I like statistics, but I think here we have personal and cultural factors that make statistics of no sense if you are trying to use probabilities for your personal life.
What I think is a key factor in an stable marriage is the ability to communicate, share and enjoy with your partner. I have been more than 20 years married and my wife wonders why our marriage is so much alive, I don't know the secret but we try to enjoy together and share ours life. The key factor is real communication.
"Long term couples invariably survive because the two involved never wanted to divorce at the same time"
If I may be allowed a little joke, statistics here are really of little use in order to estimate a conditional probability (i.e, the probability that you (yourself) get divorced). But your sentence, while true, seems to be produced by a excessive rational mind an sounds like a pure truism, anyway, enhancing that truism:
In other not to get divorced, when you want to divorce just let go the bone and wait for the other one to change opinion. You will have a long lasting marriage.
Unfortunately, that theorem doesn't guarantee a happy one. (Sorry HN for the little reddit).
The quote about not wanting to divorse at the same time isn't mine and has been attributed to many. Because it's funny, and (reportedly) inherently true for anyone with a decade of wedlock to speak about.
The remark on picking your battles, in contrast, is in no way as simplistic as you seem to suggest it is -- pardon if I misunderstood.
In essence, psychological studies back that idea, and researchers on the topic are able to predict with relative reliability whether a young couple will survive 5 or 10 years or not.
The gist of their criteria, as I understood it anyways, amounts to whether either or both of the two have a giant ego trip or not.
So if you want a long-term marriage, which most people do when they say yes, well... learn to give up on what's not so important in retrospect, and pick a partner that does -- or will probably learn to do -- the same.
The less fighting, the less likely either of the two wants to divorse. And that gets us back to the first point.
In my country, with loads of unemployment (23%) and people struggling to meet ends, some people don't divorce because they can't afford it. Harsh but true.
Just a litte question, why using divorse and not divorce, just spelling or any other reason?
What I think is a key factor in an stable marriage is the ability to communicate, share and enjoy with your partner. I have been more than 20 years married and my wife wonders why our marriage is so much alive, I don't know the secret but we try to enjoy together and share ours life. The key factor is real communication.
Edited: Grammar.