To Divorce-Proof Your Marriage And Boost Your Happiness, Go To Church Often
Only half of Americans say shared religious values are important to marriage. New data shows those who don’t think so are wrong.Only half of Americans say shared religious values are important to marriage. New data shows those who don’t think so are wrong.Why are Christian women cheering on divorce?
Bad advice has always been abundantly available throughout history. But our ancestors were somewhat limited in how many sources of advice they could tap.
No such limitation exists today.
When Jesus named lust as a real, heart-level violation, He wasn't handing people a new, more permissive category of 'biblical grounds for divorce.'
Bad advice gushes from a firehose called the internet every minute of every day. On social media platforms, we’re drowning in it.
I’ve been writing about Christian women’s groups online and the bad theology they’re facilitating. To be honest, these kinds of groups are highly problematic, because anyone who claims to be a Christian can join, and a lot of the participants seem to consider the group a reasonable substitute for a church.
But no sound doctrine + endless opinions with zero scriptural basis + no personal relationships = a pretty awful “church.”
Imagine that. An army of young women, some of them with virtually no knowledge of Scripture, posting anonymously. What could possibly go wrong?
It’s almost like God knew what He was doing when He left us a book and instructions on how to learn it alongside fellow believers.
But I digress.
The problem with 'Christian' social media groups
These groups are growing and becoming more dangerous because the sheer volume of bad teaching being bandied about is mushrooming. Recently, I wrote about people who say they don’t need church (they’re wrong; you can read why here). This, of course, is just one of many examples of bad teaching: Christians are commanded to love and care for one another, which is pretty much impossible to do from your sofa.
But perhaps the most common bad advice given in virtual so-called Christian groups is something along these lines:
You gotta run, girl.
This is a common response to someone complaining about almost anything a husband has done. Of course, due to the nature of anonymous storytelling, we have no way of knowing if any given anecdote is a creative writing exercise designed for attention and clicks (yeah, that’s definitely a thing), or a genuine account of abuse (in which case, anonymously sharing it with a bunch of strangers is a profoundly unhelpful waste of time).
So if a woman shares that her husband gave her an STD or a whack across the face, of course people are going to respond with “you gotta run, girl.” Although in a case like that, I wonder if a bunch of strangers has ever been successful in persuading someone to make a life-altering decision. Because a bunch of randos on the internet for sure shouldn’t be your counsel for that kind of decision.
Common 'grounds'
But what I see more often — very often — is a woman reporting a husband who is emotionally unavailable. Or spends too much time at the office. Or has some bad habits (ranging from very serious, like porn usage, to just irresponsible and immature, like extended video game sessions).
Yet in almost every case, SOMEONE will spin it up into “you gotta run” because, she’ll argue, if he spends too much time working that means he’s abandoned you and the marriage — you have a biblical right to a divorce. He isn’t meeting all your emotional needs, he’s not fulfilling his marriage vows to care for you — you have a biblical right to divorce.
You can twist almost anything into a "biblical right to divorce" if you’re looking at it that way, so that’s maybe not the right way to look at it.
Yes, there are biblical grounds for divorce. They are pretty narrow. And there are situations (physical safety) where separation is the wisest course, whether a divorce is sought or not.
The problem with twisting everything into “grounds for divorce” should be self-evident. For one thing, those being invited to opine are only getting one side of the story, in most cases anonymously at that. It gets lots of clicks in the Facebook group, but it’s absolutely awful for the souls of the people involved.
Let’s be clear: God hates divorce. Because of people’s hard hearts (and to protect women), He allows divorce in certain very limited scenarios. But He still hates it, and note: Divorce is NEVER required.
There are so many better options, especially when children are involved. A few that can be used individually or in combination:
- Fervent prayer (and asking other trusted folks to join in prayer);
- Counseling with a biblically minded pastor;
- Marriage strengthening ministries/books/programs;
- Some time apart;
- In cases involving danger/abuse, formal separation; and
- In cases involving adultery or abandonment, divorce is allowed — but not required, especially if there is true repentance/confession, along with willingness to work toward reconciliation and rebuild trust.
What happens to the young woman who takes her complaint to a group like this, and gets countless admonitions that she needs to get out? That her feelings trump any other considerations? That his behavior is abusive (a definition I’ve seen stretched to include such "abuses" as leaving his socks on the floor, since it shows disrespect for her work caring for the home)?
