Our sources

We only publish numbers we can trace to a primary source: the original study, official statistics, or the organization's own reporting. Secondary retellings, influencer polls, and unattributed "studies show" claims are rejected at the fact-gate.

Primary sources currently cited

No primary sources are cited yet — the fact gate is empty. Every source we rely on will be listed here with its year and method.

What we rejected, and why

This list matters as much as the one above. These are figures that circulate widely in writing about widowhood and that we could not trace to a primary source, so they do not appear anywhere on this site.

• In most families, the new wife is the one whose reactions get read as evidence. That is unfair. It is also true. — Frequency claim about families in general, asserted as true, no source. Rephrase as reported experience.
• Distance between spouses does the damage that gets blamed on outsiders (FAQ: #1 thing that destroys marriages). — Causal claim, no source, immediately after refusing to rank causes.
• Four recur in almost every account. — Frequency claim ('almost every account') with no body of accounts cited.
• Solve the bedtime and the heat moves somewhere else within a month. — Duration claim ('within a month'), no source.
• A biological parent almost always loves their own child more. — Near-universal frequency claim about inner states, no source.
• The damage is rarely done by the inequality itself. It is done by pretending. — Flat causal attribution, no source.
• It is one of the most reported experiences of stepparenting. — Appeal to unnamed body of reports = 'studies show' without a study.
• A divided couple is the one variable that turns ordinary stepfamily friction into something corrosive. — Singular causal claim ('the one variable'), no source.
• What stepfamily practitioners describe is a slow process measured in years, not seasons. — Duration claim attributed to unnamed practitioners; numberless laundering of the Papernow-style timeline.
• Children experience a new adult's discipline as an intrusion long before they experience it as care. — Universal claim about children, no source.
• Most stepfamily therapists start with respectful cohabitation. — Frequency claim about a profession, no survey or source.
• Warmth in stepfamilies usually arrives after safety does, and pushing for it early tends to delay it. — Causal + sequencing claim, no source.
• Advice that stepfamilies routinely try and find backfires. — Frequency + outcome claim, no source.
• Second marriage conflict over children is the most common fault line in remarried couples. — Superlative frequency claim in the lede, no source.
• Handing over responsibility while withholding authority is the single most reliable way to produce a resentful stepparent. — Superlative causal claim, no source.
• Because he often does, and because the reason is usually guilt rather than a ranking of who matters more. — Frequency claim plus motive attributed to a person the page cannot see; diagnosis-adjacent.
• They usually know. Children are unreliable narrators of adult motives and excellent detectors of adult tension. — Universal claim about children's perception, no source.
• Leaving decisions made inside an unaddressed conflict tend to be regretted either way. — Outcome/regret claim, no longitudinal source.
• Repetition is the only mechanism anyone has found, and it cannot be hurried by sincerity. — Singular causal claim ('the only mechanism'), no source. Rephrase: 'What people describe is repetition, and it cannot be hurried by sincerity.'
• Demands for total transparency, shared passwords, location sharing, message-checking, tend to disappoint the person who asked for them ... surveillance quietly prevents that time from ever accumulating. — Outcome + causal claim about an intervention, no source. Same species as the rejected 'advice that backfires' line. Rephrase as what people report, not what happens.
• Trust after deception rebuilds from repetition, small commitments kept in ordinary conditions, over a long stretch. (FAQ) — Duration claim ('over a long stretch') in a FAQ that otherwise correctly refuses timelines. Drop the interval.
• It is treatable, and it is common. (FAQ on mistrust as a mental health problem) — Clinical prevalence + treatability claim with no clinical source. Safe rephrase: 'That is a reason to see a therapist or your doctor.' — route without asserting outcome.
• Couples in this situation often do better when the first wife is allowed to stay named and present rather than tidied away. — Comparative outcome claim about widower stepfamilies, no source.
• The competition tends to intensify when the dead are treated as a secret, because a secret takes up more room than a photograph does. — Explicit causal mechanism ('because'), no source.
• Usually it shrinks — not because it gets resolved, but because it stops being a private theory. — Frequency + causal claim about what happens when a comparison is spoken aloud. Attribute to description ('people describe it shrinking') or drop.
• Plans change after they have been agreed, roughly twice a month. — Invented quantified frequency about a reader's household. Word-form number, so it slips past the digit grep in check-facts. Rephrase: '...and here is how often'.
• This is the fault line that does most of the damage in second marriages. — Ranked causal claim about second marriages, no source, and directly contradicted by this page's own FAQ ('There is no single ranked answer, and anyone offering one is guessing').
• The first will be tested and broken within a week. / Within a fortnight everyone is arguing about the boundary instead of using it. — Two specified durations presented as what happens. Drop the intervals.
• The one boundary nearly every family professional would recognise ... it is the boundary that stepfamily professionals raise first. — Appeal to professional consensus with no named body, guideline or study — 'studies show' in different clothes. State it in the site's own voice instead.
