effects of divorce on society essay

Essay on Effects Of Divorce On Society

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100 Words Essay on Effects Of Divorce On Society

Introduction.

Divorce is the legal ending of a marriage. It can have a big effect on society. This essay will talk about those effects.

Family Structure

Divorce changes the structure of families. Kids might have to live with only one parent or move between two homes. This can be stressful for them and their parents.

Children’s Education

Divorce can affect children’s education. They might find it hard to concentrate on their schoolwork. Their grades might drop. They might also feel social pressure from their friends.

Economic Impact

Divorce can also impact the economy. Families might have less money after a divorce. This can lead to poverty and financial stress.

Social Stigma

In conclusion, divorce affects society in many ways. It changes family structures, impacts children’s education, can lead to economic problems, and creates social stigma.

250 Words Essay on Effects Of Divorce On Society

Divorce is when a married couple legally ends their marriage. It has many effects on society. These effects can be seen in families, schools, and communities.

Family Impact

Divorce can be hard on families. Kids might have to live with one parent or move between two homes. This can make them feel sad, angry, or confused. They might also worry about their parents or feel like the divorce is their fault.

Impact on Schools

Divorce can also affect schools. Kids might have trouble focusing on their work because they are worried about their family. They might also act out or get into fights with other kids. Teachers and school staff need to be aware of these issues and help kids cope.

Community Impact

Communities also feel the effects of divorce. There may be more single-parent families or blended families. This can change the way communities look and feel. It can also affect resources like housing and social services.

500 Words Essay on Effects Of Divorce On Society

Divorce is the legal end of a marriage. When a couple decides they can no longer live together, they go to court and ask for a divorce. This process can affect not only the couple and their children, but also society as a whole. In this essay, we will look at the effects of divorce on society.

The Impact on Children

Children are often the most affected by divorce. They may feel confused, sad, or even angry. They might blame themselves for their parents’ split. This can lead to problems in school and with friends. In the long run, these children may grow up with issues around trust and relationships.

Financial Struggles

Changes in family structure.

Divorce changes the structure of the family. Single-parent families become more common. These families face unique challenges. For example, single parents often have less time and energy to devote to their children. This can impact the child’s development and well-being.

Impact on Community and Society

Divorce can also affect the community and society. It can lead to less community involvement and lower social cohesion. For example, divorced people might be less likely to volunteer or help out in their community. This can make the community less strong and supportive.

Health Effects

In conclusion, divorce affects more than just the couple involved. It impacts children, families, and society as a whole. It leads to emotional pain, financial struggles, changes in family structure, and health problems. As a society, we need to find ways to support those going through a divorce and help minimize these negative impacts.

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Divorce and its Impacts on Family Members Cause and Effect Essay

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Introduction

Impacts of divorce, how divorced spouses cope with the divorce.

Divorce has become a common aspect of our society. Current divorce statistics have been estimated to be 50% in America. This portrays a society where people are moving from a situation where family institutions were used as refugees and comfort zones to a one where they are viewed as a place of doom and suffering.

We cannot deny that divorce has devastating and far reaching effects than we are ready to admit. This paper looks into the impacts of divorce to the various members of the broken marriage, and how they try to live through it.

The effects of divorce are experienced by each and every member of the family regardless of who was at fault.

“The effects of divorce can change virtually every aspect of a person’s life including where a person lives, with whom they live with, their standard of living, their emotional happiness, their assets and liabilities, time spent with children and other family…” (eJustice 2002),

Effects of divorce to couples themselves

Even though the couple is the author of the outcome of the marriage, it does not affect them any less. The effects are on all aspects of life i.e., socially, financially, and psychologically.

Socially, individuals relations with the outside is influenced by the persons failed marriage. “Divorced individuals generally experience more social isolation and have smaller social networks than do married individuals” (Henley & Parsley, 2011).

This may result from self pity and feelings of inadequacy that may be developed by the individual in question. Further, there are societies where divorced people are viewed as failures and are allocated a lower social standing as compared to married people. In such traditional societies, divorced people and especially women are not allowed to remarry. So they may end up spending their lives in solitude and unhappy.

Moreover, even where it is completely allowed to remarry, “remarriages are less stable than first marriages…Therefore; divorce appears to influence future marital relationships, making them less stable and more vulnerable to dissolution” (Henley & Parsley, 2011).

Economically, a person’s normal life is disrupted and normally one of the couple may have to establish a home elsewhere, which requires funds. Further, divorce legal proceedings can be quite expensive, to hire lawyers and paying witnesses not to mention countless hours spent in courtrooms. In addition, the property accumulated during the subsistence of the marriage is ordinarily split up between the couple and these lowers the standards of living from both ends.

Sometimes, a couple may be unable to obtain judicial help in determining property ownership leaving weaker party, especially women, under the mercy of the other couple. This normally causes unfairness where the party refuses to divide the property in his possession fairy, not to mention hiding some of the property, leaving the other party financially starved.

Researchers have reached a conclusion that there is a disparity between the economic situation of women and that of men after divorce, with women generally being on the lower edge while men experiencing an economic upsurge (Braver and O’Connell 1998).

Psychologically, research has revealed that divorced people portray higher rates of anxiety and depression, low self-esteem and psychological instability, with those having more than one divorce experiences exhibiting more of these tendencies as compared to those with one.

Researchers has it that those who stay married, even though they were unhappy before, are likely to be happier five years later in the marriage as opposed to those who opted for divorce (Waite & Gallagher 2000, P. 148).

The psychological impact causes health implications to the couple. It has been shown that both spouses will greatly suffer a decline in mental health but this may affect women more than men. Further, a couple diagnosed with a terminal illness is more likely to recover within the marriage as compared to a divorced individual (Goodwin et al 1987, P. 3125-3130).

This shows that there are deeper issues associated with divorce besides the financial hurdles and social effects.

Impacts to Children

Divorce has profound implications on the children of the marriage. This is regardless of whether they are adult children or otherwise. Study has shown that divorce has serious implications on development of children and affects their future relationships. These effects may be discussed in terms of what the child has to lose resulting from the divorce. These may include such things as economic loss, lack of parental care and other social disruptions.

Economically, since children are moving from an institution where there are two breadwinners to, in most cases, one-breadwinner family it is normal that the financial status will have to be adjusted to suite the new family setting. This will mean cutting costs to incorporate all the needs of the family to the now constrained family budget.

In extreme cases, where the single parent is unemployed and without a stable source of income, the children may be forced to survive without basic necessities. It has been established that, “[children] in single-parent families have less than one-third the median per capita income of kids from two-parent families, and half of them fall below the poverty line in any given year, compared with 10% of their counterparts in intact families” (Magnet 1992, p 43)

Parental factor has various aspects to it. First of all, divorced parents will no longer live together. The children who were used to being with both parents will have to live with one of them. Adjusting to these new casual relationships between parents may pose problems to most children.

Mostly the children grow up without having the fatherly input in their lives. For children below 5 years, “sleep disturbances and an exacerbated fear of separation from the custodial parent are common. There is usually a great deal of yearning for the non-custodial parent” (Eleoff 2003).

It was concluded that youth of around 20 years still carry around with them painful memories ten years after their parents’ divorce. Billings and Emery (2000) among the things that still weigh down on them is the loss of the relationship with their fathers.

Further, the parent bestowed with the custody of the children may not be very effective on his/her own on the over burdened parental obligation. It could be the ordinary imperfections of a parent or it could have arisen from the after-effects of the divorce process. As argued out before, the psychological stability of the parent may be in question, and this is transmitted to the children, albeit unknowingly.

