Divorce odds go up for those married after 32 years of age

February 26, 2020

You may already have heard the warnings against getting married too young. Many people who get married as teens have to face some of the highest divorce rates. Even getting married in your early 20s is riskier than getting married in your mid-20s. It feels like you’re best off to keep pushing the marriage back so that you have time to mature and age before tying the knot.

This may be true, but only to an extent. At first, the odds of divorce seem to drop on an annual basis. You face better odds at 20 than at 19, but even better odds at 21 than 20, and so forth. However, you can reach an age where things turn around, and that age is 32.

It’s at that point that your divorce odds begin to climb again. They do not climb as fast as they fell prior to age 32, but they start going back up by roughly 5% per year. If you wait until your 40s to get married, your odds of divorce are far higher than if you get married at, say, 28 years of age.

Why this happens is at times a bit unclear. We do know that second divorces are more common than first divorces. It also stands to reason that someone who waits a long time to get married has more time to get really set in their single life. They may not adjust as well to being married if they’ve spent the last two decades being single, after leaving their parents’ house at 18 years of age.

Regardless, the important thing for those of all ages is to make sure they understand their legal rights during a divorce.