I'm sure you've heard it from multiple sources, since everyone seems to be quoting it, but have you ever researched the topic?

The quoted divorce rate comes from some real data which is used in the wrong way. Here's the data:

- 7.5 marriages per 1,000 people (in a given year)
- 3.8 divorces per 1,000 people (in a given year)

If you take these two numbers, and attempt to correlate them, you might come to the conclusion that roughly half of the marriages end in divorce. That's the mistake. You could say that half of the marriages in a given year end in divorce. But when looking at life year after year, the picture is much different. Each marriage that does not end in divorce counts towards the total number of marriages for all subsequent years. You don't count it again since it's not a new marriage (not part of the 7.5 for the new year), but still part of the overall total number of marriages.

In other words, marriages are not a coin flip from ending in divorce.