“In the wake of a divorce, most custodial mothers exhibit varying degrees of disorganization, anger, decreased expectations for appropriate social behavior of their children, and a reduction of the ability of parents to separate the child’s needs and actions from those of the adult” (Eleoff 2003).

The other issue on parents is the fact that, after divorce, parents will remarry and the children will have a different set of parents, step parents. Obviously, the step family will not function as naturally as a normal family does.

More often than not, there will be conflicts of loyalties between step parent and biological parent for the child. “Evidence suggests that each change in parenting arrangements represents a risk factor, thus increasing the likelihood that a child will react negatively to their post-divorce environment”(Demo & Supple 2011).

Social disruptions involve such things as moving houses, changing schools and having adapting new and very different surrounding for the child. Sometimes, it means that the new surroundings are worse off than the one the child is used to. This may be due to financial strains on the single parent.

Study has shown that, constant moving for children of single parent families, increased school drop-outs and chances of unplanned pregnancies. (Crowder and Teachman 2004)

When these children move from their original home and schools, they lose their friends and are forced to start all over again in life, a situation that most children have a problem adjusting to.

Overall, children experience such internal and emotional conflicts as low self-esteem, unfamiliarity to the new surroundings and set of parents, feelings of rejection especially from the parent who is not living with them and feelings of hopelessness and insecurity.

Despite the devastating impacts of a divorce, all the members have to find a way of surviving the divorce. Some of the factors that help family members cope may be economical, social or personal factors.

Personal factors have to do with the personal attributes that are specific to an individual. They include such matters as age, level of education, financial security and psychological stability. Research shows that older people are less likely to cope with a divorce as compared to younger people owing to their impaired chances of remarriage and due the comfort they have established in the marriage all those years.

Also, a person who is financially stable will be more likely to adjust to new family set-up as opposed to people who are unemployed. This is made stronger by the now widely adopted principle of property settlement between spouses, which requires a 50-50 property division. This ensures that both spouses’ living standards are least affected by the divorce.

Also, parties will seek to establish new social networks for support. Some spouses will start new romantic relationships or even remarry so as to forget their former spouses as well as help in the hardships of day to day living.

Divorce is a horrible ordeal to go through. The post-divorce experiences are beyond devastation, both to the members of the family involved and to the society at large. Parties should try to resolve their disputes before rushing for divorce and it should only be a last resort.

Many studies have been done on the level divorce with statistics showing that they are currently very high. However, there hasn’t been conclusive research on what are the causes of this rapidly increasing pandemic or even on how it could be stopped.

Therefore, future studies should concentrate more on how we can combine efforts to reduce the occurrence of more divorces. It is a duty and responsibility of each and every member of the society to uphold and protect the sanctity of the institution of the marriage.

Braver, S. L and O’Connell, D. (1998) Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths. New York: Putnam.

Billings, L & Emery, R. E. (2000). Distress among young adults in divorced families: Journal of Family Psychology , 14, 671-687.

Crowder, K & Teachman, J. (2004). Do residential conditions explain the relationship between living arrangements and adolescent behavior? Journal of Marriage and Family , 66, 721-738.

Eleoff, S. (2003). An Exploration of the Ramifications of Divorce on Children and Adolescent: The Pennsylvania, State University College of Medicine eJustice.

Goodwin, S et al. (1987). The Effect of Marital Status on Stage, Treatment, and Survival of Cancer Patients; Journal of the American Medical Association 258: 3125-3130.

Henley, K & Pasley, K. (2011). Divorce- Effects On Children, Effects On Couples, Effects On Parents: Effects on couples .

Magnet, M. (1992). The American Family : Fortune 10 Aug: 42-47.

Waite, L & Gallagher, M. ( 2000). The Case for Marriage. New York: Doubleday p.148.

• Balancing Work and the Family
• Critical Theories of Bodies, Genders, Sexualities and Identities
• Causes and Effects of Divorce
• Effects of Divorce on Children
• Divorce and Its Effects on Women
• Concepts of Gay Marriage
• Same-sex Relations and Americans’ Definitions of Family
• How Families Manage Work And Family Life
• Divorce Reform: "Gender and Families" by Scott Coltrane and Michele Adams
• Factors Influencing Perception on Same-sex marriage in the American Society
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Divorce and Health: Current Trends and Future Directions

David a. sbarra.

Department of Psychology, University of Arizona

Associated Data

Social relationships play a vital role in health and wellbeing, and it follows that loss experiences can be highly stressful for some people. This paper reviews what is known about the association between marital separation, divorce and health outcomes.

Key findings in the area of divorce and health are discussed, and the review outlines a series of specific questions for future research. In particular, the paper integrates research in social epidemiology with research in social psychophysiology. The former approach provides a broad-based estimate of the association between marital status and health outcomes, whereas the latter approach studies mechanisms of action and individual differences associated with increased risk for poor outcomes.

The experience of separation or divorce confers risk for poor health outcomes, including a 23% higher mortality rate. However, most people cope well and are resilient after their marriage or long-term relationship ends. Despite the fact that resilience is the most common response, a small percentage of people (approximately 10–15%) struggle quite substantially, and it appears that the overall elevated adverse health risks are driven by the poor functioning of this group. Several candidate mechanisms and novel (ambulatory) assessment techniques are discussed that may elucidate the poor outcomes among people who adapt poorly to separation.

CONCLUSIONS

To increase knowledge on the association between divorce and health, three primary areas require more research: (a) genetic and third variable explanations for divorce-related health outcomes; (b) better studies of objective social behavior following separation; and, (c) increased attention to interventions targeting high risk adults.

In the last four decades, relationship research has burgeoned into a legitimate scientific enterprise ( 1 ). High quality social relationships are positively associated with increased life satisfaction and psychological well-being ( 2 ) and negatively associated with morbidities and mortality from a range of disease processes ( 3 ). Meta-analytic findings indicate that the effects linking low social integration to increased risk for all-cause mortality are as robust as many other public health risk factors ( 4 , 5 ). Animal studies suggest the neuropeptide oxytocin, which is associated with social bonding, may be health protective ( 6 ) and that disease-relevant biological changes may have their roots in early care giving, especially as gene expression is established in the context of care giving environments ( 7 , 8 ). Similar patterns of gene expression – e.g., over-expression of inflammatory signaling pathways – are observed among adults who are low in social embeddeness ( 9 ). Relationship quality predicts time to death following treatments for a range of medical conditions (e.g., 10 ). Brain regions associated with the detection of physical pain are also sensitive to social rejection ( 11 ); early assessments of preschoolers’ attachment relationships are strong predictors of self-reported health in adulthood, nearly three decades later ( 12 ); and, the quality of marital interactions during daily life is associated with carotid artery intima-medial thickness, a marker of subclinical cardiovascular disease ( 13 ). These examples, from all corners of psychosomatic medicine and other areas where the biopsychosocial model plays a critical role, share one common theme: relationships and social connection are central to human health.

