We used national panel data collected between 1980 and 1997 to classify 208 people's openended responses to a question on why their marriages ended in divorce. Infidelity was the most commonly reported cause, followed by incompatibility, drinking or drug use, and growing apart. People's specific reasons for divorcing varied with gender, social class, and life course variables. Former husbands and wives were more likely to blame their ex-spouses than themselves for the problems that led to the divorce. Former husbands and wives claimed, however, that women were more likely to have initiated the divorce. People who attributed the cause of the divorce to the relationship itself, rather than to internal (self) or external factors, tended to have the best postdivorce adjustment.

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Because sexual fidelity is a key norm regulating the institution of marriage, any occurrence of extramarital sex (EMS) could potentially contribute to marital dissolution. Although the relationship between EMS and marital dissolution has been demonstrated in past research, studies have yet to show if the occurrence of EMS causes a marriage to break down, or if an unraveling marriage prompts spouses to seek alternative sexual partners. In this 17-year longitudinal study ( N= 1,475), we assessed whether EMS precedes or follows deteriorations in marital quality. We estimated the effects of marital happiness and divorce proneness on EMS, the effects of EMS on subsequent marital happiness and divorce proneness, and the effects of all three variables on divorce. Our results indicate that divorce proneness predicts the occurrence of EMS. Results also suggest that EMS lowers subsequent marital happiness, increases subsequent divorce proneness, and increases the odds of divorce. We conclude that infidelity is both a cause and a consequence of relationship deterioration.

This paper describes people's open‐ended, personal accounts of why they stay married. Most people perceived the cohesiveness of their marriages in terms of rewards and barriers, and few people referred to a lack of good alternatives. People who reported barriers only tended to be relatively unhappy with their marriages and were more likely than other individuals to be thinking about divorce. People who reported barriers only, compared with people who reported rewards only, were more likely to divorce during the next 14 years. This association was significant even after controlling for marital happiness and divorce proneness.