Impact Of Divorce On Families

As a licensed mental health professional, I work with many individuals, couples, and families who are affected by divorce. I see the devastating effects that breakups can have and am dedicated to helping people develop the skills to cope with experiences like divorce.

Major Disruptions

The decision to divorce causes major changes in the lives of all family members. Some upheaval is inevitable. The main trouble areas are:

1. Financial: Money becomes a huge problem for most people. The cost of a divorce is extremely high, and two households cost more than one.

2. Career: Being less focused at work and spending time away from the job for divorce-related appointments takes its toll.

3. Logistics: Running your home is more difficult because you no longer have a partner to help with daily chores.

4. Emotional: Most people have periods of depression, sadness, anger, and fatigue.

Lots of Feelings

People who are experiencing the breakup of their marriage can expect to have a wide variety of feelings. Some call it “the crazy time” and there is even a book about divorce with this title. The following complaints are common:

• Poor concentration

• Nightmares

• Sleep problems

• Fatigue

• Mood swings

• Feeling tense

• Nausea

• Gaining/losing weight

• Feeling nervous

• Somatic complaints

Divorce profoundly affects children. In Surviving the Breakup, author Judith Wallerstein describes the experience of 60 divorcing families. She outlines the following key issues for children of divorcing families:

Fear: Divorce is frightening to children, and they often respond with feelings of anxiety. Children feel more vulnerable after a divorce because their world has become less reliable.

Fear of abandonment: One-third of the children in Wallerstein’s study feared that their mother would abandon them.

Confusion: The children in divorcing families become confused about their relationships with their parents. They see their parents’ relationship fall apart and sometimes conclude that their own relationship with one or both parents could dissolve, as well.

Sadness and yearning: More than half of the children in the Wallerstein study were openly tearful and sad in response to the losses they experienced. Two-thirds expressed yearning, for example: “We need a daddy. We don’t have a daddy.”

Worry: In Wallerstein’s study, many children expressed concern about one or both of their parents’ ability to cope with their lives. They wondered if their parents were emotionally stable and able to make it on their own. Over half of the children expressed deep worries about their mothers. They witnessed their mothers’ mood swings and emotional reactions to the events in the family. Some children worried about suicide and accidents.

Feeling rejected: Many children who experience a parent moving out of the home feel rejected by the parent. The parent is usually preoccupied with problems and pays less attention to the child than in the past. Many children take this personally and feel rejected and unlovable.

Loneliness: Since both parents are preoccupied with their problems during the divorce process, they are less able to fulfill their parenting roles with their children. The children may feel like their parents are slipping away from them. If the father has moved away and the mother has gone off to work, the children often feel profound loneliness.

Divided loyalties: The children may (accurately) perceive that the parents are in a battle with each other. The children feel pulled in both directions and may resolve the dilemma by siding with one parent against another.

Anger: Children in divorcing families experience more aggression and anger. It is often directed toward the parents, expressed in tantrums, irritability, resentment, and verbal attacks. Many children see the divorce as a selfish act and feel very resentful about the resulting destruction of their lives.

More than one-third of the children in Judith Wallerstein’s study showed acute depressive symptoms such as sleeplessness, restlessness, difficulty in concentrating, deep sighing, feelings of emptiness, compulsive overeating, and various somatic complaints.

The symptoms that many children may have during the divorce process either moderate or disappear within 18 months after the breakup. Of the symptoms that remain, the most common are:

1. Manipulative behavior was reported by about 20% of the teachers of the children in Wallerstein’s study.

2. Depression was diagnosed in 25% of the children and adolescents. The symptoms of depression in children include:

• Low self-esteem

• Inability to concentrate

• Sadness

• Mood swings

• Irritability

• Secretiveness

• Isolation

• Self-blame

• Eating disorders

• Behaving perfectly

• Being accident-prone

• Stealing

• Skipping school

• Underachieving at school

• Sexual acting out

You should consider finding a therapist to work with if most of the time you feel:

• Alone

• Depressed

• Numb

• Exhausted

• Isolated

• Hopeless

• Overwhelmed by your children

• Overwhelmed by your feelings

• You are sleeping too much or too little

• Worried

• Anxious

• Afraid

Does Depression Cause Divorce?

The break up of a marriage happens for many different reasons with chronic depression being one of the leading causes of divorce around the world. A depressed person will be very moody and down in the dumps and hard to be around and relate to. Depression often goes undiagnosed and the depressed person's behavior is often more than a spouse can bear. Can depression cause divorce? You bet it can!

Depression is ugly and puts tremendous strains on a marriage, especially if you are not sure the condition exists or even how severe it is. Depressed moods and symptoms can have a way of hiding at times and then being full blown the next instant, especially at the initial stages.

Often the depressed spouse pulls back from the relationship, not wanting to do the same things that were always done as a couple. Their belief that nothing will be fun is so strong that they even start missing family events. Sometimes the simplest life tasks go for days without being completed. Even personal hygiene can become an issue as the depressed person pulls away from the world and spends most of their time in a dark room alone.

