Effects of Divorce on Family

Relationships are like waves; we have good days and bad days, but the consequences of every situation change our personality and change our thinking processes.

Relationships are like waves; we have good days and bad days, but the consequences of every situation change our personality and change our thinking processes. In today’s highly independent world, many marriages end in divorce. Though marriage and divorce are social and personal matters, divorce is a life stressor for those who are affected, mostly, it affects the mental and physical health of all family members. It is the end of one’s married life. Crime, theft, and immorality also come from divorced families. Divorce causes parents to experience major changes in their lives, including changes in housing, economic inequality, loneliness associated with changes in social networks, and stressful roles that arise from the need for childcare.

There are many basic reasons for divorce. We all know that the first four years are the riskiest for marriage and getting back up before marriage is associated with an increased risk of later marriage dissolution. However, this increased risk is not due to premarital cohabitation but because of the characteristics of people who live together. The second and subsequent marriages after divorce have a slightly higher risk of divorce than the first marriage. The study shows that women have started to divorce and end marriages more often than men. Women seem to have fewer doubts about their separation than men. According to the research, the main reasons for divorce are communication problems, lack of conflict management skills, lack of commitment to financial problems in marriage, alcoholism, lack of maturity, and physical violence. Women’s education, differences in parenting, long time leaving home, and lack of cooperation in homework are the least reasons for divorce compared to others.

Effects of Divorce

Divorce is common in today’s community, and it is one of the major problems in our society. It has strong negative effects on the mental and physical health of all family members. The impact of divorce on children’s well-being has also been the subject of research for decades and has long been recognized as a cause of a number of serious and persistent behavioral and emotional problems in children. Studies show that parental divorce has many negative effects on children. Academic failure, poor peer relationships, and lack of relationships are some of the effects of divorce on children. These problems do not reduce overtime and persist into adolescence through puberty. It also affects children in social, economic and psychological terms. With the exception of some efforts by religious institutions, there is no organization that focuses on providing services to individuals and couples in the process of marriage, divorce, and remarriage.

Though marriage and divorce are social and personal matters, the successes and failures of our marriages have consequences that go beyond our personal lives. People who are at the crossroads of divorce not only help themselves and their families, but also their environment, community and nation. Divorce has no doubt become a serious problem in this era. If we talk about the United States, then around one million people get divorced each year. However, when a divorce occurs, parents worry about their own problems, so teens feel alone and face many problems that can affect their personality and self-esteem. The increasing divorce rate means that many children are affected by divorce trauma.

The effects of divorce on children and families can be brutal, and many studies by psychologists have found that the negative effects of divorce on children and families cause consequent changes in the psychological and emotional nature of individuals, and it ultimately affects their social and personal lives.

The main effect of divorce is the decline in parent-child relationships, and children are most affected by a separation or divorce. The breakup of the parental unit brings with it many changes. Changes can be physical as well as emotional. Immediately after divorce, mostly parents have two problems: adapting to their own intrapsychic conflict and their role as divorced parents. The stress of divorce usually weakens and even endangers parent-child relationships. Children of divorced parents rated the support they received from home far lower than children from intact homes, and this negative rating became clearer when children went to high school and college. No doubt, divorce can be a difficult time for the whole family. Parents not only recognize new ways to connect with each other, but also learn new ways to raise their children. If parents divorce, the impact of divorce on children can vary. Some children respond to divorce in a natural and understanding way, while other children may struggle with the transition.

Children in divorced families receive less emotional support, financial support, and practical support from their parents. Divorced homes show decreased stimulation of speech, pride, affection, stimulating academic behavior, promoting social maturity, and warmth aimed at children. Although some research shows that parental divorce alone may not affect parents, this often causes anxiety, fatigue, and stress among children. Divorced children have a poorer and less stimulating home environment. In addition to this, divorced mothers, regardless of their best intentions, are less able than married mothers to provide emotional support to their children. Divorce also causes a slight decrease in the trust of children of their mothers if the divorce of parents occurs between the early ages of their life. However, once the quality of the parent-child relationship is controlled, this effect disappears almost completely. The same is the case with divorced fathers. They do not get along well with their children. Divorced children receive less emotional support from their fathers than children from intact families. Divorce causes a decrease in the frequency and quality of parent-child relationships. Divorce also reduces the ability of children to trust their fathers. Divorced children are also more likely to have hostile relationships with their siblings than children from other families, and this continues throughout their lives. In a nutshell, divorce affects the children and the whole family psychologically as well as mentally.

Conclusion

Divorce is common in today’s community. It affects all levels of family and society, because marriage is a social contract. Therefore, everything that influences marital relations unconsciously or unintentionally affects the community. Marriage is said to be a union of happiness with associated positive effects, especially on children. But in some cases, the marriage ends and results in divorce, which has so many negative consequences for children. Children of divorced parents have a higher level of emotional instability, academic problems, social conflict, and cognitive impairment than children of parents who are living happily together. Moreover, adults who report that their parents are unhappily married often report a large number of problems in their own marriages. Recent studies have focused on child-rearing problems. Therefore, we can conclude that emotional relationships are so important in the early years of a child’s life and there are clearly long-term negative consequences of divorce, and because of it, children, parents, and society suffer altogether. 

Sarah Ahmed Malik
Sarah Ahmed Malik
The writer is a student of International Relations at National Defence University, Islamabad. She is very ambitious about her field and has carried out intensive research in different fields of international politics