Reply to Best age for child to have parents divorce?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Certain studies have shown that daughters of divorced parents have a 60 percent higher divorce rate in marriages than children of non-divorced parents while sons have a 35 percent higher rate.

Research shows that children of divorce are more likely to experience a divorce themselves. Personal skills theory and commitment and confidence theory are two dominant theories to explain this increased divorce risk.

It's definitely having some effect.  Some families have legacies of divorce.  Nearly every marriage down the line ends in divorce.  I know families where the parents divorced and every single one of the children's marriages ultimately ended in divorce too.

The confidence and commitment theory states that children observing and experiencing their parents’ divorce leads to a reduced commitment to the institution of marriage and lower confidence in the ability of marriages to remain intact long-term. Considerable research supports this finding. Divorce researcher Judith Wallerstein explains the phenomenon this way: “...at young adulthood when love, sexual intimacy, commitment and marriage take center stage, children of divorce are haunted by the ghosts of their parents’ divorce and terrified that the same fate awaits them” (Wallerstein, 2005, p. 409). Interestingly, the finding breaks down by sex. One study found that while engaged women whose parents divorced reported lowered relationship commitment and reduced confidence in their own upcoming marriages, the same was not true for men. Researchers note that “experiencing a parental divorce appears to have a stronger impact on women’s than men’s desires and beliefs about the future of their own marriages” (Whitton, 2009, p.4). Women’s lack of confidence in marriage leads to higher divorce rates.

Children of divorce are at risk of responding to their fear of divorce in one of two ways. [b]Some dive headlong into inappropriate, unformed relationships as a counter-phobic response to their fears. Others avoid relationships altogether, and when in relationships, maintain a mindset akin to waiting for the other shoe to drop. They struggle to believe in the strength of relationships to weather difficult stretches, and many arrive ill-equipped to address a relationship’s most potent challenges[/b][/quote]

The bolded is the effect I see the most and the most I read about on this forum.  What long time marriage is like and the natural ups and downs over the course of a lifetime is not understood by those who see the 'bail' at first bit of roughness model.  They see the 'here and now' as a referendum on how it is going to be forever instead of the rationale that this is a normal life stage, people change and how to work through it.  They also have unhealthy coping mechanisms a lot of the time and will mirror the parents' infidelity/affairs or substance abuse because they haven't learned how to cope or developed the skills to communicate.[/quote]

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