Things seemed to be kaput last week for the hapless couple known as JenBen (or Bennifer, if you prefer . . . and if you have to be told who said couple is, consider yourself pop-culture deficient).
Ben Affleck reportedly broke off his engagement with Jennifer Lopez; some celeb watchers speculate that his mom persuaded him to think seriously about a life with the sassy pop singer/actress. Of course, this whole thing may be a hoax to throw off the media, and the two could be laughing all the way to their honeymoon on some island.
But whether dark comedy or light tragedy, it has turned attention to engagements, a more elusive animal to track than marriages.
It’s well documented that about 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, but no official figures are generated on how many engagements end in matrimony. Informal figures suggest that anywhere from 18 to 30 percent of commitments to marry are broken.
Couples are “discovering more things about one another during the engagement period and taking them more seriously than they did a long time ago,” said Jenn Berman, a Los Angeles psychotherapist and expert on relationship-based reality television.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago gives couples contemplating marriage a survey called FOCCUS: Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study, covering everything from sexuality to finances.
Andrew Lyke, coordinator of marriage ministry for the archdiocese, administers the survey to about 20 couples each year.
After taking it, about 10 percent of them opt for a JenBen, Lyke said.
In many instances that he has seen, it’s not just a postponement of the wedding. “It’s been really a rethinking of the relationship,” he said. A case of ‘We’ve got so little working for us, what are we doing?’ “
