More than love keeping couples together
Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” is increasingly the song of choice for married couples in Erie County.
The number of divorces in Erie County has plummeted 22 percent over the past decade to a 10-year low of 2,809, according to figures compiled by County Clerk Kathleen C. Hochul.
“More Erie County residents are keeping their spouses and their houses,” Hochul said, terming it a “silver lining in these otherwise tough times.”
But marriage counselors and other therapists say more is at work in the decline than simple matters of the heart.
Nationally, the number of divorces has also declined steadily since peaking in 1981. The 2007 rate was the lowest number since 1970, with the marriage breakup rate — which includes marriage and separation — at between 40 and 45 percent, according to the Associated Press.
But this is hardly an Ozzie and Harriet world. The number of couples who live together without marrying has increased 10 times since 1960, and the marriage rate has declined 30 percent over the past 25 years as Americans typically wait five years longer to marry than they did in 1970.
Locally, such factors as a poor economy, the region’s exodus of young people, greater acceptance of marital counseling and resistance to divorce by children of divorced parents also factor into the lower divorce rate.
At the top of the list, some say, is the area’s poor economy and sustained poverty. It has constituted a major deterrent to many couples contemplating divorce, whether because of depressed assets or the expense of lawyers, several therapists said.
“Right now the poverty is horrendous, and people don’t have money to pay for lawyers to get divorces. They run away,” said Ursula Falk, a Kenmore psychotherapist who does marriage counseling.
“When there is poverty, there also are not many marriages. There are fewer people who are going to get officially married, I can predict that; they just cohabitate. And if you have no marriage, you have no divorce.”
Peter Meglin, a clinical social worker with Catholic Charities Marriage Counseling Center in Amherst, also cited the economy.
“You have a growing number of couples for whom divorce is unaffordable,” he said. “They try, temporarily at least, to content themselves with a kind of emotional divorce while still living in the same residence.”
Susan Becker-Weidman, a clinical social worker in Williamsville, also sees this issue frequently in her practice.
“Unfortunately, there are people who I’ve seen who would have opted for divorce, maybe rightly so, but lawyers are expensive, funding two houses is expensive, child support is expensive, so that plays into it.
“The question becomes, ‘How can we do it?’ For a lot of people, they can’t.”
On the other hand, she said, “It makes people think about divorce more, especially when you have children. It should be a very, very carefully thought-out move, and usually it is.”
A poor financial situation translates into staying put for some people, no matter what, said Linda Rachow, a clinical social worker at Jewish Family Service.
“When the economy is bad, and there’s no money, we’re not going to leave the person who’s beating us as long as they’re feeding us,” Rachow said.
The longtime loss of young people to other states due to declining jobs — sometimes called the area’s “brain drain” — is another possible factor in the lowered divorce statistics.
“Because of the economic situation, younger people are taking jobs out of the area. I would assume that must impact the divorce rate,” Becker- Weidman said.
Early divorces are typically not the age demographic seen at the center, said David Catalano, who supervises the Catholic Charities marriage center.
“If we had an average client couple, they would probably be late 30s, children, two jobs, not the 22-year-olds migrating to North Carolina,” Catalano said.
On the positive side, several therapists — though not all who were contacted by The News — believe there is now greater public acceptance of mental health counseling and therapy. Some cite greater use of employer- paid employee assistance programs and a willingness by some attorneys, law clerks and divorce mediators to suggest marriage counseling.
There also are more ways, including the Internet, to explore problems and possible solutions, such as recommendations for counseling and therapy.
Less of a stigma
“Here at the marriage center, a good one-third of our new patients are by word of mouth,” Meglin said. “What we assume is part of that word of mouth helps to debunk myths of what competent marriage counseling would be like.”
The Catholic Charities center saw a 12 percent increase in clients in 2008 over 2007, Catalano said.
Meglin also noted that there is an increased body of evidence that relationships in the hands of competent therapists contribute to their being repaired rather than ended.
Linda Wallensky, a certified social worker, also said the stigma against getting counseling may be lessening.
“Maybe that [divorce] trend is beginning to turn, and people really do want their relationships to work,” Wallensky said.
She also finds people who have experienced one divorce particularly don’t want to divorce a second time.
“They’re really looking very hard to make that second marriage work. They don’t want to experience perceived failure,” Wallensky said.
Brenda, a mother of three grown children in Amherst who did not want her name used, said marriage counseling has helped mend her marriage.
“I know it’s not a cure-all, but it helps put in perspective a better way of communicating. Sometimes I might feel my husband doesn’t understand what I’m saying, but the [therapist] can better explain to the other spouse what it is I’m trying to say, and vice-versa.
“Without the therapy, all we did was fight like cats and dogs,” Brenda said.
Class divide
Renee Fearon, a clinical social worker at Jewish Family Service, said she still sees a class divide when it comes to therapy acceptance.
“For people who have a higher tax bracket, they use [therapy] as almost a status symbol. With people in a lower tax bracket, that’s where the stigma comes in,” Fearon said.
While divorce rates are falling, Rachow said she still sees many married people who are ill-equipped to be spouses or parents.
“We have a disposable society today, so we dispose of our relationships. Kids and adults are breaking up with each other text-messaging or over the phone,” Rachow said.
She also has seen more couples staying together because of their children, even though what they’re showing them, she said, “is not love or respect or a good, healthy relationship.”
One group of people who seem more determined to make their marriages work, especially when children are involved, are the children of divorced parents, Meglin said.
“On a clinical level, we have gone from treating the parents [during the years with higher divorce rates] to now getting their kids in treatment. A lot of them don’t want to go down that same road and perhaps hurt their kids the way they were hurt,” Meglin said.
“These folks take their marriages very seriously and want to learn how to manage their conflict in a better way.”
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