Because high quality relationships may promote positive health and wellbeing—we have only limited evidence that these effects are causal, a point to which I return below— it stands to reason that social separations and loss place people at unique risk for poor health. Indeed, a large literature also links marital status to morbidity and mortality. Increased risk of death from all causes following conjugal bereavement, the so-called ‘widowhood effect’, is well documented ( 14 , 15 ). Similarly, relative to married adults, separated or divorced adults evidence substantially increased risk for death from multiple disease processes. Figure 1 displays the results from a large meta-analysis (including studies that assessed over 6.5 million people, 160,000 deaths, and 755,000 divorces from 11 different countries) examining the association between divorce and all-cause mortality ( 16 ). As shown, on average, separated/divorced adults were 23% more likely to have died at the successive follow-up period (in the 32 prospective studies included in the meta-analysis) relative to their married counterparts. In addition, divorced men were significantly more likely to die early than were divorced women. These findings were subsequently replicated in a sample of 600 million adults ( 17 ). In the remainder of this review, I break down the epidemiological association between divorce and death by discussing research relevant to the question of who is at the greatest risk for poor health when marriage comes to an end and why. 1 In doing so, this article provides a selective review of the literature on the health consequences of separation and divorce, especially the topics of individual differences and potential mechanisms of change. An interesting feature of the work in this area is that although the average effect linking divorce with risk for early mortality suggests elevated risk, the modal effect is one of psychosocial resilience (cf. 18 ) and the bulk of the risk for poor outcomes appears to be limited to a sub-set of adults. Before addressing these topics in detail, I consider two orienting questions. Why is the study of divorce and health important for psychosomatic medicine? What is the organizing theory behind this work?

Reproduced from Sbarra et al.( 16 ). Forest plot illustrating the raw risk hazard (RH) statistic and associated 95% confidence interval for each study in the meta-analysis. The RH statistic quantifies risk for early death among separated/divorced relative to married adults in each study; the estimates are displayed according to their proportional (inverse variance) weighting in the random effects meta-analysis. Results from the overall meta-analysis are presented in the final row of the table, and the overall meta-analytic effect is illustrated by the diamond marker.

Relevance for Psychosomatic Medicine and Organizing Theory

As a field, psychosomatic medicine seeks integrative approaches to human disease processes, including an understanding of how social factors are associated with health-relevant physiology. (For distinctions between social psychophysiology, health psychology and psychosomatic medicine, see 19 .) As I have written elsewhere, the study of divorce provides an ideal “model system” for understanding how these processes may unfold ( 20 ), and there are several compelling reasons why studying divorce is an excellent means of studying stress and health more generally. First, marital dissolution remains relatively common, with roughly 40% of first marriages ending in divorce ( 21 ); up to 75% of people who end a first marriage will remarry, and the divorce rate of second marriages is considerably higher than first marriages. Thus, in absolute terms, more than 2 million adults are newly affected by marital separation each year .

Second, for the vast majority of these people, even for people who report relatively transient disturbances in psychological wellbeing, the transition out of marriage constitutes a significant life stress ( 18 , 22 , 23 ). In the original Social Readjustment Rating Scale ( 24 ), for example, divorce was rated as the second most stressful experience a person could have, sandwiched between the death of a spouse and a jail term among the top of the list. It is easy to see why this is the case. For many people, marital separation means substantial financial upheaval, the renegotiation of parenting relationships and co-parenting conflict, changes in friendships and social networks, moving locally or relocating cities, as well as a host of psychological challenges, including re-organizing one’s fundamental sense of self: Who am I without my partner?

Third, and most critically, although each of these challenges present numerous interpersonal and logistical obstacles, most people are psychologically resilient in the face of divorce ( 25 ). A large, prospective study of German adults, for example, demonstrated that the vast majority, nearly 72% of over 600 divorces, could be considered to have a resilient outcome, with little self-reported change in life satisfaction across a 9-year period that included the divorce ( 26 ). In contrast, 19% of people in the sample demonstrated what the authors referred to as a “moderate-decreasing” trajectory, with declines in life satisfaction that precede and follow the divorce year, but also seem to level off in the mid-range of overall functioning. Similarly, a recent study of adults who divorced after 25 years of marriage found that 79% of people could be described as either “average copers” (with average levels of life satisfaction and self-reported health, and little depression) or “resilient” (with high levels of life satisfaction and self-reported health, and the lowest levels of depression) ( 27 ). These studies and the broader literature on resilience following divorce ( 28 ) illustrate a key point: Most people fare well, but some people suffer quite a lot. Who are the people at greatest risk for poor outcomes? What mechanisms explain their declines in wellbeing and, potentially, physical health?

Taken together, these three observations—that divorce is common, highly stressful for many people, but also quite variable in terms of distal outcomes—make the study of marital dissolution ideally suited to informing our understanding of stress and health more generally. In addition, social baseline theory ( 29 ) and attachment theory ( 30 , 31 ) provide excellent frameworks for understanding the importance of close relationships in promoting psychological wellbeing and physical health. These theories can be used to derive specific hypotheses about the consequences of separation or loss (e.g., see 32 , 33 ). Social baseline theory proposes that the presence of other people, especially close others, helps guide the way people perceive threat in the environment; social embeddedness represents the default—or, baseline— state for emotion regulation, largely because this state allows for the sharing and conserving of physiologically “costly” metabolic resources for dealing with environmental challenges ( 29 ). Holding the hand of one’s partner (especially a partner in a high quality relationship), for example, attenuates women’s neural response to threat relative to being alone or to holding the hand of a stranger ( 34 ).

The obvious implication of this work is that transitioning out of a relationship means that people shoulder the burden of moving from their innate, prepared baseline state for dealing with task demands to – quite literally at times – an “alone condition” in which emotional challenges require greater physiological effort and output. This perspective is consistent with the ideas outlined by Sbarra and Hazan ( 32 ), who suggested that one function of normative attachment to another person is coregulation—the dyadic maintenance of physiological homeostasis within an intact relationship (cf. 35 , 36 ), and that the loss of coregulation portends a physiological stress response.

Attachment theory provides an excellent vantage point for understanding why the challenges of the so-called alone condition may be especially difficult for some people after divorce ( 37 ). One of the most robust and well-replicated findings in the literature on social separations is that individual differences in attachment styles, which are presumed to be relatively stable person variables ( 38 ), are associated with divorce adjustment ( 39 ) and moderate the ways in which people respond to non-marital breakups ( 40 ). Attachment styles reflect how individuals view themselves and others in close relationships and play a critical role in regulating the experience of felt security ( 37 ). In the face of real or perceived threats to felt security, when the primary strategy of attachment figure proximity seeking is not a viable option, people high in attachment anxiety and avoidance engage in different secondary strategies to regulate distress—essentially, two different emotion regulation strategies. People high in attachment anxiety often engage in hyper activating strategies , including repetitive efforts to feel close to, or reunite with, the attachment figure that render the system chronically activated. In contrast, highly avoidant individuals tend to engage in deactivating strategies by becoming hyper self-reliant and down-regulating the attachment system to minimize their distress. Hyper activating strategies, in particular, have clear health-relevant physiological correlates ( 41 – 46 ). Thus, attachment theory is highly generative for not only understanding who may be at greatest risk for poor outcomes when relationships end, but also for understanding the mechanisms that may explain these outcomes (a point to which I return below).

Studying Moderators to Understand Mechanisms

When attempting to deconstruct the association between marital separation/divorce and distal health outcomes, two of the observations I outlined above stand in opposition. How is it possible that most people are resilient in the face of divorce but that divorce also carries with it a significant risk for early death? Consider this oft-asked question by a divorced adult who becomes aware of these findings: “Even though I am actually happier now than I was prior to my divorce, are you also saying my health is at risk?” One critical detail to remember about meta-analysis is that this statistical approach deals, for the most part, with an arithmetic average of weighted effect sizes. Statistical averages are highly susceptible to the influence of outliers; thus, if some people suffer much more than others when marriage ends, it is entirely possible for an average effect to suggest that exposure to divorce is associated with poor outcomes while the modal response is a fairly quick return to life as normal.