If dozens or even hundreds of people tell you you’re being abused, you will start to believe it. You’re going to lean hard in that direction. The direction that God hates.
The cancer of pornography
One of the most common complaints, sadly, is that the husband is using porn. This is 100% a cancer to the marriage, and it defiles the holy union. Many claim that porn itself is grounds for divorce because Jesus said if you even look at a woman with lust, you’re committing adultery.
I asked a pastor friend to comment on this passage, and he was gracious enough to provide full context around this portion of Scripture, so that we can bring the whole counsel of God to the topic. Anyone contemplating divorce due to this issue would do well to consider his points:
First, in Matthew 5, Jesus is declaring Himself the pivotal point of history; the One to whom all the law and the prophets point — and He then shows how the Old Testament is validated and finds perfect continuity in His teaching (5:17-18).
But there's a problem: Jesus knows that much of what the crowd on the mountain has heard about the Old Testament is not actually Scripture, because the Pharisees treated certain oral traditions as carrying equal authority with Scripture itself.
That's why Jesus begins each of His next five teachings with the same formula: "You have heard it said (whatever the Pharisees claimed) ... but I say to you (Jesus’ perfect teaching)."
In each teaching, His concern is to correct people's distorted understanding of the Old Testament and point to the true direction the law was always aiming.
In 5:27-28, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Apparently, some believed that as long as they didn't actually sleep with someone, they were in the clear.
But Jesus wasn't satisfied with mere formal obedience to the letter of the law. He wanted to expose the heart of purity the law was always meant to protect. He deepens the seventh commandment by connecting it to coveting another person's spouse; in fact, the Greek word translated "lust" in most Bibles (epithymeō) is the very same word used for "covet."
It's worth noting this doesn't mean noticing someone's beauty or feeling attraction.This coveting another person is the deep-seated greed to take and possess someone who doesn't belong to you.
RELATED: Dolly Parton never had to leave her husband to find herself
'Adultery in the heart'
Some today do use this passage to argue that porn is grounds for divorce, which is understandable given the real sin of lust and the real pain of betrayal and the devastating consequences they carry. But the distinction Jesus makes is important: The offender has committed adultery "in his heart." Sinning in your heart is not the same as committing the act itself.
In the teaching just before this one, Jesus addresses murder and anger the same way: "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court" (5:22). Obviously, being angry with someone in your heart is different from actually killing them, and the consequences are not identical. If we use the same logic that some use, claiming that lust is automatic grounds for divorce, then everyone who has been angry with someone should be in prison.
None of this excuses porn usage or lust. But it is not the same thing as having sex with someone else.
Consider this: If Jesus truly meant that “adultery in the heart” constituted biblical grounds for divorce, then just about every marriage would have legitimate grounds for divorce — unless a husband and wife made it through their entire life together without ever once lusting after someone else.
Even more importantly, that reading would also make marriage trivial, which is the very opposite of what Jesus intended. He wanted to raise the bar for marriage, not lower it. He wanted to protect its sanctity, because mainstream Judaism at the time had taken an extremely lax position that allowed a man to divorce his wife for practically any reason, like burning food, or if the man just found another woman better looking.
So when Jesus named lust as a real, heart-level violation, he wasn't handing people a new, more permissive category of "biblical grounds for divorce" that simply met the culture where it already was. He was doing the opposite: confronting the culture's careless view of marriage with the values and standards of the Kingdom of Heaven.
That said, the waters get murkier in cases of unrepentant, habitual lust, which Jesus addresses in Matthew 19:9. But if we want to stay faithful to the text, here is the distinction: a repentant heart; one that is doing everything it can to slay the dragon of lust (see the call to gouge out an eye in Matthew 5:29-30) presents no biblical grounds for divorce.
Jesus never asked married couples for perfection. He asked for a fight: a relentless, ongoing pursuit of purity that guards the marriage — not an excuse to escape it.
So what’s a girl to do?
What do we tell a woman whose husband is entangled with porn?
It is critical to not go this issue alone. Your church must be involved. Counsel from your elders and pastors, for both husband and wife, will help everyone understand and apply biblical teaching.
