An article in the Journal of Marriage and Family outlines a variety of factors that have been linked to divorce. Some of these risk factors are ones that you have no control over, such as being poor, experiencing unemployment, or having parents that are divorced.
It is thought that factors such as lower income and unemployment lead to an increased level of stress, which has been shown to make couples less happy over time. Another factor that can increase the risk of divorce is having been previously married.
One school of thought is that as we cannot divorce ourselves, so we bring whatever issues we had from our first marriage to our second- that is unless we seek out help to address those issues.
Other common relationship issues that can lead to divorce include domestic violence, frequent conflict, infidelity/cheating, the number relationship problems, weaker commitment, and lower levels of love and trust between spouses.
However, the article also stated that it is not just having one or two risk factors, rather that the risk factors are cumulative and typically lead to divorce through high levels of conflict and unhappiness, and low levels of commitment.