Divorce Causes - Part 4 of 5

CHILDREN OF DIVORCE - NATURE, NURTURE OR NEITHER

This five part series of posts has been devoted to an examination of the root causes of divorce. We are familiar with most of the usual suspects - infidelity, lack of commitment, money problems, addictions, lack of intimacy, domestic violence, etc.. Another significant one, explored in a prior post, is a remarriage following a prior or series of prior unsuccessful relationships. Here, the chances of divorce go up proportionally with each previously failed relationship.

However, other divorce correlations are not as well known. They remain hidden, like giant icebergs lying silently, just below the surface of the water, until they cause the marriage to break apart. In this vein we have looked at certain less well known divorce factors such as the length of the engagement and the amount of money spent on the wedding and the engagement ring.

The one thing that all these divorce factors have in common is that are within the control of the parties to the marriage. You decide how long to remain engaged. You choose to have an affair. You choose to remarry. You choose to spend $20,000 on an engagement ring or $100,000 on your wedding. But not every divorce factor is within the control of the marital partners.

In the context of many of life's circumstances, social scientist have explored the link between the shared traits and characteristics of parents and their children - e.g. intellect, personality, disease, criminal behavior, alcoholism, domestic violence, etc. But what about divorce? Is there a correlation between your parent's divorce and the likelihood that you will be following them down this same unhappy path? Are the "sins of the father (or mother) visited on the son (or daughter)?” Is divorce "generational" - passed down from grandparent to parent to child? And, if so, is it a matter of nature or nurture? In other words is divorce a matter of "genetics" or “learned behavior"?

The short answer is that researchers have been aware of the connection between a parent’s divorce and a child’s divorce for nearly a century. Social scientists such as Paul Amato and Danelle Deboer have concluded that, “parental divorce is one of the best documented risk factors for marriage dissolution.” Significantly and ironically, people with divorced parents are disproportionately more likely to marry other people with divorced parents.

So what kind of impact does parental divorce have on their children? Going back to Amato and Deboer, they indicated that if a woman’s parents divorced, her odds of divorce increased 69 percent, while if both a husband and wife’s parents divorced, the risk of divorce increased by 189 percent. Said differently, where both children have divorced parents they are twice as likely to get divorced themselves as compared to the children of parents who have remained married.

Given this established link, is this another reason for parents to stay married - for the sake of their children's future marriages? Is this link a matter of nature or nurture? What is the reason for this connection?

For many years experts concluded that divorce was a learned behavior - we modeled what we saw and experienced as children. The accepted explanation was based upon two things.

First, children of divorce did not observe their parents engage in positive relationship skills such as open communication, negotiation and compromise. The proponents of this theory opined that this lack of parental skills led directly to the lack of such skills in their children, thereby fostering divorce.

Second, the devotees of this theory also concluded that children who watched their parents’ divorce experienced a reduced commitment to the institution of marriage and lower confidence in the ability of marriages to remain intact long-term. Plainly put, "children of divorce are haunted by the ghosts of their parents’ divorce and are terrified that the same fate awaits them." Notwithstanding these fears, they jump into marriage anyway, often with disastrous partners, since they are convinced that it won't last anyway. In such cases divorce is a matter of when, not if.

However, a more recent study has concluded divorce is not a matter of fate but rather genetics. Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and Lund University in Sweden tackled the question why does divorce run in families?” What they found was that the prior studies overlooked an important fact - not all children are the same. The Swedish study focused on adopted children versus biological children. When this variable was added they found that people who were adopted resembled their biological — but not adoptive — parents and siblings in their histories of divorce. Understanding this new dynamic should help people and their therapists to focus on individual personality traits rather than fate alone.

So where are we? Yes indeed the marital bliss or the dysfunction of your parents has a discernible impact on the your likelihood of divorce. However, once you are aware of this link you can mitigate its effects by introspection, therapy or by adding a new parameter to your marital search - marrying someone whose parents are happily married.

