The Big Statistic: Divorce

Tonight I will write about something different than what I usually write about. I believe it may be because I am part of this statistic. Maybe it is something that has effected me greatly and I wish this on no one. A friend once told me it is the strategy of the faceless tyrant to break up our families to weaken us. What I do know is that it has weighed heavenly in my mind the past couple of weeks. So I decided to do research on the issue and find out some facts.

The biggest player in doing the studies on divorce rates in the military complex is RAND Corporation, a think tank formed to offer research and analysis for the United States Armed Forces. RAND has done studies dating back since the Vietnam war. Some of the more common trends contributing to divorce seems to be stress in the work place. There were two different studies thought that really caught my eye.

A study by Michael Pollard from RAND made an interesting observation of the population that are attracted to the military and those that tend to marry to that same population. "military selects vulnerable people, who would be at elevated risk for divorce if they were civilians." (Comparing Rates of Marriage and Divorce in Civilian, Military, and Veteran Populations, by Michael Pollard.) To be fair, this study was done in 2007 and compared to today most people joining the military came from broken homes. Now a days who isn't from a broken home. Another note from this study was that active duty women were more likely to want to divorce their spouse and civilian women were more likely to want to divorce their active duty spouse. This leaves the study a bit inconsistent and further studies would have to be made due to this variable. Something I noticed though in my decade of active duty service is that most active duty women tend to marry active duty men, not sure if this was considered by Michael Pollard.

The second study done by Brighita Negrusa and Sebastian Negrusa suggests that active duty members returning from a deployment with PTSD or other mental health issues such as depression are more likely to end in divorce with their spouse. They have a good argument when it was noted that officers are less likely to return with PTSD but the ones that did were more likely to divorce. This was consistent with the studies done with the enlisted.

In the end, for me it doesn't really matter. I was heart broken that my ex-wife wanted a divorce and not totally necesarily for me. In any marriage that ends in divorce where my heart goes out to are the children. The tyrant wants to target them with promoting the big D word. He knows that without family unity the likelihood of children growing up to be functional and productive members of society is low. The tyrant is weakening the families, the children and society. The ones that suffer are my little ones. I miss them every day, not a day goes by that I don't think about them and what their future may end up being without a strong unified family unit. All I can do is hope for the best.

My Little Ones