Divorce is the dissolution of marriage, which is a legal action that may not concur with the emotional tearing apart. The process is usually painful for everyone concerned. Although it can take some time for adults to regain psychological balance, it is still being debated whether children ever regain stable perspective. Aside from harming children directly, hostility between the adults after the divorce is proof that there is an incomplete emotional split.

Since the start of the twentieth century, divorce rates have been on the rise in the United States, especially during the seventies when no fault divorce was introduced. The easing of the laws on divorce is considered by some experts to help create stronger marriage by establishing it deeper in personal choice. However, it did little to provide people with skills, which are needed to go through the unavoidable issues that arise from marriage.

Most people know somebody who is divorced, probably several individuals even. In the United States, there were more than 957,200 finalized divorces in the year 2000. It has been estimated by the US Census Bureau that more than half of all marriages today will result to divorce. This is a lot of paperwork, heartbreaks and broken homes, in addition to money spent on legal expenses and attorney fees.

There are some who maintain though that the percentage of future failed marriages should be interpreted according to other factors. There are various essential social aspects that can affect the estimate. Your chances of getting divorced for instance will decrease by:

• 30 percent if you have a yearly income of over 50,000 dollars

• 24 percent if you married at the age of 26 years old and above

• 24 percent if a baby is born over seven months since you married

• 14 percent if you attend church as family

• 14 percent if you have parents that did not divorce

• 13 percent if you have some college education

Difference of No Fault and Fault Divorce

The state of California passed the first law on no fault divorce in 1970, which changed the public outlook on the practice as well as the process of getting out of marriage. Before this law, one of the partners has to be "at fault" or have done something wrong, to qualify for divorce. Such acts are considered grounds for divorce and include mental or physical cruelty, adultery, imprisonment, desertion, incurable insanity and physical inability to have sexual intercourse. If the defending partner does not want to dissolve the marriage, he or she has to deny the accusation and defend against it in court.

Although fault divorces are still allowed by many states, no fault divorces are also allowed. No fault divorces are exactly as the name implies: there is nobody at fault for the failure of the union. Even if misconduct occurred, it will not matter. The ground for dissolving the marriage could just be irreconcilable differences or incompatibilities. Usually, you do not have to present proof of the problem or any explanation. In many states, whether the other spouse agreed to divorce or not does not matter.