Staying Together

The counties where couples are more likely to stay together

When loved-up couples get married, they plan to spend the rest of their lives together. Here at Flowercard, we love seeing couples celebrating wedding anniversaries with flowers, especially when it’s an extra special one.

We always want to know the secret to a long and happy marriage, but can your location have an impact? We wanted to know what parts of the UK have the best marriage success rate so we could find out if some areas help to encourage wedded bliss.

Using government data, we looked at the number of divorces that were finalised between 2011-2020 based on the numbers from each courthouse, which we were then able to sort into counties.

The Counties Where Couples are More Likely to Stay Together

When it comes to the counties where couples are more likely to stay together, Somerset comes out on top, with a marriage success rate of 93.88. Surrey and Lincolnshire follow with a success rate of 92.98 and 92.47 respectively.

1. Somerset - 93.88 marriage success rate
2. Surrey - 92.98 marriage success rate
3. Lincolnshire - 92.47 marriage success rate
4. Buckinghamshire - 91.97 marriage success rate
5. Northamptonshire - 91.68 marriage success rate
6. Hertfordshire - 91.47 marriage success rate
7. North Yorkshire - 91.39 marriage success rate
8. Leicestershire - 91.09 marriage success rate
9. Cumbria - 91.08 marriage success rate
10. Derbyshire - 90.72 marriage success rate

The Countries Where Couples are More Likely to Stay Together

Looking at marriages on a global scale, we can see that some countries have much better marriage success rates than others. But which countries rank highest, and how does the UK rank?

1. Vietnam - 92.98% marriage success rate
2. Tajikistan - 89.63% marriage success rate
3. Seychelles - 89.08% marriage success rate

The UK has a marriage success rate of 59.09% and ranks in position 68 of 102 countries.

The Secret To A Long And Happy Marriage

We wanted to find out the secret to a long and happy marriage, so we spoke to Yvonne and Peter Galloway who have been married for over 52 years.

Yvonne, 69 and Peter, 71, from Kendal, Cumbria got married on 16th November 1968 and have revealed their top tips for a successful marriage:

1. Share similar hobbies and interests that allow you to spend time together whilst doing something you both enjoy
2. Always do as the wife says, she’s usually always right!
3. From household chores to finances, split everything 50/50
4. Schedule regular date nights (even if it’s as simple as having a drink and dance in the living room)
5. Always support each other through difficult times
6. Finally, never stop laughing!

Methodology:

Using Family Court statistics published by the Ministry of Justice, we were able to see the number of divorces finalised in courthouses around the country. We grouped these courthouses into counties and took a total of the finalised divorces in each county from 2011-2020. We then took the number of divorces per 1,000 people to give a marriage success rate. For example, where there were 6.12 divorces, this gave a success rate of 93.88.

Some counties were omitted due to lack of data or in cases where data covered multiple counties at a time, so cannot be considered with the 40 counties listed above.

Global data is taken from the divorce rate in each country with this being represented again by a marriage success rate. The numbers are taken from a divorce-to-marriage ratio where the number of divorces are divided by the number of marriages in a year. This ratio has then been flipped to give a success rate. For example, where the divorce ratio percentage is 7.02%, this gives us a marriage success rate of 92.98%.