Thus, in the study of divorce and health, it appears that individual differences moderate many of the outcomes of interest, and that a relatively small percentage of adults – perhaps 10 to 15% – fare quite poorly when their marriage comes to an end. Recent research provides evidence to support this assertion. Using two waves of data from the nationally-representative Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, Sbarra, Emery, Beam, and Ocker ( 47 ) compared rates of major depressive disorder (MDD) among people who were married at the first wave of the study and then divorced at the second wave relative to those people who were continuously married at both assessments. As shown in Figure 2 , the effects of divorce on the probability of depression depend almost entirely on adults’ history of MDD at the first MIDUS assessment. For people without a history of MDD , the experience of marital separation and divorce do not significantly elevate risk for a future depressive episode. In contrast, roughly 6 out of 10 people with a history of MDD who also become divorced will experience a subsequent depressive episode. In the U.S. population, the lifetime prevalence of MDD is roughly 17% ( 48 ); the rates observed by Sbarra et al. (2013) for people with a history of MDD who experience divorce are substantially elevated. This effect fits well with classic diathesis-stress models of psychopathology ( 49 ). After divorce, risk of poor mental health outcomes appears limited to people who have struggled prior to the end of marriage.

Reproduced from Sbarra et al. ( 47 ). Probability for a Major Depressive Episode (MDE) in the second wave of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Study (M2) as a function of participants’ marital status and depression at the first MIDUS assessment (M1). The greatest risk for a MDE was observed among people who experienced a separation/divorce between M1 and M2 and who also experienced a MDE at M1.

We have also shown that a similar type of moderating effect is observed in the study of divorce and mortality. Specifically, it appears that the association between divorce and risk for early death depends on how researchers define a person’s marital biography (i.e., their personal history of moving into and out of marriage). Using data from the Charleston Heart Study that followed over 1600 adults across 40 years, Sbarra and Nietert ( 50 ) examined the association between marital status and risk for death from all causes. The risk associated with divorce varied quite substantially depending on whether a person was divorced at the inception of the study or whether they had reported being divorced at some point during the study. The former group—people who divorced and never re-married—were at substantially elevated risk for early death, evidencing a 66% greater chance of being dead at each successive follow-up period than the continuously married participants. In contrast, mere exposure to divorce was not associated with significantly elevated risk for early death. This finding raises a series of interesting questions: Does the amount of time spent living as a divorced/single adult explain the observed outcomes, perhaps as a function of cumulative exposure to psychological stress? Alternatively, are there personality or other individual differences that are common to both becoming divorced and never remarrying as well as increased risk for early death? Regardless of the ultimate explanation, questions of this nature are focused squarely on individual differences that may confer risk and suggest that a smaller percentage of people may carry the bulk of the risk for poor outcomes following the end of marriage.

In terms of psychological characteristics associated with adjustment to divorce, it is well known that individual differences in attachment anxiety, as mentioned above, are associated with poor outcomes when people perceive a threat to their relationship and/or their security within the relationship. In a study of adults’ adjustment to marital separation, for example, Lee, Sbarra, Mason, and Law ( 51 ) used language as a behavioral manifestation of attachment-related hyper activation. People higher in attachment anxiety who spoke about their separation experience in a highly immediate, experiential and self-focused manner demonstrated greater increases in systolic and diastolic blood pressure when thinking about their relationship history and separation experience relative to those people lower in attachment anxiety. People at high risk for poor outcomes following marital separation appear to employ coping strategies that are associated with a high degree of physiological activation and this study, focused on blood pressure reactivity, provides an example of the ways in which emotion regulation strategies around attachment themes can provide insights into processes that confer risk for poor distal health outcomes.

The findings discussed above provide clues about the potential mechanisms linking marital separation to poor health outcomes. People who have a hard time distancing themselves from their psychological experiences show excessive cardiovascular responding, which, if maintained over time, is associated with the development of cardiovascular disease ( 52 ). Conceptually, this work fits well with the larger literature on self-distanced reflection and evidence indicating that people who recount their experiences in a blow-by-blow manner rather than reconstrue their experiences to find meaning, are at heightened risk for mood disorders (e.g., 53 )

The process of psychological distancing may be especially difficult for some people and in some contexts. For example, a recent study found that separated adults who reported a high degree of rumination, the tendency to reflect over one’s experiences in a negative, self-focused, and over-general way ( 54 ), reported increases in separation-related emotional distress three months after engaging in a three session expressive writing intervention that encouraged them to express their emotions about the separation event ( 55 ). When assigned to control writing, which asked them to write in a concrete, non-emotional way about how they had spent and would spend their time in the next few days, however, high ruminators reported the lowest levels of separation-related emotional distress eight months later compared to people low in rumination assigned to either condition. For people with a tendency to ruminate and who are in the throes of coping with their separation, engaging in emotional writing may be an ill-advised prescription because it promotes recounting and self-focused reflection. In this circumstance, control writing may operate in a manner similar to behavioral activation treatment for mood disorders by focusing people on re-engaging with pleasurable activities and, colloquially, getting out of their heads about their separation and back into their day-to-day lives.

Proximal Psychosocial Mechanisms

We have suggested that the ability to gain a self-distanced perspective on one’s separation may be a variable linking the end of marriage to health, but it is certainly not the only mechanistic pathway. Chronic psychological stress has health-compromising effects ( 56 – 60 ), and any efforts to understand pathways of action must consider divorce-specific variables above-and-beyond general psychological stress and loneliness. I would like to suggest three additional variables (two psychological and one health behavior) that deserve further consideration in this regard. Some of the earliest immunological work on divorce focused on attachment to/longing for an ex-partner ( 61 ). This research found that ongoing attachment to an ex-spouse was associated with impairments in cellular immune responses (e.g., antibody titers to latent herpes virus) and remains one of the only investigations of the ways in which psychological responses to marital separation may be associated with health-relevant immunological changes. The field needs much more research in this vein; simply studying physiology as a marker of health relevance is not enough, and a number of researchers have called for the need to investigate biologically plausible pathways from life stress to disease outcomes ( 62 ).

Beyond self-distanced reflection and longing, other variables and processes may serve as potential proximal mechanisms leading to health-relevant biological changes. In a prospective study of breakups following non-marital dissolution ( 63 ), improvements in self-concept clarity (knowing who you are as a person after a separation) earlier in the study were associated with future increases in future psychological wellbeing. There was no evidence in this study that people begin to feel better, and then have a greater sense of who they are in the aftermath of their breakup; the direction of the effect seems to operate from self-concept clarity to psychological wellbeing. Self-concept clarity was a key variable in the early empirical study of divorce ( 23 ), yet no studies to date have examined this variable with respect to biomarkers of interest.

Finally, given well-known theories regarding the social control of health ( 64 ), it is also important to investigate whether and how the end of marriage is associated with changes in health-promoting and/or health-compromising behaviors. Sleep is a salubrious health behavior that affects nearly every aspect of psychological functioning, and sleep problems are linked to a variety of physical morbidities. With respect to divorce outcomes, a recent study demonstrated that sleep problems within the first 10 weeks following marital separation were unassociated with adults’ resting blood pressure ( 65 ); ongoing sleep problems lasting longer than 10 weeks after the separation, however, were associated with future increases in resting blood pressure. This work suggests that sleep problems that extend beyond a few months after the physical separation may presage worsening physical health. Sleep is one of many health-promoting and/or - compromising behaviors that could link divorce to pathophysiology, and future research will benefit by studying how psychological responses to divorce work in tandem with changes in health behaviors to predict long-term outcomes (see 16 ).

