There’s 156% chance my husband and I will be married on our tenth anniversary. (Btw that was 8 years ago.)

In my post a few days ago, I tried to use Political Calculations’ “marriage lasting” formula. It wouldn’t work at all. I thought it was probably because of Safari. So I decided to try it using Firefox. Presto chango it worked.

They base it on woman’s age, combined post high school education, and religiousness.

It said that my husband and I, with an 8 on religiousness, which may actually be low if you’re working off averages, have a 156% chance of being married for 10 years. That’s probably right, since we’ve been married for 18. For 18 we have a 114% chance.

It takes us 22 years to get below 100%.

It takes us 39 years to get to the supposed national statistic of less than 50%. Are that many people really getting divorced that only 50% of the marriages make it?

In my family, of the people in my generation, we have 7 marriages and 3 that have stuck. In my parents’ generation, on my mother’s side, there were 4 with 2 surviving. For my father’s side there were 6 marriages with five that lasted. In my husband’s family, his mother’s generation had six marriages with 2 surviving and his father’s had 5 marriages with 3 making it.

Wow. That’s a lot less than I thought. In ours’ and our parents’ generation there were 30 marriages with 19 making it. We’re beating the odds, but not by much.

I wouldn’t have thought that it would be that big a number…. And our families believe in the sanctity of marriage.

For 45 years R and I are at 39%. Of course, being the pope only gives you 43%. (Not that he would get married.)

I wonder if the fact that I was so old, 26, when I got married makes a difference. It seems to, since that is one of the questions they ask. But maybe that’s too old. Do they factor in 26+45=71 and lots of people are dead then? I mean it might not be divorced. It might be widowed.