When I dug into this topic five years ago, I thought the story would be how children of the divorce revolution aren’t all messed up. We’re not the truants and drug addicts the ’70s pop psychologists predicted we’d be. But it also wasn’t quite true that if our parents were better off getting out of the marriage, we kids would be too.
Social scientists have had decades to study the children of divorce. They confirm some of our worst fears. We’re about 50 percent more likely to fail in our own marriages.
But it doesn’t stop us from trying. After 12 years of dating, I made it to the altar. I even tempted fate and wore my mother’s wedding dress.
I still believe in love.
Even for divorced kids.
From my own experience (or more precisely from my father’s experience), I think child from divorce tend to go to two different poles when it comes to their own marriages later on. One, they either have a hard time, and their divorce rate is much higher than normal, or Two, they go the other route and have extremely low divorce rates.
My father’s parents (my grandparents) divorced when he was in elementary school. That would have been about 1960, which, in the Deep South at that time, was completely unheard of. My father was in college before he ever met another person from a divorced family. I think for that reason, he never, ever entertained the idea of divorce, even though he and my mother had some ongoing, rather serious rough patches.
My father’s sister, however, has been married and divorced at least twice (that we know of), did the 70’s/80’s drug scene, is largely estranged from the family, and still doesn’t know what she wants to do when she grows up (she’s 60+ now.)
Like I said, I think it can go either way with kids from divorced homes.
So called “no-fault” – really unilateral – divorce has turned out to be one of the most culturally destructive decisions this country has every made. Given the decisions made, especially these last four decades, that’s saying something!
While I do not believe that there is enough of a compelling social reason to not allow same-sex people to make civil marriage contracts, I do believe, very very strongly that there are compelling social reasons for people to not divorce when children are involved. Why do so-called adults think that they have the right to split up their families without reference to their children, as if those children are mere chattel property which must acquiesce in their parents’ wrecking an important, nay, key aspect of their human development. And if those parents don’t get along? Well then, I say they should be forthrightly (in TEC terms ‘prophetically’) challenged to act like adults and make it work -suck it up, if you will. If there’s true dysfunction like unrepentant abuse, addiction, adultery, or abandonment I suppose a case could be made for separation, at least, as a matter of regrettable self-defense. There is very good reason why the Marriage Rite emphasizes the seriousness of marriage vows.
A good article, but it needs to emphasize that divorce punishes
the innocent – and that is ALWAYS wrong.
Sorry, but growing up as I did in a home with constantly fighting and seriously unhappy parents, I am disturbed by any article or theory like this that presupposes on something as complex as human relationships. Many of us had parents who really should have divorced — it would have been the healthiest choice for all concerned. But part of the pathology of toxic relationships is that the people in them are addicted to the toxicity and can’t fathom life without it.
So, what does that mean for the children of such relationships? We never have even the CHANCE of having a happy, healthy couple modeled for us. Lizzy/Ellie in the story clearly loves her stepmom. I spent my childhood wishing that my parents could each find happiness with someone else and I could be part of at least one (hopefully two) healthy family. I actually envied a friend of mine whose parents were divorced. She and her sister lived with their mother who later married a wonderful man and they visited their father who had married a lovely woman. She was FAR more content and secure than I ever was and she is happily married.
I’m committed to being single; it’s the natural outcome from the trauma of living in a toxic but fiercely “intact” family. My sister never married, either, for reasons of her own. When I think of marriage, I think of misery. I wish I could feel differently about it but I can’t. I’ve never SEEN a truly happy marriage up close, from the inside. I’m content with my single life and can’t fathom risking contentment for what could turn out to be a horror.
I’m quite sure I’m not alone in this and wish that topic would be explored by someone gutsy enough to take it on. And it WOULD take guts because of the likely attacks from those who think divorce is intrinsically wrong, from those who consider singles to be deficient and selfish, and from those who think that the only natural “state” is the vocation to marriage.
