Remarriage rate declining as more opt for cohabitation

Remarriage declines
As cohabitation has become more accepted, remarriage has declined:

Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY 10:13 p.m. EDT September 12, 2013

Just 29 of every 1,000 divorced or widowed Americans had remarried as of 2011, down from 50 per 1,000 in 1990.


Jennifer Beltz and T.J. Gurski are giving marriage a second chance in November. They pose at their home in Michigan, with a photo of the beach where he proposed in Florida. It's also the theme of their wedding invitations.(Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)

Story Highlights

  • The remarriage rate in the USA has dropped 40% over the past 20 years
  • Cohabitation is more accepted, and couples are older at first marriage
  • 37% of cohabiters have been married before, Census say


The invitations are in the mail. Jennifer Beltz and T.J. Gurski of Commerce Township, Mich., are defying the odds — they're taking the plunge a second time.
"When I got divorced, I said, 'I'm never getting married again," says Beltz, 41, who works in marketing.

That sentiment seems to be quite common among those jaded by a failed union: A new analysis of federal data provided exclusively to USA TODAY shows the USA's remarriage rate has dropped 40% over the past 20 years.

"Pretty much everyone, regardless of age, is less likely to get remarried than in the past," says sociologist Susan Brown, lead author of the analysis, by the National Center for Family & Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.

The analysis of data comparing 2011 with 1990 shows that in 2011, just 29 of every 1,000 divorced or widowed Americans remarried, down from 50 per 1,000 in 1990; 2011 was the most recent year available for the review.

The remarriage rate has dipped for all ages, with the greatest drops among those younger than 35: a 54% decline among ages 20-24, 40% for ages 25-34. Much of the drop is due to the rise of cohabitation and older ages for first marriage — almost age 27 for women and almost 29 for men.

"Cohabitation has opened up options for people that weren't there 20 years ago," Brown says. "It affords the benefits of marriage without the legal constraints."

STORY: Remarriage issues very different from first marriages

A generation ago, cohabitation was often called "living in sin," but that taboo has faded. Unmarried couples of all ages are moving in together — 7.8 million, according to 2012 Census data. And 37% of cohabiters have been married before. Between 1990 and 2012, the percentage of unmarried couples living together more than doubled, from 5.1% to 11.3%.

Even so, it's not as if everyone previously married is forgoing the institution; almost one-third of all marriages in 2010 were remarriages, according to an earlier analysis by the Bowling Green center.

Gurski, 46, who will marry Beltz in November on Captiva Island, Fla., says he "definitely knew I would remarry."

However, many divorced people are hesitant to risk tying another knot.

"Marriage wasn't even in the discussion," says David Smith, 58, who works in Internet marketing and Web design. He and partner Sue Stebbins, a business consultant, have lived together in Norwalk, Conn., for five years. Both are divorced; he has three grown kids.

"We really wanted to be liberated from anything that reminded us of our past," she says. "Rather than something outside of you giving you that commitment, it's a choice daily to form that commitment."

The decision to remarry isn't an easy one, but after 11 years of living together, Kathye Guccione, 50, of Ontario, Calif., and her fiancé Larry Lindsley, 46, are getting married Nov. 12.

"We actually didn't want to get married again," says Guccione, whose two sons are 18 and 21. "We decided to live together and the boys live with us and we were content to stay that way."

But earlier this year, they started "talking about it back and forth" and decided to take the leap. Her sons will escort her down the aisle at the county courthouse; they'll have a party to celebrate Nov. 16.

Some couples worry about the odds of a successful remarriage, but long-term data is relatively non-existent because of federal cutbacks that stopped data collection.

"There is no good, recent data on divorce among remarried couples that I know of," says marriage researcher Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

However, new research does suggest those who have been divorced once are less likely to stay in an unsatisfying marriage a second time.

"It's not that the couples are less happy with each other and it's not that they're fighting more than first-married couples," says psychologist Sarah Whitton of the University of Cincinnati. "It seems that if a relationship starts deteriorating, they're quicker to move towards divorce." Her study of 1,931 married individuals was published this spring in the Journal of Marriage and Family.

Remarriage is "difficult and different" from first marriage, says relationship expert Maggie Scarf, a Yale University fellow who outlines the hazards in her new book, The Remarriage Blueprint. Scarf conducted lengthy, face-to-face interviews with 80 remarried individuals to see how their marriages fared.

"In the first marriage, the couple has time alone to set up their own culture — the way they do things. But in the second marriage, you have a single parent who has been living alone with his or her children and they are deeply, deeply bonded and have a culture of their own. The stepparent walks into that and doesn't know the first thing about it.

"The American delusion is you can pop in a new parent like a replacement figure and you have a new first marriage. You actually have a very different marriage," Scarf says.

Krissy and David Coleman of Lebanon, Va., ages 37 and 38, were well aware of the relationship troubles that can happen because of the kids. That's why before they married last week – both for the second time – the five kids they have between them, ages 7 to 18, were an integral part of the courtship.

"We dated the kids, too," she says. "When we went out, our children went with us.

It was very important that if somebody was going to be in my life, they have to accept my children."

Not every stepfamily is The Brady Bunch; experts say the two biggest factors complicating remarriage are money and children – even if the kids are adults.

"It's much, much harder than a first marriage," says David Olson of Minneapolis, a professor emeritus of family social science at the University of Minnesota. "You see this cobweb of relationships. Just one little decision impacts that whole system. It's not only more people, but it's more decisions, and they're more difficult.

People are bringing a lot of bad history with them."

Olson is co-author of the 2011 book The Remarriage Checkup, which surveyed 50,000 couples taking a class to prepare for remarriage. Two-thirds were age 41 and older and half said they were living together.

"Cohabiting isn't going to make it easier," Olson says. "In many ways, it makes it more complicated. ... It doesn't signal to the kids 'this is permanent.' "

Sending that signal is one reason Amber Fortune, 25, of Logan, Utah, says she and fiancé Dixon Buttars are getting married this fall.

Buttars, 28, was married for a year and had no children. Fortune separated after five years and divorced; her daughter from that marriage just turned 4. "I want her to know that no matter what, we're promising to stick it out," she says. "When you promise something you make it work."

Fortune, a hair stylist, says she married at 18, which was "absolutely" too young, but in Utah, "being married really young is very common."

Money issues are driving increasing numbers to seek legal help, such as pre-nuptial agreements or cohabitation agreements as they consider the possibilities for their relationship, says Alton Abramowitz, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

"Everybody comes in with different agendas," he says. "People come in who have been through a divorce. They don't want to go through it again. If they get remarried, they do not want it to be as messy as the last time. They want everything figured out now."

Couples need to share credit reports and discuss all types of financial issues, including future caregiving responsibilities and how much the previous divorce impacted their financial lives, says Brent Neiser, senior director of the Denver-based National Endowment for Financial Education, which has produced a downloadable pamphlet for those about to remarry.

"People entering remarriage may have a higher level of awareness of the financial issues because each has gone through a financial history with another person. Some of that history is good history; some is bad. They probably have a hit list of personal finance issues," he says.

Paula and Michael Bisacre, of West Friendship, Md., celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary earlier this year. When they met, she was a divorced mother of two and he was a widower with three children. The kids now range from 16 to 28. In 2006, she started a website, RemarriageWorks.com, to help others sort through the continuing challenges — from step-sibling rivalries to estate planning.

"It changes, but I still think there are challenges," says Paula Bisacre.

Beltz and Gurski say they're prepared.

She has two kids, ages 5 and 8; he has four, ages 18 to 23. They live by the motto hanging on a plaque on the wall of the home they purchased together earlier this year: "You call it chaos, we call it family."

"We know there's going to be trying times and hurdles we have to go over, but we're willing to do that together," Gurski says. "We like the idea of a solid commitment like marriage."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/12/remarriage-rates-divorce/2783187/