remarriage rates

Sharon Jayson 9-16-2013

T.J. Gurski and Jennifer Beltz will get remarried. RNS photo via Ryan Garza / Detroit Free Press

The invitations are in the mail. Jennifer Beltz and T.J. Gurski of Commerce Township, Mich., are defying the odds — they’re taking the plunge a second time.

“When I got divorced, I said, ‘I’m never getting married again,” says Beltz, 41, who works in marketing.

That sentiment seems to be quite common among those jaded by a failed first union: A new analysis of federal data provided exclusively to USA TODAY shows the USA’s remarriage rate has dropped 40 percent over the past 20 years.