Today, my attention was drawn to an article detailing the ramifications of divorce and children caring for aging parents. In her article, The New Alone, Eliabeth Marquardt begins to confront the way the problem of divorce manifests itself for both children and adults. Too often today, divorce is touted as a better alternative for all parties involved than a bad marriage. Interestingly, the option of divorce remains a dilemma. Is it really better?
As a child of divorced parents, I’m just as tired as the next person of hearing doom and gloom statistics about the consequences of divorce. No person is simply a statistic waiting to fall into catastrophe based on the past. In fact, statistics indicate that half of all marriages end in divorce and the chances for divorce increase based on the length of time married, among other factors. Coming from a divorced family does not necessarily doom anyone to future failure. Thankfully, we all have free will and can make our own choices.
However, the past does affect the way a person makes choices and what a person learns. As such, it is important to understand the way that divorce affects both children and participating adults. Divorce is much more than the separation of a husband and wife, it is a great division of the family unit for parents and children. Often when parents divorce both parents turn to looking after themselves and their child/children. It’s not uncomment to see articles that share good information on helping children and parents handle divorce. These types of articles do a great job of discussing depression and psychiatry, yet they fail to address the change in world view that occurs when parents divorce.
Divorce is defined as the dissolving of a marriage agreement which united and created a new family unit. When the members of a family are involved in a divorce the unity of the family (no matter how dysfunctional) is broken. The adults learn to be independent from one another, and children learn to be independent of the family. A child whose parents divorce no longer hold a familial world view. Instead they learn to look out for themselves as they dodge the battles between warring parents, remarrying parents, and newly broken or blended families. Independence in and of itself is not bad, in fact at times it can be quite healthy and helpful. However, it appears that independence from the family unit and from the benefits of familial interdependence at a young age can be harmful for all parties involved, especially children. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, divorce of the family unit and it’s consequences are not repaired or replaced over time.
I was feeling OK today until I read this article. Now I’m depressed.
Not that any of what you said was news, it is just that it is sad and depressing to be reminded of what a mess family life is in for so many people.
I’ve been aware of many of these statistics for a while, and because of that I secretly hoped all my children would marry people whose parents had stable and happy marriages, thus improving the odds of my kids’ marriages being stable. But that isn’t happening–our older son married a woman whose parents divorced when she was very young, and our younger son is soon to marry a women whose parents have just recently divorced. And from seeing what is going on with our soon-to-be daughter-in-law, it jibes closely with what one of your links pointed out: “Divorce seems to be the most traumatic on those children whose parents were not in a high-conflict marriage. The divorce catches them totally by surprise.”
I’m a bit puzzled by your statement:
“In fact, statistics indicate that half of all marriages end in divorce and the chances for divorce increase based on the length of time married, among other factors”
Did you mix up something, or am I missing something? The article linked to in your second paragraph says: “The risk of divorce gets less the longer a marriage has survived.”
I was referring to the total population of a cohort in that a cohort of people married in the same year, as time goes on more of them get divorced. The way it is worded was confusing, I wasn’t trying to talk about individual couples (sorry for the confusion) This is what I was referring to:
“A survey-based life table study of the net risk of
divorce for 15- to 44-year-old women in 1995 found that the
proportion of first marriages having ended in divorce was 20
percent five years after marriage, 33 percent after ten
years, and 43 percent after fifteen years. Since the risk of
divorce in the next year gets less the longer a marriage has
survived, the fact that the rate was 43 percent within 15
years suggests that the 50 percent figure is roughly correct
for the total life span of recent cohorts. For second
marriages the likelihood of divorce was higher, already
reaching 39 percent after ten years of marriage.”
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I also think that it is important to remember that odds are just odds when it comes to if a future spouses parents were divorced. The best way for a newly married Christian couple to decrease the odds that they will end up divorced is to follow God’s plan for marriage. That being said, it is also important for a child whose parents are divorced to consider communication patterns or other habits that led to the breakdown of their own parents marriage. I know that I personally, have had to examine and change the way that I react to some things because of the problems my own parents had that I absorbed as a child. I suppose that is true of anyone whether their parents divorced or not.
Sadie,
Thanks for your response to thainamu’s comments about children marrying people whose parents are divorced. The fact is, we’ve all grown up in a culture of divorce and all couples need to strengthen their marriages and beware of the “little foxes” that can “ruin the vineyard.” Statistics don’t hold a candle to God’s redemptive power.
Kristine,
I do not mean to doom any given marriage to divorce, and I completely agree in the strength of God’s redemption.
I’m just calling to mind the experiences I’ve seen over the years where a child repeats the sins of his parents, many times without thinking. Just like Sadie said, it is good for all of us, and especially children of divorce, to examine the bad habits or bad attitudes that our parents gave us. The long arms of our parents hold us long after we have separated from them. And not always in a good way.
For instance, I am about 100 years old, and I swore I would never be like my mother. And yet, when I’m willing to admit it, I have to say that I am just like my mother in some negative ways. And guess what? I have a daughter, too.
If any good comes of this blog, it might be that some day in the future when someone is angry with their spouse or they are having temptation to turn away from their vows, they will be able identify and stop those “little foxes”–whether they originated from one’s parents or not–before the damage grows.
Hello! I think that the effects of divorce on children and the family unit is a very important topic to discuss. It also hits quite close to home for me, I am not a child of divorce but I had a very close friend who was. Her family is the poster example of how divorce can effect a child horribly if not handled properly. Her father left her mother, started dating a new woman, married her, and had 2 more daughters. My friends mother never recovered and would just stay in her house all the time completely depressed. This was obviously hard for my friend to see and understand, she was about 12 at the time. My friend then became very depressed and even more when her father got married and had two more daughters. I’ll never forget my friend saying to me “my dad named his daughters Casey Jane, and Carlie Jessica. I’m Courtney Joan, what is he trying to replace me?” She took things like that so hard and to be honest has still never really recovered. I think people can get so caught up in what’s right in front of them that they miss what is happening to those around them, in these cases even their own children. I work for www.firstwivesworld.com, it is an online community for women navigating through the various stages of divorce. I love being a part of something that provides a resource and a community with faces for those whom are going through one of the hardest times in their life.
Just my two cents.
Ann Marie