How does divorce affect children's future relationships?

Effects of Divorce on Children’s Future Relationships
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Abstract
Divorce refers to the legal action between a husband and wife to end their marital relationship. It is primarily known as marriage dissolution, and it is a legal action that terminates marriage before a spouse’s death. Unfortunately, divorce usually has both short- and long-term effects on children. For instance, divorce causes children to become a collateral casualty. Children’s minds are always tender and as a result, they have increased possibilities of slipping into a shock state, after observing their parents splitting forever. Therefore, the current research focuses on addressing the effects of divorce on the future relationships of children.
Key words: “Divorce, children, parents, effects, future relationships”
Introduction
Divorce refers to the lawful action between married couple to end their marital association. It is also referred to as marriage dissolution, and it is mostly the legal action that terminates marriage before a spouse dies. Divorce is much similar to legal separation because it comprises of the processes of filling documents with the court to instigate legal actions, whereby the courts are mandated to make sound decisions regarding assets, debts, and child decisions. Conversely, as the process ends, the parties are separated legally, which indicates that although they are still married, they are responsible for one another (Morin, 2019). Divorce mainly focuses on terminating the marriage of the parties involved. As such, the court and parties should decide how to handle the placement and custody questions of vulnerable children and how to divide the debts and properties of the parties. State laws have the assumption that each party should acquire 50% of the marital property and should pay 50% of the debts. South (2013) explains that non-marital property mainly denotes the properties inherited by or given to one of the parties by another person, mainly parents. Such properties remain with the party, to whom it was given. Moreover, the court evaluates the health, age, and the length of marriage of the parties, to identify whether everyone has the ability to earn income and sustain their marital standards of living (Morin, 2019). In cases whereby one party seems to be vulnerable, the court orders marital support paid by one party to the other. However, the two parties are responsible for providing children support.
Whitton et al. (2008) explain that divorce has significant adverse effects on children. For example, when a marriage dissolves, parents often question whether they should stay together for the sake of the children. Parents usually have worries in their minds, about how their children will cope with the divorce. According to recent research, children struggle a lot in the first year of the divorce (South, 2013). They mostly experience disbelief, anxiety, anger, and distress. Besides, a small percentage of children usually experience life-long issues after their parents’ divorce. Therefore, the current research focuses on disapproving the null hypothesis that, “divorce does not have statistical significant effects on the future relationships of children.” The research mainly uses pertinent literature to address the issue.
Findings from Pertinent Literature
Miller et al. (2014) explains that most children in the western countries experience their parents’ separation or divorce. Such children usually experience adverse consequences such as behavioral and psychological problems and challenges in interpersonal associations and schools. The wellbeing of children after parental divorce is usually determined by numerous factors including excellent parenting between the two parents, conflict levels between parents, economic securities, and enhancing excellent relationships. In many cases, policy makers, researchers, and family law experts are usually interested in eradicating the probable adverse effects that divorce usually have on children (Miller et al., 2014). Children of divorced parents identify that their parents do not always treat them as expected and in most cases, parents violate children’s demands. It is usually important for divorced parents to develop excellent relationships with their children, by consulting them when making important family decisions.
Whitton et al. (2008) posit that children raised in divorced families tend to develop negative mindsets towards marriage. As a result, they usually have lessened commitment towards marriage, which is associated with low quality of relationship. Divorce influences the sexual behavior of children, which compromises their relational and psychological stability. Parental divorce causes children to have low trust. They engage in casual dating because they perceive that marrying would also lead to divorce (Kalmijn, 2015). Their parents’ divorce causes them to experience challenges in dating. Furthermore, parental divorce horrifies the heterosexual association of young adults (South, 2013). Women from divorced families usually report less satisfaction and trust in romantic associations. Furthermore, children from divorced families often fear being rejected by the other parties. As a result, their lack of trust prevents them from forming strong intimate relationships (Miller et al., 2014). According a recent study, adults from divorced families have increased chances of believing that intimate relationships are founded on the absence of trust and infidelity. What is more, they had increased chances of believing that people should be very keen when forming intimate relationships.
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