What is the "best" time to divorce?
Should you stay together until your children are a little
older, or is it better to make a clean break now?
I hear this question every time I lecture to parents or
participate on talk shows. People love their children, and they want to
diminish any hurt from the divorce. They want to know whether there's an age
when divorce is easier on children. What's the "best" time to
divorce? The trouble is, there's no simple answer. It all depends on what's
going on in your family, what kind of parents you are, how much you can
cooperate, and also the age and temperament of your child.
First take a close look at what's happening in your
family. If there's chronic violence at home, the answer is "the sooner the
better," unrelated to the age of your child. By violence, I mean physical
attack -- hitting, kicking, throwing objects -- or chronic threats of physical
violence. Exposure to violence has serious consequences for a child's
development that may last well into adulthood. They fear for your safety. They
fear for themselves and their siblings.
If there's repeated high conflict in your marriage
accompanied by yelling, screaming, and pounding the table, then I'd also say
the sooner the better. Since there are no meaningful measures of high conflict,
this judgment is highly subjective. Some families are reserved, others are
operatic. But if you're in a marriage where almost every subject is material
for another fierce argument, you know what I mean. In some high-conflict homes,
serious differences between the partners are a recurrent theme in everyday
life. In other marriages, fights erupt over insignificant issues -- a grocery bill,
local politics, a bad report card -- leading to hurt and a sense of endless
frustration. Like violence, high conflict is terrifying for children to witness
because it creates a climate that leads to fear and trembling. In such an
environment, a child can lose the capacity to trust, even to feel. The longer
it goes on, the worse it will be.
Divorce in violent marriages provides important relief for
one or both parents and can definitely help the children -- but not
automatically. When children have witnessed violent behavior, they need therapy
in addition to divorce. This is an extremely important recommendation. Children
who have witnessed physical abuse in their families absolutely need help in
assimilating new and healthier models for male-female relationships. Nor is
divorce by itself enough for children who have grown up under conditions of
high conflict. They, too, need therapy to help them resume their development
without a distorted view of how people treat each other.
The parents who terminate such marriages also need help,
not only to protect their children but to learn how to let go of their fear and
anger. Divorce does not end fear in a person who has been victimized. Nor does
rage go away. After a divorce, angry people often tend to continue fighting.
But if you are in a violent or high-conflict marriage, you should keep in mind
that anger has the potential to escalate when divorce is threatened or actually
filed. While you may not be able to prevent anger from dominating your divorce
proceedings, you can be aware of how hazardous the victim-perpetrator
interaction is to your children.
The
Low-Conflict Divorce
If the conflict is low between you -- and this encompasses
more than half of all divorces -- it's a different story. Despite your disappointment
in the marriage, you share some mutual respect and common interests.
Perhaps you're divorcing because of long-standing
loneliness or sexual deprivation, because you have lost respect for your
partner, or because of alcoholism, drug abuse, or mental illness. There's a
wide range of irreconcilable differences. If this describes your marriage, then
you should consider the fact that preschoolers tend to have the hardest time at
the breakup and sometimes many years afterward. Much depends on the quality of
your child's life after the breakup. A good second marriage may or may not
enable you to provide the care that your child needs.
With the risk of repeating myself, I want to emphasize
that young children need a great deal of care from their parents. After
divorce, many women who were able to stay home part-time with their babies are
now required to re-enter the workforce full-time. Mothers who love taking care
of their little ones with long bedtime rituals, reading together, and playing
favorite games, find that they have to cut back these pleasurable activities
not because they want to but because they no longer have the time or energy
after a long day at work.
So if you can delay your divorce until your youngest child
enters school and seems to be adjusting well, your decision will be easier on
him. He'll have an interesting world outside your home and a school structure
that supports activities and friendships that will keep him developmentally on
target. As he begins to find his own interests and friends, you may be better
able to protect him from feeling that he has lost more than he has gained with
your divorce.
Vulnerable
Ages
The second most vulnerable age for divorce is early
adolescence, when children are developing rapidly and need a strong family to
guide and protect them. If you have a preteen child in trouble -- failing at
school or not keeping up with peers in some important regard -- I advise you to
hesitate before getting a divorce. Your child may be too troubled to adjust to
the demands of a post-divorce family. So before you make any moves, consider
whether your child is developmentally on target. If not, try to get her some
help before you embark on the divorce.
The bottom line is that if you can figure out how to
protect your little one from feeling bereft after the breakup and your young
adolescent from feeling unsupported, you will be starting the journey better
prepared. But let's be realistic. People can't always prepare for divorce.
