According to a new study released recently, military veterans are more likely to engage in extramarital sex and get divorced than people who never served in the military. The higher rates of divorce and sex were reportedly documented in data from a 1992 national survey.
According to Ivanhoe.com, the study found that 32 percent of veterans who had ever been married reported extramarital sex. That’s in contrast to the 16.8 of ever-married non-veterans who reported extramarital sex.
In addition, veterans who had ever been married were nearly 10 percent more likely to have gotten divorced. According to Ivanhoe, 38.5 percent of them had divorced, versus nearly 29 percent of those who had not served in the military.
Even after taking the veteran status into account, of those studied, the people who had extramarital sex were approximately 2.3 times more likely to get divorced.
The authors of the study, one of whom is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Colorado in Denver, reiterate that veteran status is strongly associated with an increased likelihood of extramarital sex and divorce.
The study did not take a look at female military veterans, and the co-authors say they did not collect enough data of women who served in the military to determine if the numbers would be similar. However, they say they suspect there is an increased likelihood of divorce and extramarital sex for female veterans as well.
The data was initially revealed at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, according to Ivanhoe’s website.
Source: Ivanhoe.com, “Extramarital sex and divorce more common amongst veterans,” Aug. 24, 2011