If you don’t go to church, this is a good time to seek out a strong Bible-teaching congregation. There are a number of resources, programs, and books to help (here’s one).
Unrepentant, habitual lust — where the husband continues making excuses for porn use, or lying about it — is blatant sexual immorality, and that is grounds for divorce. It doesn’t mean the wife has to divorce, but she has biblical grounds.
If, however, the husband is repentant, taking steps to fight, waging a relentless ongoing battle for his own purity and the purity of the marriage union — it’s not right to walk away from a man who is willing to fight that battle and honor his vows.
That is a biblical response, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy, because trust has been betrayed, and rebuilding can be arduous and painful. That’s where those elders and pastors can meaningfully support a couple in crisis.
But remember that God is a reconciling God, a healing God, a God who not only hates divorce, but wants every marriage to reflect His love for us, His church — which He will never divorce.
Of course, no couple will meet that perfect standard. But it’s what we’re all to strive for.
So no, girl, you don’t gotta run. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you have to, but know what the Bible demands from marriage, and hold your husband accountable to move toward that standard — even as you hold yourself accountable to the same.
Dolly Parton never had to leave her husband to find herself
When Dolly Parton came to Nashville in 1964, finding a husband was the last thing on her mind. She was 18 years old, newly arrived from the mountains of East Tennessee, and clear about what she had come to do: “I was here to become a star.”
Then a young man with sky-blue eyes drove past the Wishy Washy Laundromat.
Reading about Parton and Dean makes you suspect we've forgotten how to disagree inside a marriage.
Parton was outside waiting for her clothes when 21-year-old Carl Dean spotted her, called something out the window, circled the block, and came back. She talked to him because he was “drop-dead handsome,” but she was also surprised that he looked at her face while they talked — “a rare thing for me,” she joked in her 1994 autobiography, “Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business.” More seriously, she remembered that Dean “seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
Dean came back every day for a week. When Parton finally had a day free for a real date, he took her to his parents' house, where his mother was putting supper on the table.
“Fix this girl a plate,” Dean announced. “She's the one I'm going to marry.”
'In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)'
This was news to Parton, since Dean hadn't yet told her he loved her. But two years later, on Memorial Day 1966, they married in Ringgold, Georgia. The marriage lasted until Dean's death in March 2025, just shy of 59 years.
By then, the penniless girl doing her laundry at the Wishy Washy had become one of the most famous women in the world, while Dean had spent most of those years avoiding the public attention that followed his wife everywhere. Parton liked crowds, travel, and attention; Dean liked cars, tractors, and staying home. She became so famous that strangers took tour buses past their house; he was so private that some fans suspected she had invented him.
Their marriage is particularly interesting at a time when we're accustomed to hearing divorce described in the language of personal liberation. Celebrity divorce announcements that once might have contained at least a trace of embarrassment now tend to read like graduation speeches: Two people have decided to “choose themselves,” embark on “new chapters,” and continue their respective “journeys.” Whatever else has happened, we're assured that tremendous personal growth is underway.
Parton would have been an excellent candidate for this kind of liberation. She was financially independent, professionally ambitious, frequently away from home, surrounded by attractive men, and married to someone whose personality and interests were almost comically different from hers. They had no children, and by the time divorce became commonplace, she certainly didn't need a husband to support her.
'Just the Way I Am'
Yet there is remarkably little sense in Parton's accounts of her marriage that staying with Dean required surrendering some essential part of herself. Few entertainers have constructed a public identity as singular or pursued a career as independently as Dolly Parton did. She managed it while remaining married to the man she met outside a laundromat at 18.
The potential conflict between marriage and career appeared before the wedding. Fred Foster, the head of Parton's record label, asked her to postpone getting married because her career was beginning to move, and he worried that a husband might hurt her appeal to male record buyers. Parton told him she would wait, then she and Dean secretly drove to Ringgold to get married anyway.
Her mother went with them, having made Dolly a white eyelet dress and veil and wrapped a little white Bible in lace and field flowers for her to carry. At the courthouse, an official offered to marry them on the spot, but Parton balked. “I want to get married in a church,” she told him.
That presented a problem: They would have to wait until Monday and couldn't afford a motel for the weekend. So they drove back to Nashville, returned three days later, and were married at Ringgold Baptist Church. Their honeymoon lasted about two hours: Dean had to work the next morning, while Parton had to get up at 3 a.m. for a television appearance.
