Watching "Ozzie and Harriet" as a boy, Byron Campbell believed that "you got married and stayed married."
But at age 62, the retired engineer from Georgetown finds life nothing like a 1950s family sitcom. He is divorced and single — as are his son, one of his best friends and a handful of former co-workers.
"It seems in the last 10 years, I've heard more about so-and-so going through a divorce," Campbell said.
Campbell's hunch is right, according to U.S. Census figures: The divorced segment of Maine's 15-and-older population jumped from 9.1 percent in 1990 to 11.5 percent in 2000, surpassing the national average of 9.7 percent.
That gives Maine the highest percentage of divorced individuals in New England, and the eighth highest in the country, behind states such as Nevada and Florida. In Sagadahoc County, where Campbell lives, divorced people account for 13.1 percent of the population, the highest concentration in the state.
Nobody is sure why so many Mainers checked "divorced" as their marital status on the Census 2000 long-form questionnaire. The rate appears unrelated to income level, educational attainment, religious affiliation or community size.
It's clear, however, that more people are staying single after divorce — rather than remarrying — because of changing social mores and women's growing independence. That change, in turn, is driving up the proportion of Mainers who are comfortable being divorced.
"I just think it's more acceptable to divorce today," said Steve Gallant, president of Divorce Perspectives, a support group that meets weekly in Portland. "You're not a bad person for doing it."
The change in societal attitude has implications: Divorce is linked to poverty, lower educational attainment and delinquent children. On the other hand, it can also be the only solution for people trapped in unhappy, sometimes abusive marriages.
Gallant started attending Divorce Perspectives after his own divorce two years ago. He said members, many of whom are in their 40s, often point to alcoholism, finances, affairs or growing apart as sources of marital strife.
Lying at the root of all problems, however, is a breakdown of communication between spouses, Gallant said.
That's why, he said, Divorce Perspectives strongly encourages newcomers to seek marriage counseling before getting a lawyer. But if that doesn't work, longer-term members offer emotional support and share personal experiences.
Children are a "big topic," Gallant said, and parents are often referred to Kids First, a Portland-based organization that helps families cope with divorce and separation.
Parents are taught to recognize grief in children, which varies depending on age, and to react accordingly. Children between 6 and 8, for example, may have strong reconciliation fantasies and intense feelings of fear, anger and sadness, said executive director Peg Libby. Teen-agers may try on new behaviors with sex and drugs or withdraw from family life.
"In the old days, if parents were happy, the children were (thought to be) happy," Libby said. "But to minimize what children feel or experience is a mistake. Parents need to acknowledge this will be tough and need to be available."
When parents work together for their children's benefit, the kids can survive divorce and still thrive, she said.
Still, the outlook for many families of divorce is not good, said David Popenoe, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University.
Studies show that divorce "throws women into poverty . . . and probably increases the crime rate among juveniles," said Popenoe, who tracks trends in marriage and identifies ways to strengthen it.
Divorce, he said, could also negatively affect one's mental health and work productivity.
"There's an actual gain in productivity from marriage," Popenoe said. "You're working for someone else — especially if you have children — rather than just working for yourself."
Such findings are spurring pro-marriage political movements in various states, and they are at least partly behind President Bush's plan to build incentives for women on welfare to marry. But statistics do not paint the whole picture, said Laura Fortman, executive director of the Maine Women's Lobby.
Single woman-headed households — the largest group of welfare recipients — would not be so needy if the pay gap between men and women were closed, Fortman said.
Also, in a state like Maine, which has a high incidence of domestic violence, the increase in the divorced population may signal that some people are leaving abusive marriages, and that would be "a good thing," she said.
No correlation has been drawn by research, but Home to Home — an agency that helps supervise the court-ordered exchange of children between parents coming from high-conflict, protection-from abuse situations — said it has seen a steady increase in the demand for services during the past five years.
Campbell worries that divorce is dissolving the family unit. "But sometimes," he said resignedly, "it's the only answer."
For those friends who ever need his counsel on divorce, Campbell, who has been single for nine years, said he will be there.
In the meantime, he's hoping he'll have a second chance at love, though he's not as sure about marriage.