Future Directions and Conclusions

This review concludes by highlighting three areas of study that can greatly enhance what we know about social relationships and health, and, in particular, the associations between marital separation, divorce, and health outcomes.

First, the observation that changes in marital status (or the dissolution of any partnership, for that matter) might be associated with long-term disease outcomes has spurred a wealth of excitement in the field and a fervent search for explanatory mechanisms. However, divorce is non-random, and it is not yet known whether the alleged health consequences of divorce follow from the end of marriage (social causation) or exist as a function of third-variable processes that also operate to select people out of marriage (social selection). In this respect, the study of divorce and health may be a bit ahead of itself; at this point, it would be ideal to begin asking basic questions about the putatively causal effect of divorce on subsequent health outcomes. The field of behavior genetics provides an excellent method for studying this issue directly ( 66 ). To truly separate selection from causation explanations, it will be critical at some point in the near future to conduct co-twin controlled research in which monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs who are discordant for divorce are compared in terms of their health outcomes. (For an excellent example of this approach, see 67 .) Genetic influences on depression, hostility, or substance abuse, for example, may explain elevated risk for poor outcomes following the end of marriage (cf. 68 ). Hypothetically, if the death rate of the MZ twins exposed to divorce exceeds that of their co-twin and is substantially larger than the death rate differences observed in DZ twins, this would suggest that the end of marriage exerts a causal influence on the outcome in question. All of the variables and processes described in this paper may be related to health outcomes of interest, but until co-twin studies are completed, it would be premature to suggest the health relevant changes are a consequence of the end of marriage itself.

Second, one of the more glaring omissions in the study of divorce and health is that the work in this area focuses largely – almost exclusively – on individual differences in psychological responses to the end of marriage and how variables tapping intrapersonal psychological functioning are related to health-relevant outcomes ( 69 ). We have learned a great deal about adults’ subjective responses to divorce, but we know very little about how social behaviors change after a relationship ends, and the types of interpersonal changes that may promote good outcomes. How much time do people spend alone? How much time do they talk about their ex-spouse and divorce? How much time fighting with their ex- is a lot of fighting? And, perhaps most importantly, are any of these daily behaviors associated with adults’ health outcomes? One tool for studying these questions a bit more precisely is the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR; 70 ). The EAR is a reliable and valid naturalistic observation tool that periodically records snippets of sounds from participants’ momentary environments ( 71 – 77 ). The EAR operates through application software running on the mobile operating system iOS (commonly referred to as “an app” for the iPhone or iTouch devices); participants in the study wear an iTouch device with the EAR installed during their waking hours for an entire weekend. The sampled sounds, which are collected at 30 second intervals every 12 minutes (roughly 5% of the time between 0600 and 1159 each day), are then coded for aspects of participants’ social interactions that are expected to play a critical role in their adjustment to divorce. Currently, ongoing research with divorced adults who wear the EAR is beginning to yield new insights into how people spend their time, with whom they associate, and the topics of their conversations following their recent marital separation. Supplemental Digital Content 1 provides an example of a transcript for a single EAR file recording from one of the study participants (the woman).

From the transcript, it is immediately obvious that you cannot capture this type of rich social interaction from self-report data, nor can laboratory interactions’ assessments of interpersonal behaviors provide as detailed a picture of how social processes unfold in their natural environment. Each audio file is coded by multiple judges who rate the presence or absence of many different specific behaviors (e.g., whether the person is alone or with others; whether the topic of discussion is divorce-related or not) and affective states (e.g., the presence of negative affect or the absence of negative affect), which, when summarized across multiple recordings, yields a quantitative picture (in the form of a percentage of time, for example, the participant was alone on a given EAR weekend—i.e., 32% of all sound files) that can be used in empirical analyses (see 72 , 75 ). The EAR has the potential to reshape our understanding of how people cope with stressful life events, and it will be critical for future studies to compare and contrast what people say they do and what they actually do (to cope with their separation) on a day-to-day basis (e.g., 78 ).

Finally, the field needs better interventions for separated and divorcing adults. In general, the study of social relationships and health lacks clinical trials demonstrating that changes in social functioning are associated with changes in health ( 79 ). Despite the fact that over two million adults face divorce each year and that 10–15% of these people suffer considerable emotional distress, no easily administered and few empirically-validated interventions exist that are specific to this population (see 80 ). One intriguing place to begin would be to expand the control (time use) writing condition, which Sbarra and colleagues ( 55 ) found led to the greatest improvement for people who reported a strong tendency toward psychological rumination, especially the style of self-reflection known as brooding. Conceptually, several lines of work are consistent with the potential value of time use writing for ruminators/brooders. The brooding component of psychological rumination is an abstract and negative form of self-reflection that is concurrently and prospectively associated with mood disturbances (e.g., Why me? ). Nolen-Hoeksema and colleagues found that for dysphoric adults, self-focused (relative to self-distanced) reflection causes people to have more negative feelings and cognitions, and that distraction yields mood improvements for these same people ( 54 ). Self-distanced reflection, the ability to reason about one’s experience in a manner that is not egocentric (i.e., self-immersed), is a key variable for promoting positive adjustment to difficult experiences and for mitigating the psychological toll of depressive states ( 53 , 81 ). Asking high ruminators to reflect over how they spent their time and how they will spend their time in a highly objective and concrete way may promote self-distancing and counteract tendencies toward self-immersion, which maintains distress over time.

Behavioral activation is a well-established treatment for major depression ( 82 ), and it is possible that the control writing instructions activate divorcing adults, especially those at risk for poor outcomes, in a way that helps them re-engage in their daily lives without focusing on the emotional pain of their loss. In situations that are defined primarily by how people deal with feelings of regret, shame, loss, and self-identity disruption, concentrating on what you do with your time may provide the precise antidote necessary to gain psychological distance from painful emotional thoughts.

Other intervention strategies may also be useful following the end of marriage, but the essential task for building treatments that work is identifying targets of interest. For example, one of the main divorce intervention studies focuses on forgiveness ( 80 , 83 ), and it may be useful to expand this work to integrate the topic of self-compassion, which correlational research shows is associated with positive outcomes after marital separation ( 84 ). Many separating and divorcing adults experience profound loneliness ( 85 ), and interventions designed to target loneliness may prove useful in time ( 86 ). Finally, other intervention strategies may be adopted to target people who have difficulty “letting go” of their separation experience. For example, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; 87 ) provides many tools and methods for helping people become more mindful about and accepting of painful thoughts. As a treatment modality, ACT may be ideally suited for people who are at risk for poor outcomes following divorce. One important question for all future intervention research in this area concerns the magnitude of the dosing that is required to effect positive change. Are three days of self-distanced writing too little to bring about positive outcomes? Alternatively, can we observe improvements in divorce-related recovery by modifying empirically-supported treatments like ACT without requiring that people participate in a full-course of ACT therapy?