Traumatic events can engulf families and spit them out in lawyers' offices with
shocking speed.
If your partner has done something outrageous and
intolerable and you're seething with anger, you're probably going to file for
divorce no matter how old your children are or what I say about differences in
ages. You won't be able to wait. If this happens to you, keep in mind the
importance of maintaining the stability of care with young children and the
special vulnerability of children entering adolescence. This is the time to
call on your family and friends for help and to set up plans for the young
children and young teenagers before you separate
Staying
Together for the Kids
People also ask me, "Is it bad for my children if I
stay in an unhappy marriage? Or would they be better off if we divorce?"
I'm afraid the answer to this is yes and no. The notion that your child is
unhappy because you're unhappy is simply not true. If your external behavior
looks normal and you really enjoy being a parent -- while your internal state
is lonely or dying from boredom -- your child may not notice your unhappiness.
Children can't read your internal state unless it shows up directly in your
relationship with them. They have no key to your sex life. They're not mind
readers. Moreover, they have no way to understand the complexity of your
marital relationship. I'm afraid that children who have not yet reached
adolescence cannot comprehend why a violent person just doesn't stop if they
are asked to show some restraint. They have no clue as to why a person behaves
badly when drunk.
The choice to divorce is always a subjective, personal
decision. No one can tell you exactly what the future holds. It may bring the
man or woman of your dreams. I've seen that happen to young and old adults
alike, although your chances diminish with age because the market is smaller.
I'm reminded of one woman in her fifties who divorced her husband because she
had grown to hate him. Within six months, she met a kind, loving man at her
church who was exactly what she wanted in a partner. My point is that no one
can measure how unhappy you are or predict what new opportunities divorce will
bring. Only you can weigh the balance of inner misery and satisfaction in your
life. In fact, all of us probably know couples who don't love each other but
find contentment in work, friends, and parenthood. Some may have given up the
dream of romantic love or perhaps they never wanted a passionate relationship
from the start. Clearly, disappointment in a marriage depends almost entirely
on where you set your sights to begin with, and these are subject to change.
One recent study of unhappy marriages found that many embattled but intact
couples, five years later, were much happier and reported that their marriages
were good. So it is important not to make critical decisions in the heat of
your latest disappointments. Things may look very different if you wait a few
months. You may change your mind altogether.
From your children's perspective, the decision to divorce
relates to how your unhappiness is affecting your ability to be a good parent.
If you and your spouse enjoy being parents and together maintain a moral and
protected life for your children, then I think you should consider staying
together. I know many couples who have taken this path. They take great pride
in their children and have decided, on balance, that it was a good way for them
to go. Some have discreet extramarital affairs when they are away from home.
Others settle for the limited love and sexuality in the marriage that they
have. But if your unhappiness dominates your life, then you have to ask
yourself probingly if one or both of you will be better parents after
divorcing. Will your children be better off? These are hard questions, but
again, only you can know your pain and satisfaction, how these play out now in
the lives of your children, and how they are likely to play out in the future.
The familiar question -- "Is it better to stay married or not?" --
doesn't capture the many gradations or nuances of marriage. Nor does it touch
on the source of marital problems and the extent to which they can be tolerated
within an intact marriage.
On the other hand, if you feel humiliated, emotionally
abused, mocked, and derided in your marriage, or just wake up miserable each
day, you can use the divorce to take new pride in yourself. As an emancipated parent,
you can become a far better role model and share with your children your new
sense of freedom. You can take the opportunity to improve your life with
knowledge that you didn't have when you were younger. You can become a new kind
of adult who has had the courage to bring about change in your life and the
lives of your children. A new world is ahead of you, and it's yours to define.
This article has been excerpted from What About
the Kids? Raising Your Children Before, During, and After Divorce by Judith
S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee (Copyright © 2003 by Judith Wallerstein
& Sandra Blakeslee, published by Hyperion). A child psychologist as well as
the founder and executive director of the Center for Family in Transition,
Wallerstein has spent the last 30 years studying and interviewing children of
divorce and their parents. The results of her research provide answers to the
question: how can you protect your kids during and after divorce? She shares
these answers in this excellent, highly readable book. You'll learn what you
should say and do for children at each age; how to be an effective co-parent;
how to choose the custody plan that's best for your kids; and what you need to
know to create a healthy remarriage. What About the Kids? is available
wherever books are sold.
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