Divorce in Pakistan: Causes and Educational Reform

Marriage is the most beautiful aspect of human life, whatever their religion may be. In which spouses live their lives with peace and tranquility. On the other hand, marriage turns into divorce due to lack of commitment, infidelity, excessive conflict, and financial problems. It is a need of the hour for relationship education to focus on proactive conflict resolution and commitment strengthening between both of them. The study presents findings from interviews of divorced individuals who received the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) in the first world countries while engaged to be married. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the study sought to understand participant reasons for divorce (including identification of the “final straw”) in order to understand if the program covered these topics effectively. Participants also provided suggestions based on their premarital education experiences so as to improve future relationship education efforts.

The most commonly reported major contributors to divorce were lack of commitment, infidelity, and conflict/arguing. The most common “final straw” reasons were infidelity, domestic violence, and substance use. More participants blamed their partners than blamed themselves for the divorce. Recommendations from participants for the improvement of premarital education included receiving relationship education before making a commitment to marry (when it would be easier to break up), having support for implementing skills outside of the educational setting, and increasing content about the stages of typical marital development. These results provide new insights into the timing and content of premarital and relationship education.

In sum, across studies, some consistency exists regarding the importance of issues such as communication, incompatibility, and commitment as reasons for divorce, while other issues seem to vary across samples. Thus, it would be helpful to understand the reasons for divorce in former PREP participants in order to highlight specific areas that the program could have addressed better and in order to improve that program’s effectiveness. In addition, no study, to our knowledge, has asked divorced participants who all participated in the same premarital program to provide suggestions for improving relationship education programs based on their own experiences in the program and considering that their marriages ended in divorce.

These results could be valuable for practitioners to consider to improve the PREP model specifically and relationship education efforts more generally. The current study qualitatively interviewed individuals who had completed PREP and later divorced about their premarital education, including what they wished would have been covered, as well as their marital experiences, particularly regarding their reasons for divorce. Therefore, this study sought to understand both participants’ reasons for divorce as well as how they thought relationship education could have better addressed their needs. The ultimate goal of the current study was to provide new knowledge on potential ways to help relationship education best prevent marital distress and divorce.

Divorced individuals, compared to their married counterparts, have higher levels of psychological distress, substance abuse, and depression, as well as lower levels of overall health. Marital conflict and divorce have also shown to be associated with negative child outcomes, including lower academic success, poorer psychological well-being, and increased depression and anxiety. Given these negative outcomes of marital conflict and divorce, the overarching goal of premarital relationship education has been to provide couples with skills to have healthy marriages.

The Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program focuses on teaching appropriate communication and conflict skills and provides information to help couples evaluate expectations, understand relationship commitment, and enhance positive connections through friendship and fun. Most research indicates that compared to control groups, PREP helps couples learn to communicate more positively and less negatively, increases satisfaction, and reduces risk for divorce in the years following the program. International studies have found highly endorsed reasons for divorce to be marrying too young, communication problems, incompatibility, spousal abuse, drug and alcohol use, religious differences, failures to get along, lack of love, lack of commitment, and childlessness, etc.

There Are Many Reasons for Divorce, But Only 12 Legally Acceptable Ones: the reasons for divorce can be many and varied, but they must boil down to what the court considers to be adequate legal grounds. You are obligated to prove the irretrievable breakdown of your marriage, and it must fall into legally defined categories.

While legal grounds for divorce vary by jurisdiction, most states generally recognize a consistent set of reasons for filing an at-fault petition. These often involve fundamental breaches of the marital contract, such as adultery, bigamy, or desertion, alongside issues regarding the marriage’s initial validity, including mental incapacity, force or fraud, or prohibited relationships between close relatives. Furthermore, courts frequently grant divorces based on personal conduct or circumstances that make the union untenable, such as mental or physical abuse, chronic drug or alcohol addiction, criminal convictions leading to imprisonment, or pre-existing impotence and severe mental illness.

Couples who have been together for many years can find themselves becoming more like strangers as they drift apart from each other. People change, and the activities and interests they once shared no longer hold a place in their lives, leaving them feeling lonely, sad, or disconnected.

The process of children growing up and leaving the family home can often act as a catalyst for couples to assess the state of their relationship. This stage of life, commonly referred to as ’empty nest syndrome,’ leaves couples with an abundance of free time and a reduced set of parental obligations. Some couples embrace this time and reconnect on a deeper level. For others, it can amplify pre-existing issues that previously were ignored, leading many to realize that their relationship is not as strong as it once was.

In the developing countries Like Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program PREP should also regulate on national level with the cooperation of provinces and states. Due to this, we will mitigate the ratio of divorce in developing countries.

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