Survey Results - Third Question: Causes of Divorce

[Admin]

Approximately 40 percent of people taking the survey are divorced from their cross-cultural spouse. To gain insight into those aspects, including several unique to cross-cultural marriages, that contribute to divorce, we asked them to rate each of the same 12 factors on a scale from 1 to 5, with these instructions:

Score of 1 means it was NO
factor in your divorce. Score
of 5 means it was a
MAJOR factor in your
divorce.

For this poll, we will see if our group selects the same Top 3 factors contributing to divorce, as our survey shows.

- Dan

[GoodOlBoy]

Hi Dan,

     I don't mean to be dense, but can anyone with an opinion participate in this poll or is it for DIVORCED people only?

     

[Admin]

Hi Dan,

     I don't mean to be dense, but can anyone with an opinion participate in this poll or is it for DIVORCED people only?

     

Anyone can participate in this informal poll.

The survey results I will post upon completion will present the reported results from those survey respondents who were divorced.

Essentially, it is an exercise to see how well our informal poll (perceptions) lines up with the real results (factual data) from the survey.

Make more sense now?

- Dan

[GoodOlBoy]

Gotcha

[AnastassiaAsh]

I chose cultural, commitment, communication. Everything else is just typical of any divorce in any relationship. Those that i chose, I think, are routed in the difference in culture, mentality, perception...thus no understanding of commitment or communication on her part in the way American men do.

[2tallbill]

I chose cultural, commitment, communication. Everything else is just typical of any divorce in any relationship. Those that i chose, I think, are routed in the difference in culture, mentality, perception...thus no understanding of commitment or communication on her part in the way American men do.

I picked very close to you with language, cultural and communication. I guess
language and communication should be considered the same however.

[AnastassiaAsh]

Bill, good point, but I think language and communication are two different things in the context of any relationship. One may know the language but may have difficulty of communicating with her/his spouse.

Communication, in this context, is more of a psychological/skills aspect. For example, good communication - letting your spouse know right away that you didn't like what he or she did or say (instead of not mentioning anything for a week or a month and it all becoming a snow ball resulting in her/his frustration, sadness, depression...) or, letting your spouse know how much you appreciate them, showing affection, talking looking into each others' eyes....or...saying yes when you mean yes, saying no when you mean no....

Women, especially RW, lack these skills a lot! How many times did we hear about silent treatments or wanting him to read her mind! 

If she doesn't know the language, the problem escalates ten fold!

[GoodOlBoy]

Dan,

     I don't want to come off as an assh*le, but I think you missed an important factor.

     As I have stated before in other posts, I live in an area (Sunny Isles Beach, N.Miami Beach) that is referred to by locals as "Little Russia". Anyway I speak to a variety (all ages) of RW/UW every day. Several ladies that my wife and I know are divorced from AM.

     One common complaint that I hear from these ladies is the location, here in the USA, that their husband's brought them too. From what they say about their experiences with small towns (they call them "VILLAGES"  ) here in the USA, they were VERY unhappy.

     I am not saying it (location) was the reason that they left their husband's, I am just saying it was a factor, more or less the final straw that broke the relationship.

     Some RW/UW have very strong feelings about "villages".

     Anyway, just my 2 cents.    Rick

[ConnerVT]

I chose cultural, commitment, communication. Everything else is just typical of any divorce in any relationship. Those that i chose, I think, are routed in the difference in culture, mentality, perception...thus no understanding of commitment or communication on her part in the way American men do.

Then you must be assuming that cross-cultural relationships end for different reasons than same-culture ones do.

Why do you make that assumption?  A reason that is common to both could easily be a significant factor.

[AnastassiaAsh]

Well, yes and no. And then my line of thought was to say that cross-cultural marriages end because of this and this more often than common marriages because of this and this....but then I caught myself thinking, that I don't really know, it just seems to me. In general cultural differences affect all of the aspects, thus making it even more prone to end than a relationship with the same language and culture.