The competing demands of Carl and career didn't go away after the wedding, but the couple arrived at an arrangement that would probably horrify anyone who thinks a healthy marriage requires sharing all one's interests. Dean eventually owned an asphalt-paving company and wanted almost nothing to do with show business. According to Parton, he saw her perform only once.
'I Will Always Love You'
“My marriage is separate,” she once explained. “I have my life on the road and my life with Carl. He has seen me perform, once. But we have our own life at home — without music people.”
Their differences extended to ordinary domestic life. Parton was spontaneous; Dean liked routine. She spent money; he was frugal. She wanted more physical affection than he naturally gave. She traveled constantly while he preferred staying home. None of this prevented Parton from describing the arrangement with considerable satisfaction.
“It works out well between me and Carl,” she wrote. “We both get what we really want. We both have the freedom to come and go and do as we please.”
As she also put it in her autobiography, “Carl is the only man I could live with all of the time, because I don't.”
Freedom comes up repeatedly when Parton talks about her marriage, but not in the way the word is usually used in discussions of unhappy marriages. She and Dean weren't free from each other. They seem to have felt remarkably free with each other.
That required trust. Parton spent much of her professional life around men, and rumors about her love life were inevitable. Sometimes friends or relatives actually approached Dean to tell him his wife was involved with somebody else.
“Well, I would think less of any man that didn't fall in love with her,” Dean would respond.
Parton believed he could take the rumors in stride. “He knows that I will always come home,” she wrote.
RELATED: Dolly Parton is dead at age 80
'Mommie, Ain't That Daddy?'
This wasn't a marriage without jealousy or hurt. Dean was badly shaken early in their relationship when he learned that Parton had been sexually involved with another man before him, an experience that helped inspire her 1968 song “Just Because I'm a Woman.” A few years later, a pretty bank teller began paying so much attention to Dean that he developed a newfound enthusiasm for trips to the bank. Parton poured her jealousy into writing “Jolene.”
Jealousy may have been an inevitable byproduct of the mystery each retained for the other. “They say that opposites attract, and it’s true,” Parton told People in 2015. “We’re completely opposite, but that’s what makes it fun. I never know what he’s gonna say or do. He’s always surprising me.”
She had said much the same thing more than 20 years earlier. “I am still learning about him to this day,” she wrote. “I think that's the way a relationship should be.”
Reading about Parton and Dean makes you suspect we've forgotten how to disagree inside a marriage. He didn't like show business; she built her life around it. He liked routine; she liked spontaneity. She spent; he saved. She wanted more affection than he naturally gave. Yet neither seems to have taken every difference as evidence of incompatibility — or proof that the other was preventing some truer self from emerging.
Carl didn't ask Dolly to give up the career she wanted, and Dolly didn't demand that Carl become part of the Dolly Parton enterprise. He didn't have to learn to love awards shows, and she didn't have to stop touring. They seem to have understood something increasingly unfashionable: You can be profoundly different from the person you married without having married the wrong person.
Dean also believed in Parton's ambitions before there was much evidence that he should. When money was still tight, the couple bought 75 acres in Brentwood, Tennessee. Parton told him they needed the land for privacy because someday tour buses would drive past their house.
“He accepted that notion without question, showing that he had faith in my dream too,” she recalled. “This made me love him even more.”
'Here You Come Again'
The tour buses eventually came, but Dean never showed much interest in joining the attraction. In her autobiography, Parton recalled a visit he made to the set of “Nine to Five,” where Jane Fonda met him without initially realizing that the handsome stranger was Dolly's husband. Fonda later told Parton that she had praised Dolly to him, saying how sweet she was and how much she enjoyed working with her.
“Well, she's an angel,” Dean said.
Fonda agreed.
“No, you don't get it. She's a real angel.”
Parton was touched when Fonda repeated the conversation. “It's just like him to say it to somebody else, figuring I'll never hear about it.”
Dean had known her before the rest of the world did, meeting her on the day she arrived in Nashville with a load of laundry and the certainty that she was going to become a star. Almost 50 years later, Parton credited their meeting to something more than luck. “God has been good to me,” she said in 2014. “He gave me Carl Dean. And that was the perfect man that I needed.”
