorced if a friend has divorced, and if a friend of a friend is divorced your odds of getting a divorce increase 33 percent.
When a close friend gets a divorce, it alerts us to the possibilities, said Helen Fisher, author of “Anatomy of Love” and senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute.
“One person starts doing it, and others look at their own lives, and they assess their lives: If he can do it, I can do it,” Fisher said.
This may be why many friends of Jessica Ashley avoided her when she was going through her divorce.
The 46-year-old Chicago-based certified divorce coach didn’t have any close friends who were divorced at the time, and her sudden split from her husband 11 years ago was shocking to them.
“They physically moved away from me when I talked about what was happening — they literally took four steps backward,” Ashley said. “Some shielded their husbands. The tension was there, and it lasted for years.”
While she was hurt by their avoidance, Ashley realized that her marital problems were bringing her friends’ issues to the forefront.
“Those who stopped talking to me were having you may feel for him.
Then, once a friend divorces, that friend may experience a temporary high, which can seem very appealing, especially to someone who has been married for a while, said Pam Meyerson, a marital therapist in Illinois.
The recently divorced friend may start a new relationship, which is fun and exciting, compared with your seemingly stale marriage.
“Maybe the grass is greener, and it may look better,” Meyerson said. “In the beginning, you can survive on intimacy that’s completely different than intimacy in a marriage.”
Couples should be spending 16 hours of undivided attention together per week, with about six of