[Admin]

Dan,

     I don't want to come off as an assh*le, but I think you missed an important factor.

     As I have stated before in other posts, I live in an area (Sunny Isles Beach, N.Miami Beach) that is referred to by locals as "Little Russia". Anyway I speak to a variety (all ages) of RW/UW every day. Several ladies that my wife and I know are divorced from AM.

     One common complaint that I hear from these ladies is the location, here in the USA, that their husband's brought them too. From what they say about their experiences with small towns (they call them "VILLAGES"  ) here in the USA, they were VERY unhappy.

     I am not saying it (location) was the reason that they left their husband's, I am just saying it was a factor, more or less the final straw that broke the relationship.

     Some RW/UW have very strong feelings about "villages".

     Anyway, just my 2 cents.    Rick

Rick,

No worries.

It is entirely possible - even likely - heck, it is a certainty - that we missed some important factors in the survey.

That is the reason we asked if the survey respondents would be willing to participate in future surveys. We recognized going in that we could not possibly ask all the questions - and permutations of questions and responses - to be able to answer all the possible questions - so we settled on those that seemed to fit the vast majority of circumstances, often drawing from similar studies conducted domestically and then tweaking to incorporate any cross-cultural differences.

I too know of one situation where a guy lives in the mountains outside Boulder, and were his home located in a more urban setting, his marriage with his Ukrainian wife would probably have worked out. As it is, they are living apart and will probably soon make that formal.

If they were asked what drove the divorce, my *guess* is they would have selected "Cultural Differences" as being the key contributor.

Anyway - while certainly possible I missed a key factor, the other thing that has been characteristic of the survey respondents is they have not been at all shy about letting me know how things could be, or should be, improved. I can't recall any comments about that particular issue however.

- Dan

[Admin]

Well, yes and no. And then my line of thought was to say that cross-cultural marriages end because of this and this more often than common marriages because of this and this....but then I caught myself thinking, that I don't really know, it just seems to me. In general cultural differences affect all of the aspects, thus making it even more prone to end than a relationship with the same language and culture.

For purposes of this survey question, we drew from a similar survey that was conducted domestically - and then we added two factors specific to cross-cultural marriages. Those two factors unique to cross-cultural marriage were: Language and Cultural Differences. We tried to be careful to distinguish between Language and Communications, with Communication being more about willingness to communicate and Language about the raw ability to effectively communicate.

Anyway - that is what we did - right or wrong.

- Dan

[viking]

Cross cultural differences, in this case an RW and an AM, can be large or small depending on the emotional involvement each brings to the table and their commitment to make their relationship work. But there are many types of cross cultural marriages that have weathered the storm. Black/White, or Christain/Jew are some examples. It need not be just countries.

[ConnerVT]

     As I have stated before in other posts, I live in an area (Sunny Isles Beach, N.Miami Beach) that is referred to by locals as "Little Russia". Anyway I speak to a variety (all ages) of RW/UW every day. Several ladies that my wife and I know are divorced from AM.

     One common complaint that I hear from these ladies is the location, here in the USA, that their husband's brought them too. From what they say about their experiences with small towns (they call them "VILLAGES"  ) here in the USA, they were VERY unhappy.

     I am not saying it (location) was the reason that they left their husband's, I am just saying it was a factor, more or less the final straw that broke the relationship.

Your data is tainted, thereby suspect.

Wouldn't it make sense that people who relocated to a metro area like Miami would likely prefer a metro area over a small town?

It would be as stating, "over 90% of the people we interviewed in a local chocolate store actually LIKE chocolate!"   

[GoodOlBoy]

Dan,

    My wife reminded me last night of a lady we met on the beach last summer who left her husband because he turned out to be some kind of "RELIGIOUS ZEALOT".

    Because of his religious beliefs and behavior, he made life uncomfortable and downright impossible for her. So, she moved to Miami. She has family (Sister) and friends here, but she was thinking of returning to Russia (after citizenship).

