Study: Veterans More Likely to Have Marital Problems

A common assumption is that people who deal with a high amount of on-the-job stress tend to have more marital problems.  

Military deployment is about as stressful as it gets, so it's not surprising that a new study finds veterans are more likely to have been divorced and to have had extra-marital affairs, according to a report in Splitstown. 

The study, conducted by researchers are Syracuse University, was presented at a recent meeting of the American Sociological Association.

It found that more than 32 percent of ever-married veterans reported extramarital sex, which is about twice the rate among ever-married non-veterans (16.8 percent).

“To the extent that the patterns observed in these data hold for our current veteran population, the results of this study provide evidence that the concerns about infidelity among spouses of persons who have served in the military are to a considerable degree valid,” said Andrew S. London, chair of the sociology department and a sociology professor at Syracuse University.

“However, even though the reported rates of infidelity were significantly higher for veterans than non-veterans, extramarital sex was only reported by one-third of ever-married veteran respondents.”

The study also found that among those who had ever married, veterans were almost 10 percent more likely to have gotten divorced (38.5 percent compared to 28.9 percent).

There was also a strong association between extramarital sex and divorce both for veterans and non-veterans. Overall, even after taking into account veteran status and other factors that influence divorce, those who reported extramarital sex were 2.3 times more likely to have ever divorced than those who reported no extramarital sex.