I would suggest, teatime, that you and all children have an absolute inalienable right to a childhood marred as little as possible by parental dysfunction. In your case, with every possible suggestion of respect and sympathy, the parents in question had the duty to work on themselves both personally and collectively at the very least for the sake of their children, as well as for themselves. Constant fighting and serious unhappiness is a symptom of dysfunction in the individuals and in their relationship which should be addressed and dealt with in a healthy way. I am sorry that you (or anyone!) had to live that way, and completely understand the conclusions you drew from the situation. I wish with all my heart American society had some kind of way in which we could offer a chance of familial happiness to all children. When I think about how much children have to suffer at their parents’ hands…. it’s hard enough to be a parent when one is ostensibly ‘healthy’. When one has few to none parental/relational skills it seems to me that permanent sterilization would be an acceptable decision.
I don’t think anyone would disagree that parents in conflict should try, very hard, to resolve the conflicts so as to create a healthy environment for their children. And I would also agree that some parents throw in the towel too early and too easily.
But sometimes the conflicts cannot be resolved, and in those cases it may be that divorce is the least-bad solution.
I can tell you that my situation was like that of “teatime”‘s friend — my parents are divorced, and in the long run everyone is much happier as a result. My parents did try to save their marriage — they tried, with might and main and no little prayer, for years. It didn’t work. So in the end they divorced, and both eventually ended up with other people and healthier relationships.
Did their divorce hurt us kids? Of course it did. It hurt a lot. But living with the constant fighting hurt more. My parents’ divorce was what allowed the hurt to begin healing.
A Senior Priest,
Yes, they should have worked on their issues. That’s a given. But I must point out two things — one, that during this time, seeking counseling was a stigma and, two, religion and church teaching didn’t even attempt to understand the dynamics of relationships. (I’m speaking of the RCC, in this regard, and pre-Vatican II times.)
I remember my mother telling me she tried to discuss some of the marital issues with a priest, including abuse, and he told her that it was her Cross to bear patiently, she must obey her husband, and they must stay together or commit grievous mortal sin. I can’t help but think that this advice — and lack of understanding — made a bitter situation worse. If you’ve ever heard a woman crying out in the middle of the night for God to take her because she couldn’t endure her marriage any longer but she didn’t want to be punished in Hell for getting a divorce, it’s horrific.
Certainly, divorce is cause for some of the brokenness in society but so is the fact that many people stayed together and ruined family life because they were threatened with Hell and being cut off from the sacraments of the Church if they ended their toxic marriages and found happiness with someone else. Growing up in that sort of household has ill effects — either you’re very leery of marriage and won’t take the chance or you marry because society and church say you should but you panic when the marriage hits a rocky patch, fearful that your life will replay your parents’.
And, of course, the church and society does not treat singlehood with respect. Not everyone is called to marry, and that should be taught and treated seriously.
Ugh. What you say is quite correct, teatime. Sometimes I feel a bit of regret, having to live in a world where such things are so very common. Believe me, I’ve seen firsthand how parental conflict can permanently affect children, and through those children their children, as well. Biblical, but dreadful. I and my sisters grew up thinking such family situations only existed on television or in the movies. My wife’s parents fought as described above, fueled by alcohol. She’s remarked it was like growing up in ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?’ No one should have to live like that. And, it’s very hard for me (though I do try) to not to see people who do that as evil, because of the hurt they almost (?) purposely cause, and cause, and cause, rolling on into the far future.
For my first six years of life, I lived in a home wrecked by parents who could not get along. But it went beyond that. My father was verbally and physically abusive to my mother. Once they did decide to divorce, my father hung around for a few months and then simply disappeared. Not dead, just gone, with never another thought to being part of his kid’s lives again.
This was clearly a man with many issues, incapable of being a husband or a father. His departure was the absolute best thing for the rest of us, including my mother. When my two sisters and I look back at the years after he left us, they are memories of a very happy, single-parent family. Financially strapped, but safe and loved.
There are cases where divorce is the right thing. I don’t think my own experiences have had any lasting ill effects on me. Actually, my own marriage has reached 29 years now, and if anything, I probably work harder at it because of what I lived through.
Having said all of this, my opinion is that for every divorce that may be “healthy”, there are probably 40 or 50 that are unjustified, and a only a result of todays immorality, laziness, and self-centered society. And children suffer.