    So, what do you think about religion or religious beliefs as a factor?

    Rick

[Admin]

Dan,

    My wife reminded me last night of a lady we met on the beach last summer who left her husband because he turned out to be some kind of "RELIGIOUS ZEALOT".

    Because of his religious beliefs and behavior, he made life uncomfortable and downright impossible for her. So, she moved to Miami. She has family (Sister) and friends here, but she was thinking of returning to Russia (after citizenship).

    So, what do you think about religion or religious beliefs as a factor?

    Rick

I suspect religion plays a role in some divorces, and it is true that we did not include that among the list of possible factors. Still, I think our survey results are quite meaningful, for the following reasons:

* There are an innumerable list of factors that might have a role in a decision to divorce. While our survey did not attempt to provide an exhaustive list, it appears to have provided a sufficient list for respondents.
* A respondent was presented with 12 factors (shown above in our poll), and asked to rate each one in terms of their significance to their decision to divorce.
* If a respondent were to conclude that NONE of the 12 represented the factors that led to their individual divorce, they could (and one did) respond with a rating of '1' for each of the 12 factors.
* Most respondents seemed to find the list of factors to be sufficiently robust that they were able to provide a rating of 4 or 5 against at least one of the factors.

I guess the way to look at it is that we only presented 12 possible factors from a potential list of hundreds of possible factors that might influence a decision to divorce. Did we miss a key factor that should have been in the 12 we presented? Maybe. Do the survey results provide insight into those factors that led to divorce? Absolutely. At a bare minimum, they allow us to see the relative contributions of 12 factors most often associated with divorce decisions, to determine if they are similar or dissimilar to domestic unions. Unless one concludes there are key factors absent from the list that might have overwhelmed the responses, then it is likely the survey results also captured more than just a relative measure of the 12 factors presented - it may have, and probably did, capture those factors in absolute terms that are the most significant factors leading to divorce.

Make sense?

- Dan

[GoodOlBoy]

Dan,

     I completely follow your line of thinking. If you don't mind, can I ask why you didn't include a factor category of " None of the Above". This would obviously cover all other contingencies.

     IMHO, I think it would also build in a "false-positive" for your model.

  Rick

[Admin]

Dan,

     I completely follow your line of thinking. If you don't mind, can I ask why you didn't include a factor category of " None of the Above". This would obviously cover all other contingencies.  Rick

In most questions, we included the option of "Other" and allowed space for the respondent to complete a text field.

In THIS case, since we asked respondents to rate each of the items, the logic did not allow specification of an "Other" field. To some extent, I guess this was also due to limitations of the survey tool we used (Lime Survey at www.limesurvey.org), although I should point out that the Lime Survey script proved incredibly diverse and robust in this initial use of their product.

Oh BTW - in the case where someone wanted to respond with 'None of the Above' - their option was to simply rate each of the 12 presented factors with a score of '1'. This essentially means that none of those 12 had any significance in their decision to divorce - and I found at least one respondent that did just that.

- Dan

[Admin]

Dan,

     I completely follow your line of thinking. If you don't mind, can I ask why you didn't include a factor category of " None of the Above". This would obviously cover all other contingencies.

     IMHO, I think it would also build in a "false-positive" for your model.

  Rick

Oops - I missed your edit/add in my previous response.

Re: False-positive. Maybe. I *think* the only way it would be considered a false-positive is if we presented the results with the claim that we know exactly which factor/s is/are the most significant in cross-cultural divorce. If, OTOH, we present the results in terms of only the 12 measured factors and their relative contributions to divorce decisions, then it cannot be a false-positive (I don't think).

The difference is between announcing something like "Cultural differences are the leading cause of divorce in cross-cultural marriage" - versus - "Cultural differences were rated by respondents as the most significant of 12 factors measured in cross-cultural divorces." The difference may seem subtle, but are not.

