‘Wrong partner, meddling families lead to rising divorce rate’

AMMAN — Family intervention and choosing the wrong partner are major factors in the rise of early divorces and broken engagements in Jordan, experts say. 

"Recent studies have shown that 38 per cent of early divorces are caused by family intervention, 42 per cent are caused by the wrong choice of partner and 4 per cent are related to economic reasons," said marriage counsellor Ahmad Seriwi. 

Families interfere in their children's affairs, whether asked for their advice or not, he told The Jordan Times. 

"Usually the mother acts out of love for her son or daughter, not realising that she is destroying his or her life," said Seriwi.

Sometimes, families can serve as a support system during difficult relationships, as Eman Al Suwi found when her relationship broke up. 

Suwi said her family helped her make the right decision: "They saved me from a hopeless life".

But for Seriwi, couples should seek advice from experts if they face problems during an engagement or after marriage, or even read books, rather than let their families intervene as relatives sometimes "make matters worse". 

Sameer Petro, a relational needs consultant and founder of Ithraa Coaching Centre, said his "golden advice" to couples in pre-marriage training is that if they want a healthy marriage, they should prevent any third party from interfering in the relationship in its first two years.

Addressing the other major cause of divorces, choosing the wrong partner, Seriwi said some prospective brides and grooms look for the wrong qualities when seeking a partner. 

”The wrong choice of partner happens if the decision is based on appearance or social or economic status without consideration to the level of education, or the way of thinking," he said.

Breakups in these cases often happen when the partner loses one of these features, such as money or status, he noted. 

For Petro, the key to a long-lasting relationship is healthy communication. He advises those who are about to get married to engage in training offered by marriage counsellors to learn to communicate well. 

Meanwhile, Seriwi urged newlyweds to have patience, and to remember that each partner comes from a different background. Newly-married couples need time to shape their own family life, which will be different from the lives they had at their parents’ homes, he noted.