While there are thousands of reasons for people to get divorced, good or bad, they all produce the same basic results. The emotional struggle of a person going through a divorce is immense. People often think that the spouse who initiated the divorce just sails through unscathed. This is simply not true. No matter which spouse initiates the divorce, both will suffer plenty of emotional distress and turmoil. Emotions will range from guilt and anguish to rage and relief. Both spouses will suffer this wide range of emotion, but most eventually learn to deal with it or even accept it for the best. Some victims of divorce will need help coping with the stress and emotions presented by their situations and may seek professional counseling. Still, some will never be able to control their emotions and will become vengeful or violent. Some will even commit murder, thinking, “If I can’t have him/her, no one will.” This, of course, would be the worst possible outcome.
The financial aspects of divorce are usually negative. People with a lot of money and property will often execute lengthy court battles in an effort to come out with their share. For the average couple with average incomes and expenses, the battles can still be lengthy and expensive and their financial situation is usually worse after the divorce. Lower income families don’t usually have a lot to fight over financially, except who will pay the bills. Sometimes the parties in a divorce will invent disputes in order to drag out the proceedings. A couple going through a divorce a few years ago experienced this because the husband managed to drag the divorce proceedings out for an extra six months by making frivolous demands. Each time he would make a demand, she would concede and he would find another demand. The demands were silly; he wanted the coffee table, the coffee maker, etc. Even though they owned no property and had no assets to divide, the entire process took 13 months. So, divorce can be lengthy and quite costly in any arena, whether it be the wealthiest one percent, or those who live below poverty level.
Finally, the saddest and most innocent victims of divorce are the children. Young children often blame themselves for the divorce. They cannot comprehend the situation and they only know that someone is missing from their family. As children get older, it doesn’t get any easier. The children often revert to younger childlike behaviors like wetting the bed or sucking a thumb. There can be a lot of misbehavior, sometimes even violent behavior. The children will go through a myriad of emotions, and they are just not very well equipped to deal with a lot of them. They can become clingy and demanding, or quiet and withdrawn. Very often they suffer in silence, and the adults are never aware of the needs of their children. This is not only because the children don’t know how to express their needs, but because the parents are so wrapped up in their only emotions that they forget to deal with the children’s needs. Young children are not the only children who suffer when their parents divorce. Older teenagers and adult children suffer emotional consequences when the parents get divorced. It is even more difficult to understand the concept of parents divorcing after a twenty or thirty year marriage. An adult child may wonder if his or her whole childhood was “playing dress-up” for Mom and Dad. Did they just wait until the kids were grown? Have they been miserable or unhappy all these years and suffered in silence in order to keep the family intact? These questions usually cannot be answered, and if they can be answered with a yes, then they probably should not be shared. In any case, older teenage and adult children will experience a lot of the same emotions as smaller children. It is very difficult to see the one constant in your life, that has been there your whole life, destroyed. The one benefit of being a teenage or adult child of divorcing parents is that there is no custody battle. The custody battle is probably the most detrimental aspect of the divorce for young children. This is when their loyalties are torn and their love is often used to manipulate them. They may understand that Mommy hurt Daddy, but she didn’t hurt the children and the children want to be with both parents. No one should ever put their children in the middle of adult problems. It is sad enough that the children lose most of shat is stable and happy in their lives, they don’t need to be pawns for parents to use against one another.
Everyone suffers during and after a divorce. Even though divorce may be the only solution, this does not lessen the negative impact that is felt by the adults emotionally and financially and the emotional devastation that children suffer in its wake. There are a few relatively simple things that can be done to help lower the divorce rate. One good idea is to spend more premarital time getting to know one another’s goals, dreams, and priorities. Premarital counseling would be of great help as well. If divorce were not so accessible, meaning that there doesn’t have to be a real reason, it would not be so easy to turn to as a solution. People would think twice about taking the wedding vows if the legal bond that they represent was enforced more stringently.