One interesting finding from the study is that those who married a second time were often just as happy as those who stayed in their first marriage. That is, people who divorce are not, as a group, malcontents who can’t work things out. In the 1960s and ’70s, many researchers thought that divorce was caused by personality disorders, poor coping style, passive aggression, acting out, aggression, and alcohol abuse. But that has not been borne out by research. Marriages fail for a variety of reasons, and often the simplest explanation is the most accurate: The couple were merely mismatched and
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