Don't Worry; Marriage Isn't Doomed

I t's hard to go a week without being bombarded widi intimate
details of die latest celebrity divorce. But even though it seems like everyone is callingit quits, die divorce rate is actually on the decline.. .andhas been for 15 years. "You often hear that 1 in 2 marriages doesn't work out, but the current rate is closer to 43 percent," says Bradford Wilcox, PhD, director of the University of'Virginia's National Marriage Project. That may still sound high, but your chances of staying in love forever arc only getting better.
EASY OUT. When social mores started to loosen up in the free-love '70s and casual-sex '80s, divorce began to lose its stigma, which meant that people in unhappy marriages finally felt