Stay tuned for the fifth and final part of this series

Risk Factors and Correlations Which Can Increase the Chances of a Divorce

Everyone wants to know. Will this marriage survive? What are the root causes of a divorce? Is there a single factor or circumstance which inextricably leads to divorce? The answer appears to be "No."

Instead of a list of absolute divorce causing circumstances, it probably makes more sense to think of this construct as a set of “risk factors” or “correlations.” The greater the number of risk factors, the higher are the chances of divorce.

We are familiar with most of the usual suspects – infidelity, money problems, addictions, domestic violence, children or the lack thereof, incompatibility, boredom and meddling in-laws. However, there are some divorce related circumstances that will surprise you.

Over the course of the next several weeks I will identify and discuss some of these correlations in a five- part series of blogs. Some you will know or can guess a number of these divorce risks. But others are surprising if not deadly to a healthy marriage. Stay tuned for Part 1 of this 5 Part Series..

HOW TO KNOW WHEN IS THE RELATIONSHIP IS OVER -AMAZING TRUE STORIES

IS THAT REALLY YOU? IMAGINATIVE WAYS TO

SHOW THAT THE RELATIONSHIP IS OVER

When love turns to anger, hate or loathing, former lovers and spouses often find dramatic ways to communicate their feelings. For some reason, women seem to be particularly imaginative and creative in the ways they say goodbye.

Take the case of Missy Peterson, a real estate agent and mom of two. During her two year relationship with her former boyfriend he revealed to her that he spent time frequenting “strip clubs”, getting lap dances and having sex with some of the performers. When Missy threatened to leave him, he promised her that he would avoid such places and be true to her.

In the aftermath of his vow of chastity, he often disappeared for days on end, a clear signal that his cavorting ways were not over. Peterson then installed a GPS tracker on his vehicle and one night was able to track her boyfriend to one of his favorite hangouts. She could have simply confronted him when he got home but that was much too simple. Instead, Missy went to her closet and picked out her sexiest outfit, a wig and her best high-heeled shoes.

Peterson then went down to the strip club and gained access to the performers’ dressing room. When Missy explained to these ladies that she wanted to surprise her soon to be ex-boyfriend, they dressed her up, lent her their best “stripper shoes” and even coached her on some moves she could use on the pole in the lounge. Missy, who had never even been to a strip club, then made her way to the stage where she seductively danced to a tune from Rihanna right in front of her boyfriend.

While he was not amused and in fact angry, other patrons cheered loudly, throwing money at her. Peterson then scooped up the money, “flipped him the bird” and told the boyfriend that he “will never see her again” – a promise that she kept. She then returned to her career as a real estate agent, despite the job offer from the owner of the strip club.

This circumstance is mild compared to the harrowing saga of an Australian woman named Noela Rukundo who was married for ten years to Balenga Kalala. The husband, who erroneously thought she was cheating on him, hired a group of hit men to kill her. The assailants kidnapped Rukundo for several days, taking her to an abandoned building and tying her to a chair. The men wanted to know what she had done to her husband to make him want to kill her. When she refused to believe that her husband was behind this they called him and asked what they should do with her. His response, heard by Noela on the speaker phone, was “kill her.”

Fortuitously, the kidnappers knew her brother and decided not to carry out the plot but did manage to fleece the husband out of the money for the hit. They told the husband that Noela was dead but instead released her and gave her recordings of their conversations with Kalala along with receipts for the $7,000 contract price.

Armed with the incriminating evidence Rukundo could have simply gone to the police and had him arrested. Instead, she waited until her husband had arranged her funeral. He told their friends and relatives that Noela had died in a tragic accident.

When the last of the mourners had left the funeral -her funeral- Rukundo appeared from behind a tree, startling her husband who was terrified and kept repeating “is it my eyes….is it a ghost.” Noela replied “surprise, I am still alive.” When he touched her shoulder and found it very much solid, Kalala told her “I am sorry for everything.” He was even sorrier when Noela called the police and had him arrested. Ultimately, Kalala was convicted and sentenced to 9 years in jail.

Apart from the millions of Tik-Tok viewers who have commented on this amazing story, a 2021 Lifetime film was made based upon her story called "Death Saved My Life."