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March.
2005
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When
parents divorce, children lose most |
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James
Pankratz
Special to Parenting |
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Last month’s column ended with poor Dorothy Gale
stranded in Kansas. Her home had been torn asunder by
something more powerful than a twister: the only parents
she had ever known were getting a divorce.
In a divorce, everyone loses, but the children lose the most.
From an adult perspective, there can be valid reasons for a divorce. When there
is domestic violence, sexual abuse, or chronic addiction, a divorce can be a
necessary step to try to protect the physical and emotional safety of children,
and of the leaving adult. Remaining in a toxic and abusive marriage often leaves
deep emotional wounds on children, which will affect their ability to cope now
and in adulthood. Sometimes a spouse discovers he or she married for the wrong
reasons, e.g., to escape a troubled family life, or that there was never a true,
mature emotional bond.
Some marriages end that don’t have to. There are problems that could be
solved, but pride (defined as the need to always be right, or as a stubborn refusal
to acknowledge one’s faults and to try to change) make mutual problem-solving
impossible. Perhaps those endings are the saddest of all.
Adults know how complex life can be. But what is a child’s perspective?
Most children do not want their parents to get a divorce. Children may know their
mom and dad can’t seem to get along, particularly if there is arguing and
fighting. But the children keep hoping that one day their folks will be smart
enough to solve their problems, and then the fighting will stop. From the children’s
perspective, the end of their parents’ marriage, for whatever the incomprehensible
adult reasons, is a loss of the world as they have known it. For children, there
is nothing else to compare their family life to. This is their everyday world,
and it is ending.
What do children lose? That depends. If both adults were loving and caring parents,
despite their own relational problems, then the children could lose a great deal.
They may lose security. Children feel secure when they have structure, stability
and consistency in their lives. Calm, steady parents who are available to maintain
daily routines give children an emotional atmosphere and a consistent daily routine
to depend on. Even if the actual dynamics of the family differ from this ideal,
children still lose the dream that they could live in such a family.
Children also lose the daily availability of both their mother and father. Shared
primary placement and weekend visitations mean children need to rotate out of
one household and into another. Children also lose financial opportunities as
the expenses of maintaining two households erode assets. Because of a geographical
move or a custody stipulation, they may also be uprooted from a school they have
attended all their lives to be enrolled in a new school and strange environment
without their friends.
Parents need to work hard after a divorce to do what they can to maintain the
availability that leads to their children’s inner security.
Children feel helpless in a divorce for good reason: they are. Their lives are
changed at the discretion of their parents and the courts. Children are often
angry following a divorce. Who wouldn’t be, if your whole life was changed
for what you feel is the worse, and without your consent?
Anger is one of the stages of grief. Grief follows loss as night follows day.
A simple, but efficient formula for grief is: Attachment + loss = grief. If someone
attaches emotionally to a person or situation, and then loses the object of attachment,
that individual will experience a grief reaction. It is simply the way we are
wired biologically, emotionally and spiritually as human beings.
As adults we have the right to make decisions about our relationships and our
futures. No adults can responsibly give that decision to a child to make, nor
should they force themselves to remain in a miserable situation for the alleged
sake of the children.
On the other hand, children have a right to not like their parents’ decision
to divorce. They have a right to experience the range of feelings that come with
loss and grief, which are denial, bargaining, anger, and sadness. They may need
guidance in how to express those emotions in healthy ways, but that is different
than making the emotions go away.
Next month we’ll consider this equation: Remarriage + unresolved grief
= trouble.
(Pankratz is a marriage and family therapist at Catholic Charities Milwaukee
regional office.) |
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