Children Of Divorce Try To Avoid Illinois Family Lawyers

No one goes into a marriage expecting it will end in divorce, even if the statistics don't exactly provide encouragement. But the odds of divorce are significantly higher for those whose own parents were divorced, despite their hopes for a relationship "until death," CNN reported. Newlyweds Cory and Zulema Green, both products of broken homes, hope they'll beat the odds.

Zulema Green said her mother had been divorced three times by the time she was 12 but she expressed optimism that things will be different in her marriage:

"I figured I can get married. I can do it right."

Quite possibly, and her refreshingly realistic outlook certainly helps. And they've been happily married for five years.

But statistically speaking, Chicagoans whose parents got divorced are much more likely to call Chicago family law attorneys and end their own marriages than those whose parents stayed together.

There is actually a 200 percent higher risk of divorce for couples where both partners come from broken homes, said Nicholas Wolfinger, a family consumer studies professor and the author of "Understanding the Divorce Cycle: The Children of Divorce in Their Own Marriages." If just one partner is a child of divorce, though, the couple is 50 percent more at risk of ending the marriage.

Also, Nicholas Wolfinger said children of divorce are 50 percent more likely to marry another child of divorce.

Zulema and Cory Green hope their pragmatic and conscious approach to marriage will help them defy the odds. Zulema Green said she read several books on relationships and marriage, while the couple enrolled in premarital counseling before getting married. She said she wanted them to understand one another as best they could before their wedding day: