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This is one of a
series of articles on healthy relationships and families.It proposes brief answers about psychological and legal
divorce that significantly
stresses millions of average adults and kids, and depletes our society. Each answer includes links to more information.
This brief YouTube video highlights some of what you'll find in this
article:
This Q&A article assumes you're familiar with...
the
intro to this
nonprofit Web site, and the
premises
underlying it
Before reading further, pause and
decide if your true Self is
guiding
your
personality. If so, you'll
get the most from what follows. Scan all the questions first, and
then follow any links of interest. Do you know why you're reading
this?
Q & A about
divorce, redivorce, and divorce recovery
19)
How can
concerned people help to reduce the odds of divorce in (a) their family
and (b) their community, region, or nation?
Commit to a version of
these three steps.
29) How can typical courting partners with
prior kids minimize the odds of eventual
re/divorce? Why and how should they
select effective pre-re/marital counseling?
30) What
does redivorce usually
indicate about each partner and their family?
The answers beloware based on my professional research since 1979, and clinical
experience with over 1,000 typical divorcing and re/married Midwestern-US
women and men. Use these premises to clarify what youand
important others
believe about these topics.
Q1)What is a
"relationship," a "pseudo relationship," and a "committed primary relationship"?
Premise - two people have
a relationship if one or both of them
is significantly affected by the existence, beliefs, expectations, attitudes,
and/or behaviors of the other. Significantly is a subjective
judgment.
A primary relationship is one which a partner
consistently values
above all others, except in some emergencies.
In a
committed primary
relationship, each partner
vows to keep the relationship primary despite inevitable stressors
and temptations.
Traditionally, marital partners
pledge "For
better and for worse, 'til death do us part." Some modern couples - specially
after prior breakups - commit conditionally, as in "I commit to you as long
as I get my main relationship needs (below) met." They may or may not admit
this limitation to themselves and/or each other.
A
pseudo relationship is mostly dutiful, intellectual, and/or strategic
(a means to an end), and is based on one or both partners pretending respect and
concern in order to fill some covert
needs. Typical-ly, such partners deny the pretense and their denials. Their pretenses imply...
the dominance of a well-meaning
false self,
and usually...
fear
of revealing some shameful truth to one's self and/or other people,
a psychological trauma and
tragedy re-quiring personal and family recovery (grieving,
acceptance, and adjustment)
Most people associate divorce with a legal process between
two spouses involving attorneys, set-tlements, and decrees. Most
Catholics also associate it with
annulment.
The legal process is the end
phase of months or years of psychological divorce - the
gradual loss of love, respect, and bonding between two partners.
Millions of uncounted couples tolerate psychological divorce,
but never file to end their legal partnership obligations or status.
Awareness of which
meaning of divorce is relevant in your situation promotes
effective discussion, decisions, grieving, and problem-solving. For
perspective on the unremarked American divorce epidemic, see
this.
understanding, accepting, and adjusting to a
web of personal,
family-system, and environmental changes; and...
adults and kids admitting (vs.
denying) and
grieving broken bonds
(losses)
over months or years; and...
forgiving themselves and each other
for divorce-related hurts, failures, and betrayals.
Divorce recovery is a multi-level, multi-year personal + environmental process
starting with shock, moving through predictable
phases if conditions allow that, and
ending with stable mental + emotional + spiritual
acceptance of significant divorce-related losses (broken bonds) in all affected people.
Full acceptance allows resuming normal life goals and activities, including
selectively forming new
bonds.
Divorce recovery often takes many years for all affected adults and
kids to reach full, stable acceptance. That may
never happen, if some affected adults and/or kids are
significantly
wounded and lack
the
requisites for healthy mourning. See
Lesson 3 for more perspective.
To help
evaluate the degree of divorce recovery in yourself and/or another person,
use this.
For effective
divorce prevention options, see
Lesson 8.
Q5)
Why do so many American
couples eventually
divorce psychologically or legally?
Because our
unaware, wounded society currently
denies, condones, and promotes the lethal [wounds + unawareness]
cycle.
That includes condoning...
unqualified child-conception and
ineffective
parenting - partly due to impaired mother-child
bonding,
so kids don't get their developmental needs met well enough; and...
to survive, poorly-nurtured kids automatically develop
two to six psychological
wounds; and
when they leave home...
typical couples are unaware of grieving,
wound-healing, and
communication basics, and can't avoid or resolve significant relationship
problems. Therefore, their relationship needs are unfilled too often,
and eventually, weary, hopeless partners divorce psychologically or legally; and...
unless divorcing, needy
adults intentionally reduce their unawareness and wounds, they often
unconsciously repeat this sequence in midlife or later - specially if
they choose to join or create a complex, alien stepfamily.
