Pre-wedding jitters might not guarantee a trip to divorce court, but it turns out they’re not the greatest sign. A new study conceived and completed by doctoral students at UCLA found future brides who reported reservations prior to their marriage were more than twice as likely to be divorced four years later.
More than two hundred and thirty couples were initially asked several months after their wedding whether they were “uncertain or hesitant about getting married”. 47% of men said they’d had such concerns, and 38% of women reported the same. Every six months for the next four years, researchers checked in with the participants, monitoring both marital statuses and self-reported levels of satisfaction. By the end of the study, a shocking 19% of women who initially reported doubts were divorced vs just 8% of those who had not.
A gap also existed among the men, but it was far less noticeable. 14% of men who reported doubts split with their wives within the timeframe vs 9% who were totally confident going into the union. Given how much higher of a percentage of men were apprehensive, it’s not altogether surprising their fears would be less of an indicator.
According to Live Science, those who worked on the study concluded their research not by advising couples with doubts to break-up but instead advising them to talk about any of the doubts ahead of time to try and get on the same page.
