Statistically, for men, second marriages fail at an even higher rate than first marriages.
The obvious question is, why? The answer is simple really, and it's critical for every woman to contemplate before marrying a divorced man.
Most divorced men never heal the wounds their bad marriages inflicted on them.
Worse, most aren't even aware they've been wounded.
The symptoms that can tell a woman everything she needs to know about the status of a man's wounding are obvious.
Anger is likely the most common reaction to a bad marriage or a bad divorce.
For men, anger is merely the cover for the pain that's been stuffed deep down in their male psyche.
Men rarely process their pain, and failing to work through that pain inevitably leads to anger.
It all sounds simple, so why don't men work through their pain after divorce? Most don't know how to, or even what it means to work through it.
Ask any woman what her worst nightmare is in terms of types of dysfunctional men, and the answer will likely be, an angry man.
I offer this information for the benefit of women who are considering marrying a divorced man, but also for the benefit of divorced men who may be unaware they have a problem or what to do about it.
I would like to help both men and women avoid their next relationship disaster.
What I share isn't my opinion, but rather experiential information gleaned over twenty years working with men in small groups.
Men exhibit their anger after divorce in several ways, but sex is probably the most common.
Angry sex is what men call sex after divorce.
It's all about revenge for what a man feels women have done to him.
Pity the poor woman who doesn't know this, because she's going to experience a man at his worst and least conscious.
She'll be used and abused and left wondering what happened.
Sometimes individual therapy can help a man move beyond his anger.
But that's generally a long, drawn-out process, and its success is entirely dependent upon the caliber of the therapist.
Considering that a small percentage of therapists are competent, that's just rolling the dice.
There's far too much credence given to therapy as the universal solution for resolving problems.
I have no axe to grind with therapists, but since there's no way to intelligently evaluate them prior to engaging them, I offer a far better, tried and true, method for men to work through their anger.
In the first year and a half of my mens group, four out of eight men divorced.
While it sounds like a disaster scenario, that fifty-percent number accurately reflects the national percentage for divorce rates.
No one encouraged any of these men to seek divorce, but what they had, that few other men rarely have, was a peer support system.
When men raged against the woman who they felt wronged them, they were encouraged instead to talk about and focus on the pain they were feeling.
The men helped each other get in touch with that pain, and to talk about it until it began to lessen and the men were able to see their roles in their failed marriages.
For some men this was a rapid process, and for others it took a bit longer.
But, in the end, every one of the divorced men was able to focus on his anger and behavior until he could honestly state that he was no longer angry.
It was obvious anyway.
All four men eventually remarried, and each is still married ten to fifteen years later.
Statistically, that's completely out of whack, and doesn't to any degree reflect the failure rate most divorced men experience in second marriages.
Whether you're a man or a woman, shouldn't you consider this critical information in your marital decision-making process? What kind of man ignores the truth about his emotional state and forges ahead anyway without a clue to the reasons for his behavior? The kind of man every woman should avoid, that's who.
A man who hasn't worked through the pain from his divorce is a ticking time bomb who will explode on his second wife without warning or any sense of self-control.
If you're a woman thinking about marrying a divorced guy, particularly a recently divorced guy, think again, unless you know with absolute certainty he's done the healing work.
The numbers aren't in your favor if you throw caution to the wind and proceed blindly.
That just doesn't seem very smart.