Many of our most deeply felt emotions are expressed in the context of close relationships, and relationship stress or loss can be profoundly difficult for some people. This paper reviewed what is known about the association between marital dissolution and health, with a focus on the individual difference variables that place some people at risk for poor outcomes, as well as the potential mechanisms that may explain this risk. I also detailed three important areas for further study: genetically-informed designs that can answer questions about social causation/social selection, the use and potential of naturalistic observational methods for understanding the daily social lives of separated adults, and the need for improved intervention research that targets adults who are at high risk for poor outcomes. Research addressing these questions will move the field forward in a number of ways and inform not only the understanding of divorce and health, but also the study of attachment, stress and coping more generally.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data file _.doc_ .xls_ .jpg etc._, acknowledgments.

The research reported in this paper was funded in part by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD#069498), the National Institute of Mental Health (MH#074637), and the National Institute on Aging (AG#028454 and AG#036895).

Portions of this paper were presented at the 2014 meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society as part of the author’s Herbert Weiner Early Career Award address.

No conflicts of interests to declare.

1 For simplicity, we refer to separated and divorced adults as divorced throughout this proposal. When distinctions between marital separation and legal divorce are meaningful, we use more precise terminology.

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Essay: The effects of divorce

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Divorce, a legal separation of a married couple that has profound effects on the people involved. There are both long-term and short-term effects that arise after a divorce occurs. When a married couple with children separates, not only are the two adults are affected by it, but more importantly, the children are affected largely as well. Divorce tends to have a strong emotional and psychological impact on the minds of children transforming their mentality of relationships for years to come, quite possibly forever. This impact that occurs causes the children to handle their future relationships differently, even if they don’t realize they are doing it. Some of the effects are visible immediately after the divorce while others may take several years to show themselves. Children who have grown up in split families show signs of negative, long-lasting effects in their own relationships, inside and outside the family, that are directly parallel to the influence their parents’ divorce on their lives. Divorce in a family affects everyone in the unit to some degree, no matter how big or small. It all begins with the immediate effects. Some of these short-term impacts are anger, depression, aggression, interpersonal conflict, economic hardship, life stress, lower academic achievement, and social adjustment difficulty. These are only a few of the countless effects that can occur in a situation like this. The range of the short-term results varies from family to family depending on the relationship the children have with both parents before and after the divorce. In many cases of divorce, the parents and children become disconnected emotionally. A few of the factors that play in to how strongly the children will be effected are ‘parental ability to resolve post-divorce conflict and anger, ability of the custodial parent to successfully resume the parenting role, ability of the non-custodial parent to maintain a mutually satisfying relationship with the child or children, [and] personality characteristics of the child and the ability to develop coping skills [‘]’ (Matthews 3). The parents are adjusting to their new, single lives and having to deal with several issues such as getting money, a place to live, or a job. The parents let up the reins they used to hold on their children and become more aware of their own problems rather than focusing on the connection they hold with their children and what their children are doing. If this happens, and the parents do not handle the situation well or cope positively with the situation, there is a higher probability that the short-term effects that impacted the children will turn into damaging long-term effects. There are countless outcomes of a divorce that can leave the children involved with serious and long-lasting difficulties in the upcoming years of their lives. Even if the divorce happened at an early age when the child did not completely understand what was happening, the trauma of growing up in a separated family takes its toll on the child’s mind whether he or she realizes it or not. A study was done on children of multiple different families where each child’s personal thought process was traced over a ten year period. When the first follow-up was taken after five years, the short-term effects that had remained were anger, specifically at the parent who asked for the divorce, a longing for the absent parent, a wish for the family to be put back together, and moderate to severe cases of depression (4). As adults, ten years after the divorce, the study followed up once again. The research showed that the children were not so much pushing for their parents to get back together as they simply expressed sorrow that their parents had not gotten back together. Any hope they once had that their parents may constitute their relationship once again had disappeared, and the children accepted their parents’ decision. Several of the students agreed that their lives would have been much happier if their parents had stayed together, and they were able to grow up in a strong family unit. The outcome was devastating, but they could do nothing about it, and had to respect it. This shows the maturity the children developed as they entered into adulthood, giving them a different outlook on the situation that would allow them to cope easier with what happened to them ten years ago and with all that has happened since then because of their parents’ decisions. Although this acceptance is extremely healthy for the healing process, children whose parents are divorced will never fully be healed. There are countless emotional, psychological, physical, and social concerns that have yet to be addressed. One of the emotional concerns introduced to children when dealing with a divorce is that they are more prone to being quick to anger and frustration, as well as pressure and stress. Anger can build up inside the child over the years and cause the child to lash out in small, and sometimes large, bursts of anger at parents or siblings over different thoughts. This anger that has risen up because of the parent’s divorce, also comes from the daily problems children deal with. These can have to do with anything from school to sports to family. It is especially evident in times of stress. Children not only have to deal with new issues that have come from the divorce such as separation from one parent for certain periods of time, and packing and transportation back and forth from each parent, but also the pressures of schoolwork, grades, work, sports, church, and other weekly activities. For a child trying to balance their life with such a big change, it becomes tiresome, difficult, and easy to let that frustration build up inside. Children can become so emotional that it starts to show through their actions and life choices they make as they get older. Adolescents whose parents are divorced tend to lash out more than kids who grow up in families that are intact (Fagan 1). The worse the relationship between the children and the parents after the divorce, the more the child will lash out simply searching for attention from their mother and/or father. They look for a way to let out the anger they hold against their parents for their decision, and look for attention and happiness anywhere they can find it. Several children lean towards drugs, sex, aggressive or violent behavior, committing crimes, running away, alcohol, and even skipping school (Rappaport 1). This leads into the physical problems that can be found in children with split families. Some do not take care of themselves like they should, and sometimes not all their needs can be met because of the parent’s concerns being placed elsewhere in their lives. These can be relatively small issues like laziness, but could also reach into more serious situations such as not eating or self-harm. These more serious problems could be a result of depression, which is extremely common during childhood, and even more so in children who are dealing with family separation. ‘[I]ts symptoms include irritability, worthlessness, depressed mood, difficulty concentrating in school, poor appetite (or overeating), insomnia (or too much sleep) and/or constant fatigue’ (1). The most horrifying result of depression is death. Although parent’s divorcing may not be the only cause for depression for all children separated families, it can definitely play a large role in it, especially if other traumatic experiences are happening in the child’s life at a similar time such as death of a close friend or family member. It is often said that people harm themselves when they are in a state of depression because they are crying out for help; however, this myth does not take into account that the people who are doing these things to themselves are trying to end their emotional pain in whatever way they can. For some, it may be an eating disorder while others may cut themselves, or even attempt suicide. Feelings and emotions that build up from family troubles should be taken seriously and let out in a healthy way whether that means getting a counselor for the children or keeping them busy until they find something that they are passionate about and want to continue pursuing. There are numerous other profound problems that can arise out of separated families such as: [T]he children of divorced parents are more likely to get pregnant and give birth outside of marriage [‘], and twice as likely to cohabit than are children of married parents. Moreover, divorce appears to result in a reduction of the educational accomplishments of the affected children, weakens their psychological and physical health, and predisposes them to rapid initiation of sexual relationships and higher levels of marital instability. It also raises the probability that they will never marry [‘]. (Fagan 1). The first point raised here is that these children are more likely to get pregnant outside of marriage. Not only that, but they are more likely to get pregnant as a teenager, or while in a cohabitated relationship. Percentage of teen births from 1960 to 1994 rose from 15% to 76%, not taking any abortions into account. In relation to these teen births there was also a spike in divorced couples in those years, especially when the divorce rate dramatically spiked 79% between the years 1970 and 1977 (Matthews 1). This shows a connection between the rise in divorces and the rise in teen births indicating the two intertwine on some level. People nowadays are less likely to get married first, and then have children. Much of the time, it is the other way around, and when a couple out of wedlock has a child, they usually do not have any intention of getting married. ‘It is not that the number of babies born to teens has changed; it is that marriage within this group has vanished’ (Fagan 1). People seem to have lost the meaning of marriage and children. There were several marriages at a young age in the mid-nineties and teens who were having children were a married couple. The number of births stayed still, but the number of weddings and marriages decreased. This can be traced back to the number of divorces that were occurring during that time. The mindset of children whose parents’ were divorced is that they don’t want to end up in the same situation. They are afraid to enter into a relationship that could lead to a marriage and subconsciously allow their mind and heart to stay detached from the idea of ever marrying a person. As adults, they still want their sexual needs to be met, and when in a relationship will act upon that, which could possibly lead to pregnancy. As a teenager whose parents are divorced, as stated before, they are searching for attention from their parents, and looking for a way to let out their emotions. Also, if lashing out with drugs and/or alcohol, and making bad decisions, sex and pregnancy is more likely to occur. If not careful, this could lead to teen pregnancy, and the girl would have to deal with that whole situation and figure out how she was going to handle it, especially in the areas of the father and school. Teen pregnancies and pregnancies out-of-wedlock are not the only results from fear of commitment. Cohabitation and development of purely sexual relationships are two things that are extremely likely to arise from someone who is afraid of commitment, which is almost always an effect of a child’s parents being divorced when they were young. ‘Today, the economic and social future of children in the poor and the middle class is being undermined by a culture that promotes teenage sex, divorce, cohabitation, and out-of-wedlock birth’ (Fagan 1). The way the government treats these situations, giving help rather than solving the issue at hand, makes it much easier for people to believe that teenage sex, pregnancy out-of-wedlock, divorce, and cohabitation are okay for anybody of any age. Many people cohabit who have no future plan of getting married. This does not apply to those who do not believe in marriage, and plan on spending the rest of their lives together as a couple. Children whose parents have divorced grow up to have relationships in which no marriage or future in general is seen in the eyes of that particular child, now an adult, yet they still decide to live with that person, or stay over at their house often. They may go from person to person cohabiting until they at last find that one person who they think they could develop a serious relationship with and possibly marry. Cohabiting does not only happen with children whose parents are divorced. Cohabitation is actually a relatively common part of living for many people; however, for some people, cohabiting occurs when a serious couple may be thinking of getting married and want to know what it is like to live with the other person, or when a couple has a child out-of-wedlock and both parents have decided they need to be there for the baby at all hours of the day. The action of two people living together before marriage who may be thinking of having a future together can actually cause more marital problems to occur and increase the likelihood of divorce (1). In the year 1990, 29% of people whose parents were together were cohabiting together, but 54%-62% of children cohabited whose parents were divorced. This doubled the rate of divorce for that 54-62%. For those whose parents were divorced that were cohabiting with someone who wasn’t going to be their future spouse, the rates of divorce in their own future marriage was doubled once again (1). Forty percent of these couples have children in the home with them, and eighty percent of these children will spend at least a portion of their life in a single-parent home.

