Incredibly GOOD news!
From the July 2007 edition of American Journal of Mental Retardation: Divorce in Families of Children With Down Syndrome: A Population-Based Study by Richard C. Urbano and Robert M. Hodapp:
In this study, we examined the nature, timing, and correlates of divorce in families of children with Down syndrome (647), other birth defects (10,283) and no identified disability (361,154). Divorce rates among families of children with Down syndrome were lower than in the other two groups.
Wow! Lower than families not experiencing disability! I’ve never heard that before.
In fact, usually what we hear for any disability is that our marriage is more likely to fail – FAR more likely to fail. I just listened to a lecture where, without substantiation, the lecturer said that 80-85% of Christian marriages fail when a child with a disability is born.
It simply isn’t true – but it sure says a lot about how we think about suffering, disability, marriage and God by how easily we believe it could be.
Why people think they are being helpful when they tell us that divorce is a common outcome after having a child with a disability, particularly at the very outset (I heard it the first time when Paul was less than two weeks old), just baffles me.
A few years ago I realized I was repeating marriage statistics that others had told me – and I had never seen a study or a reference ever given. I try not to do that in this forum; if a statistic shows up, I will do my best to provide a link to the study or authority providing that statistic.
And, frankly, statistics shouldn’t mean all that much to us. We belong to God. Let every marriage around us fail for whatever reason. But with God’s help, our marriages can stand and we can experience a peace, contentment and joy that makes Jesus look very beautiful in the midst of our circumstances. And when marriages fail in this fallen world, God is still sovereign and ready to provide. Let us persist in pointing to God.
Dr. Urbano and Dr. Hodapp also helpfully referenced other studies on marriage and disability, which I hope to get my hands on. The news isn’t all good; apparently there is a slightly higher divorce rate when parents experience other kinds of disabilities in their children.
But it certainly isn’t 85%. Praise God for that!
The Works of God 
I think it’s interesting how in this study they did not look at religion or knowledge of the disability before birth. I worked in the Pittsburgh Catholic special ed program for a while, where a large percentage of the kids were Downs. I think that in Catholic and other conservative circles where birth control is discouraged and women have babies into their 40s, as well as where life is valued and so abortion of a known disability does not make abortion an option, family commitment is also valued. And so it might not be that Downs doesn’t have an affect on the family so much as what keeps a couple together in the end is not the challenges in their life but their beliefs and personal decisions.
I have heard that divorce rates for parents of a child with a disability in *general* is higher but that for Down;s Syndrome in particular it is lower.
Please make sure you are not taking a statistic that refers to one particular thing and apply it across a whole spectrum of abilities and disabilities that may have a wider and different impact on the families concerned.
The divorce rates are lower because a) the parents are, on average older and b) those who chose, despite positive test results, to have a child with down syndrome usually have religious values that will make divorce unlikely. This is one of the misrepresented studies I’ve ever seen.
My boyfriend still love his ex girlfriend what should I do?