They renewed their vows for their 50th anniversary in 2016. Dean rarely spoke publicly about their marriage, but for the occasion offered his own assessment: “I wouldn't trade the last 50 years for nothing on this earth.”
Dean died in March 2025 at 82 after a long illness. Parton later said she had neglected her own health while “watching over Carl.” Shortly after his death, she released “If You Hadn't Been There,” thanking the husband who, as she put it, “made me dream more than I dared.”
Parton hardly sacrificed herself to marriage. She became rich, famous, independent, and unmistakably Dolly Parton. She just never seems to have thought that becoming herself required getting rid of Carl Dean.
NEW LOW: The internet has found a way to monetize broken marriages
Marriage rates in the United States have reached historic lows. To compound matters, about one-third of Americans who say "I do" file for divorce. Watching this crisis unfold is depressing enough. Watching corporate marketers turn family dissolution into a luxury consumer category makes it darker still.
Let me be extremely clear: Some marriages are absolute disasters, full of physical violence and emotional cruelty. Escaping a truly toxic partner is a matter of self-preservation, and some people need guidance in finding the best way out.
Transforming the end of a supposedly sacred union into a curated social media event makes something solemn feel frivolous.
The problem begins when divorce itself becomes a product to brand, package, and sell, a disturbing transformation now taking hold in America and beyond.
Splitsville
A painful family breakdown now functions as online content. Unhappy spouses transform personal misery into podcasts and book deals. Sponsored Instagram posts and paid Substack subscriptions follow. What used to be a private nightmare quickly becomes a lucrative career pivot.
When a 20-year marriage ends after months of screaming matches over unpaid bills, social media feeds instantly reframe the wreckage as a fabulous spiritual awakening. Deep personal isolation gets repackaged as radical independence. Selling the family home to pay legal retainers becomes a chic minimalist aesthetic. The destruction of a household becomes definitive proof of personal growth. It’s gross, but not entirely unexpected.
In 1969, California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the nation's first no-fault divorce bill, intending to eliminate perjury and blackmail from courtroom proceedings. He later called it one of his greatest political regrets, having failed to foresee how a legal tweak would morph into a multibillion-dollar lifestyle industry. Reagan meant well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Eliminating the legal stigma of divorce was a much-needed civil reform. Nobody should be forced to endure flying fists or endless tongue-lashings just to satisfy a local pastor. Financial autonomy and genuine safety are good things. Eliminating the seriousness of divorce is an entirely different matter.
The stakes change completely when children enter the legal equation.
RELATED: Matthew Perry, child of divorce
Kids suffer most
For a 35-year-old spouse, signing divorce papers might feel like being rescued from an active war zone. For a 6-year-old, it means packed suitcases, split holidays, and perpetual background noise from two stressed-out parents arguing over child support checks.
Longitudinal studies show that children raised in divorced households are less likely to graduate from high school and score lower on academic exams. They also show higher rates of anxiety and greater risk of suicide. Girls from broken homes also have an increased risk of teenage pregnancy, and boys are more likely to be incarcerated. Many children are resilient, that is for sure. But resilience comes from necessity, not necessarily choice. Barely keeping your head above water while running on pure adrenaline is no way to spend your formative years.
These realities make the current commercialization of family breakups feel utterly revolting. Divorce parties are at an all-time high, with Las Vegas leading the global trend for customized "single again" weekend packages complete with tailored cakes and bottle service.
Everyone remains free to live as they wish, and walking away from a destructive marriage may well justify popping champagne. The problem lies with the public broadcasting and the celebration of failure. Transforming the end of a supposedly sacred union into a curated social media event makes something solemn feel frivolous. When a major domestic tragedy becomes photogenic fodder for online engagement, it’s perfectly reasonable to raise an eyebrow (rather than a glass of bubbly).
Nothing to celebrate
We must be able to hold two simple facts in mind at the very same time. Divorce can be an essential escape route from abuse. Divorce also inflicts massive emotional and economic costs on everyone involved. Defending a person's legal freedom to walk away from a contract doesn’t require pretending that breaking up a family is a triumph.
The fundamental flaw in the modern divorce economy is not that professionals are paid to help people sort out the practical consequences when a marriage ends. Human misery has created administrative employment since ancient Rome. The problem is watching tech platforms and marketing agencies incentivize people to treat marital separation as a desirable milestone.
