I get so much conflicting data regarding the effects of divorce on children. Some “experts” say children adjust and function well and others say children suffer well into adulthood and it affects their later relationships.

I am so confused as to what to believe. I came across your website yesterday, and it is wonderful to read something that finally makes sense to me. I have remained in an unhappy marriage for years. I am afraid to end the marriage because I don’t want to damage my children for the rest of their lives.

I constantly remind myself that some children who grow up in happily married homes don’t necessarily turn out to be outstanding adults. I also remind myself that it is more detrimental to raise children in a dysfunctional home than a divorced home.

It’s like I need assurance that my children won’t suffer into adulthood because of a choice I made.

Jane

Jane, some people claim the divorce rate is high because self-centered individuals divorce for frivolous reasons. Our experience is otherwise. Though we occasionally get letters from someone seeking a divorce on flimsy grounds, the usual writer is someone who can’t take it anymore.

There are three reasons to believe people don’t divorce willy-nilly. First, divorce ranks at the top of the list of life stressors, and people avoid stress. Second, nearly everyone chooses the status quo over change. And third, when people make an emotional investment in anything, they prefer to hold on hoping things will improve.

A study by Judith Wallerstein is the one most often cited to support the dire effects of divorce on children. Wallerstein looked at 60 divorcing families from an atypical community in the U.S. Half the adults in the study were clinically depressed, and as many as 20 percent may have been mentally ill.

Rather than comparing these people to a comparable group which stayed married, Wallerstein compared them to a group with above average marriages. Wallerstein’s study was widely publicized by those opposed to divorce, but her study does not meet the requirements for valid statistical inference.

A widely respected study is one done by E. Mavis Hetherington. Hetherington followed 1400 families for as long as three decades. She found much less severe effects on children and a number of positives for divorce in dysfunctional families. Hetherington’s research is rarely mentioned in the popular press.

At least three recent studies suggest divorce does not increase behavior problems in children. For example, Richard Li of the Rand Corporation looked at 6,300 children before and after their parents’ divorce and found no statistically significant change in behavior.

Our biology tells us to imitate, imitate, imitate. Mimicry is natural to us. That’s why there are programs like Big Brothers and Big Sisters–to provide good role models for kids. The problem with staying in a dysfunctional relationship is that it begins to feel familiar to a child and something to replicate.

We won’t offer advice on what you should do, but we will leave you with a story. Andy Grove and Gordon Moore were the guiding lights behind Intel. The company began as a manufacturer of memory chips, but as time went on they were losing money on their core product. They didn’t know what to do.

One day Grove had an idea. He turned to Gordon Moore and asked, if the board of directors kicks us out, what would a new CEO do? Moore replied the new CEO would get the company out of memory chips and into microprocessors. Andy Grove immediately realized that was their solution. And it was. Intel soared.

It often pays to ask, if fresh eyes looked at my problem, what would the advice be? Ask yourself if you have the kind of marriage you would want for your children, because that is the kind of marriage you are showing them.

Wayne & Tamara