Youth of Utahns saying 'I do' linked to high divorce rate, hectic lives like Jessica's

By Branigan Knowlton

May 10, 2005 | Being a divorced, single mother is nothing to sing about, but Jessica Dunyon's life is best described by the lyrics from a Beatles song: "Lady Madonna, children at your feet, wonder how you manage to make ends meet."

For three years Dunyon, 28, has been a full-time worker, a full-time student and a full-time mother. All of which she has done by herself, without the aid of a spouse. This has meant graveyard shifts, sleep between classes and evenings at home raising two babies.

When she and her husband separated, only 14 months after their second child was born in 2001, Dunyon knew life would not be easy.

"It sucked," she said. "When I was 20 and living it up, I never saw myself here. I never saw myself as a single mother, raising a 6- and 4-year-old."

Yet, at 20, Dunyon found herself exchanging vows in Las Vegas with a man whom she thought she was in love with. Dunyon said insecurities or lack of self-esteem might have contributed to her decision to get married.

"I decided this is the best I'm going to get, I'm not all that and he is, so I might as well marry him," Dunyon said. "Looking back on it, I was really just a kid. I thought I wasn't; I thought I was mature."

Her marriage was already struggling when she found out she was pregnant with her first child. She thought a child might help her marriage, but it didn't. After her second child, things got worse and neither Dunyon nor her spouse saw things working out. Divorce was imminent.

Marriages fail every day. Nationally, 50 percent of marriages will end in divorce, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. But Utah marriages are different, right? Not really, on average there are about 30 divorces a day in Utah. That computes to more than 10,000 a year.

Divorce is swear word in many Utah households, so it may come as a surprise that Utah's divorce rate is above the national average. In 2003, Utah's divorce rate was 4.4 per 1,000 population, higher than the national average of 4.0.

Dr. Thorana Nelson of the family, consumer and human development department at Utah State University, said divorce in Utah is not decreasing. Nelson said cultural and societal pressures might be contributing to Utah's above-average divorce rate.

"I think that the 'missionary' marriage is not much of a myth. That is, people come home from a mission to an expectation that the next developmental step is marriage and children, and that the marriage should occur in less than a year [from being home]," Nelson said.

Neither Dunyon nor her ex-husband is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were not married by a religious official - unlike 77 percent of the marriages performed in Utah in 2000, according to Utah Marriage, an organization dedicated to strengthening Utah marriages.

"Religion didn't have anything to do with it," Dunyon said. "We were just stupid kids."

According to the Governor's Commission on Marriage, a research project proposed by then-Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt, Utahns marry an average of 3.5 years younger than the national median age at their first marriage.

The median age for men in Utah at their first marriage is 23, women 21.

In 2003, 17.6 percent of the women married in Utah were less than 20 years old. Those married before the age of 20 were most likely to divorce, when compared with other age categories, according to the study.

At 20 years old, you're only two years removed from high school. Unless they dated all through high school, most of these married couples did not date long before getting married.

"I think that people should know each other for at least a year before they get married," Nelson said. "The engagement period in Utah is shorter than the national average and I don't think this helps couples to get to know each other in all their strengths and faults before marriage."

The Governor's Commission on Marriage also stated that 83 percent of adults thought too many couples rushed into marriage.

"We didn't rush into anything," Dunyon said. "We dated for two years, one of which we lived together. I thought I knew him, but I didn't. Looking back on it, I didn't know who the hell I was either."

Dunyon said money, communication and selfishness were the main factors contributing to her divorce. Interestingly, Nelson said finances, communication and conflict are thought to be some of the main factors causing divorce in Utah.

"Finances were not that big of an issue until we got into our house," Dunyon said. "Before that, we had all this disposable income that we could blow on whatever."

Dunyon said she didn't want to move into a new house. She thought it was a bad idea from the beginning, knowing that the mortgage required both of them to work. Their salaries were barely covering the mortgage. Money got tight.

She knew the house would lead to financial and marriage problems. It did.

"We didn't want to stop spending like we did before we got into the house," Dunyon said. "We began to fight about money all the time."

"After he left, I lived there with the kids for a while. He wasn't sending money. I wasn't making enough. Eventually I just left the keys on the counter, packed up our stuff and left," Dunyon said.

Dunyon left the house to be foreclosed on. Her credit is still paying for that house.

"Because they foreclosed on the house, it killed my credit. My credit is horrible," Dunyon said.

If those walls could talk, they wouldn't say much.

"We couldn't talk as friends, we couldn't even talk as people," said Dunyon. "Our communication skills sucked. That is what eventually made me push him away."

Dr. Virginia Walsh, in an article published by the University of Virginia, said, "Poor communication is considered by therapists to be the most frequent and serious problem in ailing marriages."

Dunyon likes to talk. She needs to talk. She said her husband's refusal to communicate with her made her feel as though she wasn't a person. She felt as though she was only there to cook, clean, tend the kids, and make money. She thought it would be so nice to lie in bed with someone she loved and just have "pillow talk."

"We were only 2 feet away from each other [in bed], but it felt as though I was there alone," Dunyon said.

Dunyon said she and her husband were both selfish. They both liked their spare time and when the other intruded upon that, things got rough. She said one day she came home with their baby boy, who was asleep in the car, and called into the garage to have her husband open the front door. He was in the garage working on a home improvement project. Dunyon didn't want to take the keys out of the ignition to unlock the front door because the child usually woke up when she did that. The child had been sick and not sleeping well, so Dunyon planned to have her husband open the front door and she would carry the child in without having to turn off the car. Her husband wouldn't open the front door.

"I pleaded with him to open it. I told him I didn't want to wake our child up. He still wouldn't do it," Dunyon said.

She went to the car, took out the key and the baby immediately started screaming. Dunyon carried the child into the house and tried desperately to calm him down. Her husband came into the house from the garage to see what was wrong.

"I told him 'See this is why I wanted you to open the front door. Thanks a lot, jerk,'" Dunyon said. "Then he just looked at me, I could see the anger in his eyes."

Dunyon said he then shouted profanities at her, making her and the child cry more.

Dunyon said she probably should have left him around that time, but she was scared. She didn't want to get divorced. She didn't want to put her child, then her only one, through that.

Many people see divorce as an evil in society. People are ignorant enough to believe every marriage can work out and that people should stay in abusive marriages, whether physical or mental. To them, divorce is a serious problem.

"I don't necessarily see divorce as a problem. It often is the best solution to a destructive marriage that may or may not have been a mistake in the first place. Bad marriages are destructive to the partners and to their children," Nelson said.

Since her divorce, Dunyon has had a new perspective on life. She's self-confident, she's ambitious and most importantly, she feels like a person.

Admittedly, her life is not perfect and nor is she, but she loves the road she is travelling and is doing all she can to make her children's roads a bit smoother than the one she's had to travel.

Dunyon's optimism is visible. Her eyes show what she has been through. Her smile shows that she's learned what the Beatles told us 30 years ago, to "Let it be."

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