• Those tactics reliably escalate, they are visible to children long before adults think they are. — Causal outcome claim plus a universal claim about children's perception, no source. Refusal stands on its own: 'this site does not print them.'
• Most couples find this is the one boundary worth holding even when everything else stays messy. / Most couples find the work sits between the two of them rather than with her. (FAQ) — Frequency claims about couples with no survey behind them. 'Couples often describe...' is the safe form.
• Because your arrival changed the shape of his family, and a child's coldness toward a stepparent is often about that shape rather than about you. — Flat causal verdict about a household the page cannot see, in the position of a direct answer. Fix: 'What stepfamilies describe is a stepparent's arrival changing the shape of the family...'
• Stepparents describe it in private far more readily than in public, and usually with shame attached. (FAQ) — Comparative frequency claim (private vs public) plus 'usually', no survey. Fix: 'Stepparents describe it, often with shame attached.'
• What changed was your position: from a parent's friend to a permanent adult in a family the child did not choose. (FAQ) — Causal assertion about the reader's own family. Fix: 'What stepparents describe changing is position, not character...'
• Very little of it is unusual, however isolating it feels while it is happening. — Prevalence claim with no source. Fix: 'It is more familiar than it feels from inside.'
• Being outside a history feels exactly like being unwanted, which is why the feeling is so hard to argue yourself out of, and why arguing yourself out of it rarely works. — Explicit causal mechanism ('which is why') plus outcome frequency ('rarely works'), no source. Fix: drop the second half, keep the description.
• It comes out sideways, months later, attached to something small. — Duration asserted as what happens (precedent: 'within a week' / 'within a fortnight'). Fix: 'It comes out sideways, later, attached to something small.'
• A conversation that treats him as the defendant tends to produce a defence rather than a change. — Outcome claim about an intervention, no source — same species as the rejected surveillance line on /feelings/trust-after-divorce/. Fix: 'Couples describe that conversation producing a defence rather than a change.'
• The partner in this pattern is often carrying guilt about the children, fear of losing them, and a sense of failing everyone simultaneously. — Motive and inner state attributed to a person the page cannot see; precedent rejected the identical 'the reason is usually guilt' line on /the-strain/when-partners-disagree/. Fix: 'Partners in this position describe carrying guilt...'
• What changes the internal arithmetic is a pattern of ordinary events going the other way. — Causal mechanism claim about what changes a feeling, no source. Fix: 'What people describe changing it is...'
• It is described by people whose households later settle and by people whose households do not, so on its own it predicts very little. (FAQ) — Predictive claim about outcomes with no longitudinal source. Fix: 'It is described in households that later settle and in households that do not.' — stop before the prediction.
• People who try these describe them escalating, and children register them long before adults intend them to. — Universal claim about children's perception, no source — this exact line was already rejected on the sibling page /the-ex/jealous-ex-signs/ and has reappeared. Fix: keep the refusal without the claim.
• What tends to move it is dropping the label and keeping the ledger. — Outcome claim about what works, no source. Fix: 'What couples describe moving it is...'
• Does he still have feelings for his ex? Almost certainly some. — Near-universal claim about inner states of people the page cannot see; same shape as the rejected 'a biological parent almost always loves their own child more'. Fix: use the FAQ's own safe form — 'People who shared years, a home and children describe carrying something afterwards.'
• There is no observation that ends it, so it runs indefinitely, and it costs the watcher more each week. — Escalation-over-time claim, unsourced (duration + outcome). Fix: 'and people describe it costing them more the longer it runs.'
• Very few second marriages skip this conversation entirely. — Frequency claim about second marriages, no source. Fix: 'This conversation is a familiar one in second marriages.'
• Timing does most of the work. — Ranked causal claim ('most of the work') about what determines how a conversation goes. Fix: 'Timing matters.'
• Many people do, and almost nobody does it by deciding to. — Near-universal frequency claim about people, no source. Fix: 'Many people do, and what they describe is not a single decision but...'
• Timing decisions about introductions are the ones parents ask about most. — Superlative frequency claim about parents with no survey behind it. Fix: 'Timing decisions about introductions are among the ones parents raise.'
• This page describes what people in this position commonly report and what tends to help. — 'What tends to help' is an unsourced outcome claim in the site's own voice. Fix: '...and what people describe helping.'
• No mainstream Christian body applies a stricter standard to a divorced man than to a divorced woman. (FAQ) — Universal claim about every mainstream Christian body, unsourced and unverifiable. Fix: 'The traditions described here apply the same test to a divorced man and a divorced woman; ask your own church how it applies it.'
• Nearly every Christian tradition teaches that forgiveness is available. (FAQ) — Near-universal frequency claim about traditions, no source. Fix: 'Christian traditions teach that forgiveness is available; they disagree about what is being forgiven.' — describe the disagreement, do not count the traditions.

The rules

1. Named source in the same sentence as the number, with the year.
2. Primary source only — we link the origin, not an article about it.
3. Dated verification: every statistic carries its verification date on the statistics page.
4. Unverifiable → unpublished. No exceptions.