Does this explanation of
widespread American divorce
seem credible to you? If so, consider acting to
prevent divorce by choosing some version of these
three steps - starting in
your
family. If this brief explanation doesn't seem credible, how do
you explain the American divorce
epidemic?
Q6)How does the pervasive [wounds + unawareness]
cycle affect the odds
of
eventual psychological and legal
divorce for typical couples and their families?
The cycle steeply increases the odds of eventual divorce by...
promoting
wounded, needy, courting partners
choosing each other despite danger signs (Q9) and
denying their
respective wounds and what they
mean; and
by...
partners' false selves not wanting to learn how to admit and
resolve such problems effectively as true teammates; and...
couples avoiding appropriate
supports, and/or not using supports when offered; and the cycle...
promotes significant personal, school, and
social problems for any dependent kids, which stresses the kids, the co-parents'
relationship, and their
family system.
These cycle-effects combine to raise the odds of
psychological and legal divorce, because typical
lay adults and most mental-health professionals aren't aware of them or
don't know what to do about them..
See
this article for
effective options to break the
cycle.
Q7)How do
current state and local laws promote the U.S. divorce epidemic?
Most
states require an exam to get licensed to operate a vehicle, practice law,
dentistry, sell food, prepare taxes, parent foster kids, and to provide
various personal and home-repair services.
To my know-ledge, most U.S. states require an official blood test and no
other meaningful requisites for legal mar-riage. In other words, ancestral
tradition puts the responsibility for wise commitment choices on the couple, not the
state - despite the major stresses that divorces and inept child care
put on our society.
Typical churches may
offer voluntary pre-marital counseling and sanctify
marriages, but make no ef-fective attempt to assess and stop ill-prepared (unqualified) couples from
committing to each other and potentially passing on the lethal [wounds +
unawareness]
cycle to their
vulnerable descendents.
From this point of view, current civil laws and church traditions are tacitly promoting the
tragic U.S. divorce epidemic, which spreads the [wounds +
unawareness] cycle.The voting public passively permits this, so far. If you want
to stop this enabling and protect future generations, consider these
practical action options.
Q8) How does
the courtship process relate to possible future divorce?
When one
or both courting partners are significantly
wounded and unaware, they risk choosing the wrong
people to commit to, for the wrong
reasons, at the wrong
time. These reactive, unwise
courtship-commitment decisions combine to steeply raise the odds of future
psychological or legal divorce - even if one or both mates divorced
before.
This is specially true where one or both partners have
minor and/or grown kids from prior unions.
Restated - typical needy, love-dazed courting partners aren't aware
of - or ignore - clear
danger signs
that they're making unwise commitment choices. From this
perspective, divorce starts in courtship.
Question 10)
How can
clergypersons and churches help courting couples guard against future divorce?
Thefirst line of protection for typical
needy,unaware couples is any clergyperson
they ask to sanctify their union who knows about the unseen
[wounds +
unawareness]
cycle and its toxic personal, marital, and parental
effects. I suspect that
few ordained men and women have this vital knowledge now.
For practical options
that clergypersons of any faith have to alert and protect engaged
couples with or without prior kids, see
this article.
Note: popular
(re)marriage-prep programs like
Prepare/Enrich,
FOCCUS, andRelate
are
helpful within limits, and presently
do NOT adequately assess engaged
couples for the common
hazards pro-posed here. See
these
quizzes,
and study this free, self-improvement marriage-prep course.
Many people say "It begins when one mate calls a lawyer." I propose
that psychological divorce starts much earlier, when one
partner admits significant marital discomfort - i.e. anxiety, hurt,
anger, frustration, distrust, irritation, and disrespect. A purist
may say that divorce really starts when a needy adult makes
impulsive,
uninformed
commitment
choices.
The (legal) divorce process
ends only when the adult or child who is slowest at
adjusting to personal and family changes regains their personal
balance, finishes grieving and forgiving, and fully resumes stable
focus on their present and future life. It can be hard to assess
this - specially if anyone is repres-sing and denying
divorce-related feelings. See this
worksheet for perspective.
Implication - because many psychologically-
wounded couples divorce
and their families are unable to grieve well, their divorce-adjustment phase
may not truly end until the adults
hit bottom and admit and start to
reduce ("recover from") their wounds. This delayed adjustment may manifest as
significant
"depression,"
addictions,
promiscuity, obesity,
health and/or parenting problems, and impulsive remarriage
and/or cohabiting.
The Web address of this
3-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/relate/qa/divorce.htm
Q & A about
divorce, redivorce, and divorce recovery
Basics