And BTW - for those still completing the poll - my use of Cultural Differences as an example is only that - just as illustrative example for making a point.

- Dan

[Salmonberry]

I think sex factor is one of the marriage breaking ones.  I am ready to be kicked out of what not but less see....  Some men (I am carefully fishing for words guys, ok?  SOME men get so fascinated by Russian/FSU culture that they miss many points. They get "stories" and "legends" from other folks about mystical russian women sexuality and hurry to Russia to try Russian flesh and... they get it! They go thru a lot of hassle of bringing the hot piece here .... and ooops!  they need viagra to keep on going! LOL  joking here.  But from my friend's experience I can conclude that many marriage just don't last because of different tempers and - let's also remember it - different ideas of what is acceptable in bedroom. Some men (again SOME men) grab a woman and try to cover her with a blanket (metaphorically yapping) so no other could enjoy looking at her - jealosy issue here. Others cyber f"""" all their life and cannot stop it even after bringing Natashas here. Guys, get real. Sex is MAIN reason for divorces.  Language - it is learnable of course if the lady wants to work on it 

[Ooooops]

They go thru a lot of hassle of bringing the hot piece here .... and ooops!  they need viagra to keep on going!

If those guys wouldn't marry girls 20 years younger than themselves then they wouldn't run into problems like that.      Although I don't see anything wrong with Viagra as a tool when needed.

[Admin]

If those guys wouldn't marry girls 20 years younger than themselves then they wouldn't run into problems like that.      Although I don't see anything wrong with Viagra as a tool when needed.

>>If those guys wouldn't marry girls 20 years younger than themselves<<

This is one of those types of perceptions the survey is intended to address. If you take a look at the answers to the second question (found here -- www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=8602.0), you will find that most guys are NOT marrying girls 20 years younger then themselves. In fact, it is not even 10 years younger than themselves.

Surprised?

- Dan

[Admin]

I think sex factor is one of the marriage breaking ones.  I am ready to be kicked out of what not but less see....  Some men (I am carefully fishing for words guys, ok?  SOME men get so fascinated by Russian/FSU culture that they miss many points. They get "stories" and "legends" from other folks about mystical russian women sexuality and hurry to Russia to try Russian flesh and... they get it! They go thru a lot of hassle of bringing the hot piece here .... and ooops!  they need viagra to keep on going! LOL  joking here.  But from my friend's experience I can conclude that many marriage just don't last because of different tempers and - let's also remember it - different ideas of what is acceptable in bedroom. Some men (again SOME men) grab a woman and try to cover her with a blanket (metaphorically yapping) so no other could enjoy looking at her - jealosy issue here. Others cyber f"""" all their life and cannot stop it even after bringing Natashas here. Guys, get real. Sex is MAIN reason for divorces.  Language - it is learnable of course if the lady wants to work on it 

>>Guys, get real. Sex is MAIN reason for divorces.<<

That is an interesting opinion. The claim that "sex is the MAIN reason" leaves a few questions unanswered.

Are you saying it is because the WM are not getting enough sex from their wives? Or maybe that the quality of the sex is sub-standard?

What, specifically, is it about "sex" that you believe creates such strife in the marriage that it leads to divorce?

- Dan

[Ooooops]

Surprised?

Two largest categories in that poll are:

Men are older than women (on average) by 6 to 10 years. (40%)
and
Men are older than women (on average) by 11 to 15 years. (48%)

In my book 15 years is quite a lot....   

[Admin]

Two largest categories in that poll are:

Men are older than women (on average) by 6 to 10 years. (40%)
and
Men are older than women (on average) by 11 to 15 years. (48%)

In my book 15 years is quite a lot....   

Ooooops,

You are looking only at the poll. The poll was established to record perceptions. The survey results, which are based on more than 2000 respondents, are found later in that same topic at this posted message -- www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=8602.msg158772#msg158772.

Is that any clearer?

- Dan