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Comment by tsegratis | Hacker News Reader

Divorce is a massive cause of trauma and increasing in the west

I organized a large group of trauma experts last week (church pastors), and although they were amazing and had clearly overcome trauma; residual selfishness and power grabbing meant a child got ignored

The same last night: a bible study with the homeless. A happy and peaceful place, though one member was throwing trauma bombs

There's not a simple switch, though having lived in war zones and done churches of, for instance Syrian refugees, unconditional love of God, and letting trauma be presented in the middle of that is deeply powerful

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> Divorce is a massive cause of trauma and increasing in the west

Not true that it's increasing. It peaked in the 70s and has decreased since.

[1] https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/lo...

"Since 1972, marriage rates in the US have fallen by almost 50%, and are currently at the lowest point in recorded history"

"The share of children born outside of marriage has increased substantially in almost all OECD countries"

https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces

But you are right divorce rates vary, for instance decreasing post covid. I was thinking on the century scale. But also percentage of people entering stable commitment, and so even the possibility of divorce is much lower

> "The share of children born outside of marriage has increased substantially in almost all OECD countries"

This seems like it's unrelated to divorce.

I don't think it's fair to look at divorces on a century basis given that no fault divorce only became possible in the United States in 1969 - before that you needed to prove there was some sort of abuse or infidelity involved.

It certainly becomes more complicated to try and draw trends, and impossible to assume it was stronger family value that held them together before that point - in fact, the peak in the early 70s indicates that once it became possible it was used with gusto.

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