Many times it's the depressed person pushing all the right buttons to set a divorce in motion because they have no self worth and feel they are very undeserving. They may be the first one to bring up the subject of divorce. Living with depression is a very scary place to be. The depressed person may think that everything is a waste of time and this may start to create problems for the non-depressed spouse.

Life is still the same for the non-depressed spouse and frequently they do not understand what could be causing the changes. Communication at this point is at an all time low, with niceties being a thing of the past. This may be when the first thoughts of divorce are being contemplated and considered a solution.

If this is you and you are living with a depressed person you need to do a few things to save your marriage. Even more important is saving both of you a lot of unnecessary grief. Understand depression by doing some research. There is a massive amount of information all around you, both on the internet and speaking with your doctor. Living with a depressed person is very difficult, but with the right information and medication depression can be treated.

Does depression cause divorce? The answer: Only if you let it. If depression has struck the one you love, there are many things that you can do - but first and foremost understand that depression is a disease, a disease that can be treated. But many times, these marriages do end in divorce because they become too unbearable

Relationship Issues Leading To Divorce

When you go through the worst in a marriage, sometimes there is nothing you can do but cut your loses and move on. I have a friend who went through what can only be described as a nightmare. She was not abused, but that is one of the few positive things she can say about her marriage. She would not go back and do it differently because if she did she would not have her daughter. However, she has lived through the worst she could imagine, and now she is living her life without the loser she married. The one thing that is missing is the divorce papers.

It would be much simpler if she were not now a single mom of two. The man she wants to divorce has little to no money. Though he finally agrees to the divorce after a few years of trying to talk her out of it, he can’t seem to come up with his half of the money to finalize the end of their relationship. Divorce papers don’t seem to be something he cares about getting, and he is taking his time. She can’t afford to pay for the divorce on her own, so she is going to have to wait for her divorce papers for a little while longer.

I swear it’s like a game to him. He knows she needs the divorce papers to move on with her life, but he seems to stall at every turn. He is buying things like guitars and amplifiers, but he has yet to put a dime towards the divorce. It’s not even like it is a complicated divorce. They know how much it will cost, and he knows what he has to pay. It’s not a lot of money, but for some reason he doesn’t want her to have those divorce papers. He’s selfish. He wants her to himself, but he isn’t willing to give her the same thing. He’s playing a game with her and she knows it.

I have half a mind to pay for the divorce myself just so she can get those divorce papers and move on with her life. The guy she is divorcing is someone I have known my entire life and he has disappointed me more than I ever thought possible. Through everything that happened, he refused to take responsibility for what he was doing, and found away to make it the fault of everyone else, including me. I can’t stand the sight of him, and one of my fondest wishes is to see her standing with the divorce papers in her hand so that she can finally be free of him. It would be worth the price for sure.

Private Investigators Tell Their Story

We tend to romanticize the work of the lone detective, and this is supported by fictional characters created in books and film. In reality, the life of private investigators can be somewhat repetitious and tedious. They do mundane things like deliver summons papers or sit in a car all night, waiting for evidence of someone's adultery, although no fault divorce makes this less frequent. They may be called upon to investigate dubious insurance claims. Several of them are ex-police officers. It's certainly true that they usually have more fun in stories.

Wilkie Collins and Edgar Allen Poe were early contributors to the genre but the most successful character was Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle created the most scientific of private investigators, Holmes being obsessed with forensic clues. He would examine things for no apparent reason, only to astound his sidekick, Watson with his miraculous solving of the case. He was the very essence of an English, Victorian gentleman but with an unfortunate addiction to opium. Later, a Belgian sleuth named Hercule Poirot would astonish us with his powers of deduction. His creator Agatha Christie, a genteel English lady, wrote of gruesome stabbings and poisonings in elegant drawing rooms. Poirot would gather everyone together near the end and expose the murderer. This was all in the classic tradition of the whodunit and suave private investigators that didn't need guns or fast car chases to hunt their quarry.

America in the 1940s was a whole, different matter. Raymond Chandler and Dashell Hammett wrote about the seedy underbelly of urban America. Their stories were peppered with femmes fatales and murders were committed in alleyways and smoky nightclubs. Hammett created the Sam Spade character and Chandler wrote about Philip Marlow. Both these private investigators appeared in the movies with Marlow being a particular favorite. Different actors have portrayed him, including Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum. The character featured in classic film noir, such as The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye.

Television brought another dimension to the genre. The 1970s had a plethora of shows with private investigators. They tended to be lighter in tone than their cinema counterparts and launched the careers of several actors. Tom Selleck starred in Magnum P.I., Bruce Willis in Moonlighting and Pierce Brosnan in Remington Steele. Playing private investigators can also revive careers, as when James Garner starred in The Rockford Files. Modern shows are apt to have some sort of gimmick. In Monk, for example, the eponymous hero has obsessive compulsive disorder. No matter how it's presented, this genre will continue to have a following.