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Essay Samples on Divorce

Divorce is a complex and deeply personal process that involves the legal dissolution of a marriage. It marks the end of a once-promising union and triggers a range of emotions, from sadness and anger to relief and newfound independence. Understanding the intricacies of divorce and its effects is crucial when writing college essays about divorce.

How to Write College Essays About Divorce

When exploring the subject of divorce, it is important to delve into the factors that contribute to its occurrence and look at college essays about divorce examples. These can include communication issues, incompatibility, domestic abuse, financial strain, or even external factors such as societal expectations or cultural norms. Discussing these causes helps paint a comprehensive picture of the complexities surrounding divorce.

To provide a well-rounded perspective for an example of college essay about divorce, consider including statistics or research findings related to divorce rates, average durations of marriages, or common age groups affected by divorce. This data can help support your arguments and provide a factual foundation for your essay.

Additionally, it is crucial to examine the legal aspects of divorce. Different jurisdictions have specific laws and regulations governing the process, including property division, alimony, child custody, and visitation rights. Incorporating information about these legal frameworks can add depth to your essay and showcase a comprehensive understanding of divorce proceedings.

While divorce can be emotionally challenging, it also offers opportunities for personal growth and self-discovery. Discuss the psychological and emotional impacts divorce can have on individuals, as well as strategies for coping and rebuilding one’s life after the end of a marriage.

Lastly, explore the societal implications of divorce. Analyze how divorce impacts the perception of marriage, family structures, and gender roles. Consider the evolving attitudes towards divorce in different cultures and how society supports or stigmatizes individuals going through this process in the divorce essay example.

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DIVORCE AND ITS EFFECT IN THE SOCIETY.

The Impact of Divorce on Children

Why growing up in two homes is so hard, and what can help..

Posted August 4, 2022 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

• The Challenges of Divorce
• Take our Relationship Satisfaction Test
• Find a therapist to heal from a divorce
• Ongoing conflict between parents after they split up is deeply unsettling for children.
• Except under extreme circumstances, children are much better off keeping regular, ongoing contact with both parents.
• Divorced parents should try to co-parent together in a constructive, cooperative, and respectful way.

Nearly half of married couples in the United States eventually get divorced , according to some estimates. Because it occurs so often, it’s easy to forget just how difficult and traumatic divorce can be for children. Research published by sociologist Lisa Strohschein showed that, even before marital breakup, children whose parents later divorce exhibit higher levels of anxiety , depression , and antisocial behavior than peers whose parents remain married. There is a further increase in anxiety and depression in children when parents do divorce. U.S.-based psychologist Sharlene Wolchik and colleagues found that parental divorce is associated with significant risks for children and adolescents, including substance abuse and addictions, mental and physical health problems, and poor educational outcomes.

Traumatic Loss of Divorce

There is not always enough support or even acknowledgment of what a traumatic loss divorce can be for couples and their children. Whatever the reasons for the split, there are usually feelings of grief , sadness, anger , betrayal, guilt , and shame . Marital breakdown can leave both parents feeling devastated, and the stress can evoke primitive and powerful feelings of abandonment, isolation, and fear . This can lead to anxiety or depression. It's not easy to give your children what they need when you are highly vulnerable and emotionally fragile. Practically and logistically, things can be harder for you and your children when a marriage breaks down. Divorce often brings financial strain and social difficulty. Children can believe themselves to be the cause of their parents’ divorce. Guilt and shame can make them feel worthless, anxious, and depressed. Every part of their lives—living arrangements, extra-murals, decisions about schooling, and holidays—can be fraught with conflict if the parents are not able to co-operate with one another.

You might not like or trust your ex, especially early on in the separation and divorce process. It can feel deeply painful and upsetting as well to be separated from your children while they are in the care of their other parent—quite possibly your least favourite person under the circumstances. There may be realistic concerns—sometimes related to the use of drugs or alcohol —about the safety of children in the care of your ex. Some parents even worry about different kinds of abuse when their children are with the other parent. But, for the most part, the children have to find a safe place for themselves in two separate homes. It is essential that they are helped to feel at home in both places. It can sometimes even be a relief, after a divorce, for children to be in an environment where there is peace and an absence of tension.

