We used to think that the link between divorce and age was basically an inverse correlation: the younger you were, the less likely your marriage would last.
That model still stands — but new research adds a wrinkle. Beyond a certain age, the chance of divorce also rises.
That’s according to a new analysis by University of Utah sociologist Nicholas H. Wolfinger for the Institute for Family Studies.
“We do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that people who marry in their thirties are now at greater risk of divorce than are people who wed in their late twenties,” Wolfinger told the Washington Post. “This is a new development.”
His analysis is based on the data on first marriages from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Survey of Family Growth. 
According to Wolfinger’s analysis (here’s his post on how he did it), the later you get married, the less likely you are to get divorced. But that model is only true until your early 30s. Past that, the risk starts to rise.
“… Prior to age 32 or so, each additional year of age at marriage reduces the odds of divorce by 11 percent,” he wrote. “However, after that the odds of divorce increase by 5 percent per year.”
But wait — we’re just talking about statistics, here. This does not mean that your marriage is doomed if you got married later in life. You’re just statistically more likely to get divorced if you wed later. (Does that help?)
So what’s causing this? It’s unclear.
Wolfinger says it’s possible that people who marry later might just not be the marrying kind, essentially. And the longer you wait, the less likely you could be to find someone who will be a good spouse.
“Some people seem to be congenitally cantankerous. Such people naturally have trouble with interpersonal relationships. Consequently they delay marriage, often because they can’t find anyone willing to marry them. When they do tie the knot, their marriages are automatically at high risk for divorce,” he wrote. “More generally, perhaps people who marry later face a pool of potential spouses that has been winnowed down to exclude the individuals most predisposed to succeed at matrimony.”
In Maine, 10 percent of Maine women and 11 percent Maine are divorced, which is higher than the national average of 9 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 American Community Survey.
