The Victims Of Divorce | I Wish I Knew This Before I Divorced

If you were to believe everything that "experts" have written about divorce during the last few decades, you might conclude that in the modern divorce, nobody is at fault and nobody gets hurt. But is that true? What are the victims of divorce?

Many parents have been eased down the road to divorce by a few widely touted cliches, such as: Divorce is better for the kids than an unhappy marriage; just wait until the children are the right age, 'to spare them any pain; kids bounce back from the trauma after only a couple of years.'

Some have bolstered these optimistic notions. For example, authors Susan Gentleman and Janet Markowitz discount "the myth of the damaged child." They assert that divorce need not be traumatic for the children as long as the parents 'handle it maturely.' They even argue that a parental divorce may help children to cope with their own divorces some day! They claim: "The real objects of reform ought to be the institution of the marriage and the myth of domestics itself."_The courage to divorce.

But do such bold assertions really ring true? In a world of escalating divorce rates, what are the real costs of divorce to children? Is it true that nobody gets hurt?

A Terrible Toll OF Divorce

In 1971, U.S researchers Judith Wallerstein and Joan Berlin Kelly began a landmark study of the long-range effects of divorce on the families. They chose 60 families that were in the throes of divorce. Altogether, these families had 131 children between 2 and 18 years of age. To the researchers surprise, they found that divorce almost never came as a relief to the children. This was true even when their parents had been unhappily married. Rather, divorce left the children distraught.

Were the effects merely some short-term trauma? Sadly, no. After five years, 37 percent of the children were moderately to severely depressed. Most of them still hoped that their parents would get back together even if they had remarried! After 10 or even 15 years, nearly  half of the children in the study had "entered adulthood as worried, underachieving, self-depreciating, and sometimes angry young men and women."

Such results ran against conventional wisdom. As Wallerstein writes: "Our findings were absolutely contradictory to our expectations. This was unwelcome news to a lot of people, and we got angry letters from therapists, parents, and lawyers saying we were undoubtedly wrong."

The children weren't lying, though; other studies have confirmed the verdict of Wallerstein and Kelly. The Journal of Social Issues noted that most professionals, such as behavioral scientists, "believe that parental seperation and dissolution of marriage have a profound negative impact upon both children and adolescents." The Journal added that such beliefs "have, in large measure, been substaintiated," citing findings such as these: Children of divorce have higher rates of delinquency and antisocial behavior than do children from intact families; the rate of admission of children of divorce to psychiatric hospitals may be twice as high as for children of intact families; divorce is perhaps the leading cause of childhood depression.

What About Older Children Of Divorced?

Older children handle divorce little better than younger ones. When adolescents witness their parents divorce, the may suffer a deep  disillusionment that sours their view of marriage and other institutions, such as school. Some conclude that all relationships are unreliable, doomed to unravel someday in betrayal and infidelity.

Thrown off balance in this way, some teenagers careen to wild extremes when their parents divorce. Some turn to drugs, some descend to sexual promiscuity, some run away from home. Others seem at first to take the divorce in stride, only to go through a delayed reaction. Perhaps it is no coincidence that, as the magazine The Washingtonian noted, the rise in divorces has seen a parallel rise in teenage eating disorders and even suicides.

So parents who are biding their time, waiting until their children are 'the right age ' before initiating a divorce, may be in for a long wait. It does not appear that there is a magical 'right age ' at which children glide through divorce unscathed. Sociologist Norval D.Glenn even suggested in the magazine Psychology Today that children may suffer from negative effects of divorce that "persist undiminished throughout the lifespan." He conclude: "One must seriously entertain the disturbing hypothesis that the increased numbers of children of divorce will lead to a slow but steady erosion of the population's overall level of well-being."

But these findings, studies, and statistics, firm though they are, do not mean that every child of divorce is destined to lead a troubled life. They do, however,
demonstrate that divorce presents a very real danger to children. The question is: How can children be protected from the effects of divorce?

What If I Already Divorced?

Well, if that is the case, work your ass off to make ends meet. Do everything you can to make peace and if possible, remarry with your divorced spouse. If you can not come back together or maybe, you married again, here are some advice to help you.

1.Don't fight with your ex-spouse-over the phone or in person-in front of the children. But prove yourself a good listener, letting your children express their feelings even feelings you don't agree.

2.Don't criticize your former mate in front of the children. When your children criticize an absent parent, don't encourage them or join in. Rather, communicate clearly,freely, and openly. Protect them, though, from details they do not need to know. Your son or daughter may seem the ideal confidant.

3.Don't allow children to bully you with threats of moving in with the other parent. Condoning such emotional blackmail will encourage them to become manipulative and may even hinder their moral development. DO comfort your children and assure them that they did not cause the divorce, nor can they now jump in and save your marriage.

4.Don't use children to spy on your ex-spouse, forcing information out of them upon their return from each visit. Do show plenty genuine, warm affection. Children may assume that the parents who can stop loving each other can just as easily stop loving their children.

5.Don't ask children to carry angry messages or humiliating pleas for money from you to your ex-spouse. If possible, do cooperate with your ex-spouse in protecting the children from your disputes.

6.Don't put a child down with such remarks as, "You're just like your father." Not only does this strike the child as a criticism of the father but it may also make the child feel doomed to repeat the mistake of the other parent. But set the example yourself, avoiding the immoral behavior you teach them to avoid. And spend much of your time with the children as possible.m that