Will Your Divorce Affect Your Kids’ Future Marriages?

[I]t’s not the position of Daddy Got Custody to pass judgment on divorcing parents. What is our position is that parents (in our case, dads) to understand that divorce can have a profound impact on children, and in some cases, it effects them for life.

With those thoughts in mind, we offer the following quotes on “Children and Divorce” Marriage Missions International.

Study & Research of the Effects of Divorce on Kids

Many of the children of divorce fear splitting up and are determined not to let it happen to them. But it does. Children of divorce have a higher rate of divorce themselves than children from intact families. Penn State sociologist Paul Amato, who has studied adults whose parents divorced, said that children learn about marital commitment and permanence by observing their parents. In children of divorce, the sense of commitment to a lifelong marriage has been undermined. They come to marriage with unrealistic expectations.

As one researcher put it, young people today are entering marriage in “a profound state of cluelessness. We’re mesmerized by the romantic idea of marriage and blinded to the reality. We’re sold in Cinderella, not on how uncomfortable wearing glass slippers for the next 50 years might be,” writes Pamela Paul, editor at American Demographics. “If you don’t grow up viewing a marriage firsthand, you have little chance of understanding marriage as it needs to be. It is’ easy to idealize,” she adds in an interview.

“’We’ not trumping over ‘me.’ Unfamiliar with how marriages ebb and flow through good times and over rough patches, children of divorce are quick to bail at the first sign of conflict,” says Paul, and that creates a rash of what she calls “starter marriages” couplings that last but a few years and produce no children.

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Will Your Divorce Affect Your Kids’ Future Marriages? Maybe.

A major reason for this is that children learn about marital commitment or permanence by observing their parents. With children of divorce, the sense of commitment to a lifelong marriage has been undermined.

While the position in all marriages should be ‘children first,’ situations vary, and not all family conflicts can be worked out. In such cases, parents should always go the extra mile to make sure their children’s best interests’ are always the top consideration.

What are your thoughts? Will your divorce affect your kids’ future marrigaes?

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