Parents at War

When their mother and father are in enemy camps, a child has to try to figure out who is right and who is wrong, who is "good" and who is "bad." If a mother believes, for example, that her ex-husband is dangerous or evil, a child might feel unsafe and mistrustful of his father. The child might reject the father to keep himself and his mother psychologically safe. It can be hard for a child to love and trust a parent who is hated by the other.

Kate Scharff, author of Divorce and Parenting Wars , writes that the legal system often brings a highly adversarial tone to divorce. Unless your circumstances are such that you can't avoid it, try not to enter into a win/lose battle with an ex. Children are almost always victims in this conflict. They can feel torn apart when their parents cannot manage a civil, amicable, respectful dissolution of their marriage. Canadian psychologist Arthur Leonoff explains in his book The Good Divorce why divorce is so difficult for children and what parents and their therapists can do to help them. Preserving the child’s treasured mental image of herself with her two biological parents is vital, according to Leonoff, because this mental image forms the basis of the child’s identity .

An important message for parents after marital breakdown is to try to preserve, as much as possible, the ongoing relationship with your ex—who will always, for better and for worse, be your children's other parent. For the sake of your children, try to co-parent together in a constructive, cooperative, and respectful way.

Lisa Strohschein, ‘Parental Divorce and Child Mental Health Trajectories’, Journal of Marriage and Family 67, no. 5 (2005): 1286–1300, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00217.x .

Sharlene A. Wolchik, et al., ‘Developmental Cascade Models of a Parenting-Focused Program for Divorced Families on Mental Health Problems and Substance Use in Emerging Adulthood’, Developmental Psychopathology 28, no. 3 (August 2016): 869–888, doi: 10.1017/S0954579416000365.

Scharff, Kate. ‘Divorce and Parenting Wars’. In Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy: Foundations of Theory and Practice, edited by David E. Scharff and Jill Savege Scharff, 279–294. London: Karnac, 2014.

Arthur Leonoff, The Good Divorce: A Psychoanalyst’s Exploration of Separation, Divorce, and Childcare (London: Routledge, 2018), 71–199.

Jenny Perkel is a clinical psychologist and the author of Children in Mind and Babies in Mind.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Divorce — Divorce, Its Causes, Effects, and Solutions

Divorce, Its Causes, Effects, and Solutions

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Watch CBS News

Details emerge after doctor raped and murdered in India as thousands protest

August 15, 2024 / 6:32 AM EDT / CBS/AFP

Thousands took to the streets of Kolkata early Thursday to condemn the rape and murder of a local doctor , demanding justice for the victim and an end to the chronic issue of violence against women in Indian society.

The discovery of the 31-year-old's brutalized body last week at a state-run hospital has sparked nationwide protests, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding swift punishment for those who commit "monstrous" deeds against women.

Large crowds marched through the streets of Kolkata in West Bengal to condemn the killing, with a candlelight rally at midnight coinciding with the start of India's independence day celebrations on Thursday.

The protesters in Kolkata, who marched under the slogan "reclaim the night", called for a wider tackling of violence against women and held up handwritten signs demanding action.

"We want justice," read one sign at the rally. "Hang the rapist, save the women," read another.

"The atrocities against women do not stop," midnight marcher Monalisa Guha told Kolkata's The Telegraph newspaper.

"We face harassment almost on a daily basis," another marcher, Sangeeta Halder, told the daily. "But not stepping out because of fear is not the solution."

"Monstrous behavior against women"

Modi, speaking in New Delhi on Thursday morning at independence day celebrations, did not specifically reference the Kolkata murder, but expressed his "pain" at violence against women.

"There is anger for atrocities committed against our mothers and sisters, there is anger in the nation about that," he said.

"Crimes against women should be quickly investigated; monstrous behavior against women should be severely and quickly punished," he added. "That is essential for creating deterrence and confidence in the society."

Doctors are also demanding swift justice and better workplace security in the wake of the killing, with those in government hospitals across several states on Monday halting elective services "indefinitely" in protest.

Protests have since occurred in several other hospitals across the country, including in the capital.

"Doctors nationwide are questioning what is so difficult about enacting a law for our security," Dhruv Chauhan, from the Indian Medical Association's Junior Doctors' Network, told the Press Trust of India news agency. "The strike will continue until all demands are formally met."

The Telegraph on Thursday praised the "spirited public protests" across India.

"Hearteningly, doctors and medical organizations are not the only ones involved," it said in an editorial. "The ranks of the protesters have been swelled by people from all walks of life."

Police accused of mishandling case

Indian media have reported the murdered doctor was found in the teaching hospital's seminar hall, suggesting she had gone there for a brief rest during a long shift.

An autopsy has confirmed sexual assault, and in a petition to the court, the victim's parents have said that they suspected their daughter was gang-raped, according to Indian broadcaster NDTV.  

Though police have detained a man who worked at the hospital helping people navigate busy queues, officers have been accused of mishandling the case.

Kolkata's High Court on Tuesday transferred the case to the elite Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to "inspire public confidence."

In the early hours of Thursday, a mob of some 40 people angry at authorities' handling of the case stormed the grounds of the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, the site of the murder.

The men smashed property and hurled stones at police, who fired tear gas in response, authorities said.

West Bengal lawmaker Abhishek Banerjee, from the Trinamool Congress party, condemned the "hooliganism and vandalism," but said "the demands of the protesting doctors are fair and justified."

History of sexual violence in India

Sexual violence against women is a widespread problem in India. An average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in India in 2022, according to  data  from the National Crime Records Bureau.

That year, police  arrested 11 people  after the alleged brutal gang rape and torture of a young woman that included her being paraded through the streets of Dehli. Also in 2022, a police officer in India was arrested after being  accused of raping  a 13-year-old girl who went to his station to report she had been gang-raped.

In March 2024, multiple Indian men were arrested after the  gang rape of a Spanish tourist  on a motorbike trip with her husband.

For many, the gruesome nature of the attack has invoked comparisons with the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder  of a young woman on a Delhi bus.

The woman became a symbol of the socially conservative country's failure to tackle sexual violence against women.

Her death sparked huge, and at times violent, demonstrations in Delhi and elsewhere.

Under pressure, the government introduced harsher penalties for rapists, and the death penalty for repeat offenders.

Several new sexual offences were also introduced, including stalking and jail sentences for officials who failed to register rape complaints.

• Sexual Violence

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The Impact of Cloud Computing and AI on Industry Dynamics and Concentration

We examine the rise of cloud computing and AI in China and their impacts on industry dynamics after the shock to the cost of Internet-based computing power and services. We find that cloud computing is associated with an increase in firm entry, exit and the likelihood of M&A in industries that depend more on cloud infrastructure. Conversely, AI adoption has no impact on entry but reduces the likelihood of exit and M&A. Firm size plays a crucial role in these dynamics: cloud computing increases exit rates across all firms, while larger firms benefit from AI, experiencing reduced exit rates. Cloud computing decreases industry concentration but AI increases concentration. On the financing side, firms exposed to cloud computing increase equity and venture capital financing, while only large firms increase equity financing when exposed to AI.

We thank Heitor Almeida, Tanya Babina, Jianwei Xing, Keer Yang, and Michael Ewens and seminar participants at the Australia Banking and Finance Conference, the Finance and Organizations (FOM) Conference, the 2023 China Financial Research Conference, the 2024 Midwest Finance Association Conference, Tel Aviv University, and Tsinghua University for their helpful comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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