Divorce Questions: How Does Divorce Affect Children?

Wondering how divorce affects children? Here's what you need to know, from Judith Wallerstein, an internationally recognized authority on the effects of divorce on children and the co-author of "Surviving The Breakup: How Children And Parents Cope With Divorce." Have questions? Ask in the comments.

Divorce affects children profoundly at every age, from infancy into adulthood. Whether the effects are lasting depends on the sensitivity of their parents and their willingness to give priority to the children's concerns. When children are little, they fear that they will be forgotten or abandoned. When they are school age, they fear being replaced. As one heartbroken six-year-old asked me, "Will my daddy get another dog? Another mommy? Another little boy?" During adolescence they say, "You can hope for love but you can't expect it." And when they reach young adulthood, they fear betrayal and decide not to fall in love or marry because, "If you don't marry then you don't divorce." Loving parents can make a huge difference in easing their children's anxieties. Good books can also be helpful (in one of my blogs, I selected books that I recommend). Well trained counselors can be helpful. But there is no substitute for the enduring love and support of parents and grandparents who try their best to help kids grow up and conquer their fears of love and commitment because their parents divorced.

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Comments

[mjrythms]

03:37 AM on 11/22/2012

Absolutely right. DO NOT MARRY I AM telling my children. NEVER EVER MARRY. THEN you can never DIVORCE. If my kids do marry I am not going to the wedding. I will be at the divorce party.

[leando8]

08:53 PM on 02/24/2013

Your are a selfish and ignorant parent! That is all!

[mjrythms]

06:07 AM on 02/26/2013

You're evil and mean for wanting an institution that will cause so much suffering for you're own off-spring, Tears and heartbreak is all that comes of marriage. Note you cannot spell either!!!

[vx2454]

01:46 PM on 10/20/2012

This is stupid! Children need to have knowledge of how to divorce rather than be led into a myth.
Once one has the knowledge of how to win then it is good for the child to learn how to win at life!

[PRad55]

07:36 PM on 04/26/2012

I have a question, my significant other has divorced parents however my parents have been together since they were very young. Having two very different experiences and viewpoints on marriage and divorce can sometimes cause a kind of dissonance at times. Nothing big, but how can I approach this and demonstrate that it does not always end in divorce and there are bog benefits to commitment?

[Tony Twohill]

03:09 AM on 04/27/2012

You can have a solid commitment without marriage.
I've been with my "wife" for almost ten years and we've been living together for almost 8. We own a home together and have a very pretty 9 year old black cat that we rescued last year.
We have a better relationship than almost every married couple either of us has ever known.
So why do you need the marriage I think is the real question.

[DaveFromAustin]

06:23 PM on 04/28/2012

In my opinion, whether or not you "get married", your relationship is equally likely to end before death. Trying to avoid your relationship ending by avoiding getting married is like trying to avoid getting cancer by not going to the doctor - "If I don't go to the doctor, I can't be diagnosed with cancer - so I'll never get cancer".

In reality, if your beautiful relationship ends, you and your "wife" will find it just a traumatic as a divorce - regardless of whether or not your relationship meets the legal definition of "divorce". Any time a long term relationship ends, it's traumatic.

Getting married doesn't cause the relationship to fail. People grow, people change, people get complacent, people get addicted, people get tempted by other people and have affairs...and all that can happen regardless of whether or not your are "married".

[TKDietz]

05:12 PM on 04/27/2012

Are you trying to convince him to marry you? That's going to make it tougher when you get sick of him later and dump him. You know, odds are very high that if you two get married it will end in divorce, and the female is the one who wants it something like three quarters of the time. My parents married young stayed married until one died of old age, as did my ex wife's parents. We were together nearly two decades. I never thought we'd get divorced. We were nice people who loved each other and believed in staying married forever and we were going to go the distance. I believed that up until the day she told me she wanted a divorce. Most all the women in her little group of friends got divorced around the same time. Most including this "angel" I was married to and had so high on a pedestal were cheating on their husbands. People change. Marriage doesn't mean what it meant to generations past. Most marriages will fail. Don't pressure this guy to marry you as odds are very high you'll want to dump him someday.

[R Steinbach]

07:35 PM on 04/26/2012

While divorce can be incredibly damaging, in my opinion "staying together for the kids" is even worse. My parents argued a lot when I was a little kid. In fact that's one of my only early childhood memories. When they got divorced when I was 6, it took them a couple years to figured out their own lives, but they both ended up being much happier people. In the long run, my brothers and I benefited from two happy, energetic and enthusiastic parents. So many of my friends had miserable home lives because their parents were always at odds with each other, but were committed to stay together for their children.

[valarie1]

06:14 PM on 04/26/2012

Divorce should always be viewed as a very last resort. I have seen so many kids and young adults messed up by this tragedy. Where there are REAL abuse issues, however, there is no choice.