This Charlotte divorce attorney found that according to a recent article in the New York Times, divorce is everywhere these days, and Americans are enjoying taking part in vicarious divorce. Our culture is both surrounded and fascinated by it. The biggest adult film of the summer, “Eat Pray Love,” centers on a divorce. The highly popular television series of the summer, “Mad Men,” revolves around a divorced couple. The most talked-about revival on Broadway of the summer, “Promises, Promises,” focuses on divorce. The most newsworthy memoir of the year, Andrew Young’s “The Politician,” chronicles the affair of John Edwards that eventually led to a notorious political divorce. The country watched with fascination the dissolution of various political marriages, such as the Edwardses, the Gores, and the Sanfords. Celebrities such as Sandra Bullock, Susan Sarandon, Tiger Woods, and Kelsey Grammar have made headlines all year with their sordid breakups and divorces. Was the summer of 2010 the summer of divorce?
Although our country seems obsessed with divorce, the actual divorce rate is plummeting. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the divorce rate in America is at a 30-year low, down 8 percent in the last five years, 16 percent since 2000, and 34 percent since its peak in 1979. Approximately 20,000 fewer American couples are divorcing every year as compared with a decade ago. Although the country’s fascination with divorce and its decreasing divorce rate may be difficult to reconcile, experts observe that Americans seem to be talking about divorce more, while actually divorcing less.