When a bitter custody battle goes viral on TikTok, content creators have a financial incentive to escalate the drama for their audience. Influencers build subscriber bases on continuous conflict. They turn private litigation into serialized public theater. Millions of viewers tune in every day, gradually coming to believe that ending a marriage is no different from ending a job.
This dynamic reveals a deep sickness, and the explosion of the breakup market reflects an increasingly broken society.
Marriage is far from perfect, and pretending otherwise is delusional and disingenuous. Nevertheless, it remains a vital human institution built on sacrifice and mutual duty. A husband and wife separating, even if they come to hate each other, represents a genuine tragedy. The end of a marriage calls for introspection and self-reflection, not a shameless victory lap for strangers on the internet.
Strangers Has No Plot Besides Making Women Bitter About Their Marriages
Instead of championing spouses who fight for their marriages, Burden uses her platform to undermine marriage and rail against the patriarchy.Jason Whitlock and pastors discuss Marcellus Wiley's ugly divorce: Voodoo spells, occult, biblical grounds for divorce
Former NFL defensive end and American sportscaster Marcellus Wiley was arrested on July 4 in Orlando, Florida, on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge after his wife, Annemarie Wiley — a former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star — alleged he threatened to kill her and poked her in the face.
She has since filed for divorce, obtained a temporary restraining order (with no-contact rules and sole custody of their three children), and accused him of prior abuse, including rape.
Wiley, who was released on bond, strongly denies all allegations and has posted statements asserting his innocence and promising evidence.
In his divorce statement, he claimed that Annemarie had placed a “voodoo spell” over his family.
When Jason Whitlock heard about the messy scandal, he wanted a “biblical perspective,” so he invited Christian ministers Anthony Walker and Virgil Walker, as well as contributor Shemeka Michelle, on “Jason Whitlock Harmony” to share their thoughts.
“I'm not surprised even by the voodoo allegations. I've watched people on ‘The Real Housewives’ go to see psychics, go to see shamans, have spirit baths. This is the lifestyle of that television franchise,” says Shemeka.
Whitlock, who believes in biblical, covenantal marriage, wonders if dark magic is a “[bridge] too far” that would justify divorce.
“When I hear voodoo spells, I think of the occult, and I think of, well, Marcellus should hit the eject button. ... Is my reaction wise or biblical?” he asks Virgil and Anthony.
Voodoo spells or not, Virgil is in favor of reconciliation. For starters, the Wileys are deeply entrenched in a culture that embraces occultism.
“Shemeka said this earlier, the nature of the environment that they're in, those are the kinds of things that appeal, right? They're in Hollywood or they're in, you know, uh Beverly Hills. They're around money ... and so you have a tendency to look at what others in your peer group are doing and mimic that,” he says.
“The other thing I would say is Marcellus had to know who he married, right? He's not caught off guard or by surprise by any of the antics that he's experiencing,” he adds.
What Marcellus needs to do right now, Virgil argues, is pursue a “walk with Christ.”
“The occult and all that — that's on the periphery. That’s something to deal with later. What we need to get back to is where's his walk with Christ? How can he present that and represent that to his spouse?” he emphasizes.
To hear more of the panel’s conversation, watch the video above.
Want more from Jason Whitlock?
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If Governments Won’t End No-Fault Divorce, Churches Should Help
Anyone confused about what God says about marriage and divorce can find clarity -- and robust scriptural receipts -- in this book.Does 'Wheel of Fortune' hold the secret to a long-lasting marriage?
Husbands have a way of subtly revealing if their marriage will last, and the tell is broadcast on international TV, according to one amateur researcher.
An avid "Wheel of Fortune" viewer took in almost 2,000 episodes of the game show and seemingly found a distinct pattern in male contestants and how they speak about their wives.
'Could you imagine your husband going on national television and referring to you simply as his wife?'
Split decision
Across 1,950 episodes that aired between 2010 and 2019, a content creator called Joey Toks said he categorized male contestants into two categories. First, of the 2,855 male contestants, he took the 2,016 of them that mentioned their wives while introducing themselves to former host Pat Sajak and co-host Vanna White.
