Dividing debts from your marriage can be one of the trickier parts of a divorce agreement. As an equitable division state, Illinois requires divorcees to split their debts in a way that is fair to both parties. Giving each spouse half of the debt may not be an equitable agreement, and a divorce court has the right to divide debt in a way that it deems to be equitable. For instance, a spouse with greater assets after the divorce may also receive a greater share of the debt. Divorcees also must consider whether a debt belongs to an individual or both parties.

Individual Debts

A debt belongs to an individual spouse if the creditor holds only that spouse liable for repaying the debt. You can usually identify an individual debt if:

• It was created before you were married or after you were legally separated; or
• The debt contract lists only one person’s name as the owner.

Student loans and individual credit cards are common sources of non-marital debt, as long as they follow the above criteria. You likely want to avoid agreeing to pay for a debt that you are not legally obligated to pay. If one spouse has significantly greater individual debt, he or she may receive a greater share of the marital properties to compensate.

Many long-term marriages share traits that create a strong relationship, such as respect, dedication, admiration, and patience. You cannot know whether these attributes will develop and sustain themselves in your marriage, but your interactions before your marriage can foreshadow how you will get along in your marriage. You can more easily predict when a marriage is destined for divorce than when it will succeed. Some couples enter ill-advised marriages because they ignore warning signs of incompatibility or make hasty decisions.

Social Pressure

You may become more anxious to get married as you grow older because:

• You fear that your chances of attracting a spouse will diminish with age;
• You want to start a family while you are still biologically capable of doing so;
• Your family is asking about your relationships and whether you have thought about marriage; and
• Your friends are getting married, leaving you as one of the only unmarried people in your group of friends.

An unexpected pregnancy may also pressure you into marriage out of a sense of responsibility. Pressuring yourself into marriage can cause you to ignore whether you are compatible with your potential spouse. You settle for someone who meets your minimum qualifications for marriage instead of choosing someone with whom you can develop a strong relationship.

Compiled statistical data cannot predict when an individual marriage will end in divorce, but that does not stop researchers from trying. There are too many reasons why people get divorced that can develop at any point in the marriage, such as personality conflicts, acts of infidelity or general dissatisfaction. By studying data, researchers have noticed that there are points in the duration of a marriage when more divorces tend to occur. From there, they consider what relationship factors may have changed to make divorce more likely. Researchers have identified three points in a marriage when the risk of divorce seems to increase.

The First Year

The start of a marriage is logically a time when it is vulnerable. Despite the honeymoon period, there are several reasons why a marriage may last a year or less:

Despite its general acceptance in society, some couples view divorce as an unacceptable choice during their marriage. To them, divorce means quitting on their relationship and admitting that their marriage has failed. They believe it shows more strength to try to work through their differences or tolerate the parts of their marriage that make them unhappy. Other couples are bound to their marriages because of a moral conviction that divorce is a sin. However, staying together at all costs does not make a marriage a success. Couples need divorce to be an option during unhappy marriages.

Stable but Unhealthy

During their wedding vows, couples often promise to be faithful to each other for the rest of their lives. Thus, they may believe that staying together is the best indicator of a successful marriage. With such a standard, a marriage is guaranteed to be successful if the spouses refuse to ever consider divorce. However, it is debatable whether a marriage is a success if the relationship is marred by:

A popular myth about marriage in the U.S. is that half of all first marriages end in divorce. Data says that the divorce rate peaked at 40 percent in 1980 and has been declining since. Thus, it is false to assume that a marriage is just as likely to fail as succeed because it is a first marriage. However, there is a demographic that is more likely to divorce from their first marriage. They are people who:

• Marry when they are younger than 25;
• Do not have a college education; and
• Are in a lower income class.

These characteristics identify people who are getting married when they are still immature.

Marriage Is Work