Get Along With Your In-Laws? If You’re a Woman that Could Lead to Divorce

New York, NY- A new study by the University of Michigan shows that a married couple’s relationship to their in-laws could lead to divorce for women, but a long lasting marriage for men.

The study was conducted over a period of 26 years by Terri Orbuch, a psychologist and research professor at the University of Michigan. The study found that men who get along with their in-laws had a 20 percent decreased chance of divorcing. But for women, the converse was true; women who have a good relationship with her husband’s parents were 20 percent more likely to divorce, according to the Huffington Post.Orbuch told The Wall Street Journal that the differences lie in how men and women approach their relationships with their in-laws.

“Women value a close relationship with their in-laws but may ultimately view them as meddling, while men are more interested in providing for their families and take their in-law’s actions less personally,” Orbuch said, “Because relationships are so important to women, their identity as a wife and mother are central to their being. They interpret what their in-laws say and do as interference to their identity as spouse or parent.”

Orbuch suggests that a son’s parents should pay attention to their behavior and try not to meddle into their daughter-in-laws affairs. The parents of daughters should make the effort to develop a strong relationship

There a host of reasons couples divorce and these issues are often hard to get past. If these differences cannot be reconciled, the couple will find they need a divorce attorney. With legal help a couple will be able to reasonably deal with issues of child custody and property and asset division.