He then split the contestants into those who added a complimentary adjective about their wives and those who did not. Of the 1,660 men who complimented their wives, 91 of them, or 5.48%, got divorced within five years of the date the episode aired.
However, among the 356 men who did not compliment their wives, 55 of them had a confirmed divorce within five years of their episode airing, a staggering 15.45%.
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Breadwinner boost
While the researcher admitted that the numbers consist of "full divorces that [he] could confirm" and that the data of course is "not perfect," it suggests that the rate at which those who were not complimentary toward their wives got divorced was triple the rate of those who did compliment them.
Further piling onto the non-complimentary husbands, the TV savant also pointed out how many of the men won more than $40,000.
Just 7% of the 185 complimentary husbands who took home big winnings got a divorce within five years of their victory.
RELATED: 'Jeopardy!' champ's Trump-trashing victory lap: 'As an immigrant and a person of color ...'
Happy wife ...
At the same time, 17% of the men who did not use complimentary adjectives for their significant other had a full divorce within five years.
The complimentary men also won big at a rate three points higher than their counterparts (11.14% versus 8.14%).
"Could you imagine your husband going on national television and referring to you simply as his wife instead of his 'beautiful wife' or 'wonderful wife'?" the TikTok user asked.
In response, the official "Wheel of Fortune" TikTok account simply commented on the video, "Bruh."
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‘Dump him’: Dave Ramsey sparks outrage by telling nurse to ditch boyfriend making $250K over student debt ultimatum
A recent clip from finance guru Dave Ramsey’s podcast is blowing up all over social media, racking up millions of views in just days.
In the video, Ramsey advises a 26-year-old nurse to break up with her boyfriend for making her debt a contingency for marriage. According to the girl, her boyfriend of six years makes $250K+ per year and pays most of their bills. However, he refuses to help with her large sum of school debt and refuses to propose before she pays it off herself.
“Dump him,” was Dave’s blunt advice.
“You’re having to buy your way into this relationship. Nope. You’re a princess, and you deserve more than this,” he added.
Calling the couple’s issue a “money fight,” he went on to warn that financial disputes are the top cause of divorce in the country and suggested that their living together meant that they were “already married,” giving the boyfriend “no real incentive to propose.”
Ramsey’s advice has ignited intense debate online, with many viewing it as contradictory of his “debt-free” messaging and unfair to a fiscally responsible man, and others defending Dave for calling out a transactional, controlling relationship dynamic.
On this episode of “The John Doyle Show,” Doyle weighs in on the controversy.
Doyle agrees with the critics calling Ramsey’s advice hypocritical considering his decades-long anti-debt crusade.
“To see this man fold immediately when a 26-year-old woman in $90,000 of debt just bats her eyelashes a little bit was a little disheartening and frankly a little pathetic,” he says.
Doyle speculates that this 26-year-old woman is “not as much of a princess as maybe Mr. Ramsey would like to believe.”
“There was data, I think, from Ashley Madison, which is the affair website, literally like cheatonmyspouse.com. ... They surveyed something like 1,000 people. The number one job field for cheating women, like 23% of all those surveyed, was in health care,” he says.
“And even beyond that, the type of women she’s around are not exactly going to be women who are stellar influences on her. You know, they’re not going to really cultivate or encourage princess-like behavior,” he adds.
Doyle does, however, call Ramsey’s claim that the couple is essentially already married because they live together a “truth nuke.”
“They are effectively married, but Dave is still going to advocate that, what, she breaks up with this guy?” he says. “Which is more or less like advocating that she gets a divorce. Because look, she’s already 26, starting to get past her sell-by date, right? ... At a minimum, you know, she should be treated as a clearance sale perhaps.”
A breakup after six years, he argues, wouldn’t be as simple as Ramsey seems to insinuate.
“You can’t rip off a six-year band-aid cleanly. She’s going to have rebounds. She’s going to be doing whatever. She’s not exactly going to land on her feet right away,” he comments. “But girl-dad Dave is so lost in the words of this hapless little princess, he can’t even imagine why a guy might not want to marry a girl with $90,000 in debt.”
“His entire show is about how you should be debt-free, but only if you’re a guy. If you’re a girl, you’re just a princess, and it’s not your fault. If you’re a guy, ‘Yeah, bucko, pull yourself up by your bootstraps.’”
To hear more, watch the video above.
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