10 Reasons Why You Need To Work on Your Marriage
It is no surprise that today many marriages end in divorce or separation. As marriage rates rise, so does the number of divorce and separation cases. In Canada alone, it is expected that almost one-third of Canadian marriages are dissolved before reaching the first 10 years. In other countries, divorce rates could reach up to 80%. While divorce or separation is common, it is not a good sight to behold especially to those who have strong family values. Worse, divorce or separation affects not only the couples but also their children, their families, friends, and even others. Below are some of the reasons why a couple needs to work on their marriage and settle their differences before ending up in divorce. Divorce is expensive. Ever wonder how much divorce in Canada cost? Some people can only speculate on how much a couple would be spending to dissolve their marriage. According to The 2014 Canadian Lawyer Legal Fees Survey, uncontested divorce costs from $920 to $1,739 with an average of $1,169. Contested divorce, however, costs $5,735 to $39,522 with an average of $10,406 depending on the duration of the case. These fees don’t include fees for Child Custody Agreement, Spousal Support Agreement, and Division of Property Agreement. Divorce is a long and tiresome process. A divorce process in Canada can take months or years to be finalized depending on the number of unique factors that can affect the process. A divorce will only be granted if a spouse has been separated from his/her partner for at least one year or has established one of the other grounds for dissolution of the marriage: adultery or physical/emotional cruelty. Once filed, an uncontested divorce may take four to six months, provided the paper work is completed correctly and submitted early. A contested divorce can span out for years before being finalized. The number of claims also determine the length of the process. Claims such as custody or access, support or division of property, can affect the duration of the divorce process. This means more hassles and court appearances. Divorce leaves negative impact on the children. When a couple decides to get a divorce, the most affected individuals are not the parents themselves. It’s the children. Most parents are not aware that children experience stress when they find out their parents “no longer love each other”. It causes fear, anxiety, and thoughts of rebelling against their parents.Children who grew up in broken families are more prone to peer pressure and vices. In a study in 2013 conducted by the University of Toronto to 19,000 Americans, it found out that: “Men who experienced parental divorce before they turned 18 had 48-per-cent higher odds of ever smoking 100 or more cigarettes than men whose parents did not divorce. Women from divorced families were also at risk, with 39-per-cent higher odds of smoking in comparison to women from intact families.” Children who have divorced parents are also prone to more serious problems like drug/alcohol addiction, sexual intercourse at early age, aggression, disobedience, misdemeanor, and in worst cases, felony. Divorce can lead to child custody battles. This may not pose as a problem for divorced childless couples but for those who have child/children, this is an ugly process. While most parents would settle for fair Child Custody Agreement, others won’t. Sometimes child custody is disputed. When this happens, child custody is given to only one parent, the parent with the means and fit to care for the child/children. This means that a child will experience the pain of growing up apart from his/her father/mother. The parent who lost child custody also experiences the same pain. Divorce can lead to division of property. In Canada, laws may vary from one province or territory to another. However, division of assets after dissolution of marriage is present in the laws of these provinces or territory. Unless a prenuptial agreement was established, the divorced spouses are forced to equally share the value of the property acquired during their marriage. This becomes a disadvantage to the person who worked more or spent more in acquiring the assets. Divorce creates more feuds. Divorce becomes uglier when the families and friends of each of the spouse get involved. When families or friends take side and hurl blame, the situation escalates to a point when differences between the couples can no longer be resolved. This is true among people with strong attachment to their family or friends. Family members or friends may drag other individuals into the dispute especially when the divorce was cause by infidelity. Divorce causes emotional problems. The emotional effect of divorce varies from one individual to another. While some divorced couples move on easily, others dwell on the trauma that divorce has brought them. This makes them angry, emotionally unstable, irritable, anxious, or annoying. This makes them lose self-esteem and self-respect. Divorce leaves you vulnerable to opportunist. While divorce causes a lot of defensive emotional effects like distrust, it can also result to the opposite. Some divorced individuals feel unloved and develop a need for affection from just about anybody who shows interest in them. Their low self-esteem make them disregard their self-worth. As a way of coping up with the grief of an unsuccessful marriage, they would easily believe any promise of companionship in their need to be loved. This allows plotters and gold-diggers to move in and take advantage of the lack of self-esteem of a divorced individual. Finding a new partner may be riskier than keeping your current one. Why? The answer is simple: you know your current partner better than the new one considering the time you spent with your spouse. Dating a new partner, especially someone you’ve just met, increases your risk of introducing someone worse than your current partner. It also increases the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Unless your new partner presents you with his/her latest medical certificate proving he/she is free from STD, there’s no other way to know the truth except having
Divorce: How It Affects The Children
In the previous article, we discussed about the 10 Reasons Why You Need to Work on Your Marriage. One of the major reasons mentioned on the article is the Negative Impact of Divorce on Children. This article concentrates more on the negative effects that divorce can cause to children including the cost of child support and ongoing legal bills. While divorce can leave married couples emotionally devastated and distrusting, the effects are more severe on the child/children. Most couples view divorce as dissolution of marriage. But for children, marriage is dissolution of family. Below are some of the common effects of divorce on children. Though some of the effects are short-term, without parental care, guidance or counselling from an experienced family counsellor, these effects will result of long-term effects that could aggravate the negativity of a child as he/she grows up. Fear and Guilt First direct effect of divorce on children happens even before divorce is filed by either one or both of the couples. Many children experience fear knowing that their family will be broken. After fear, guilt sets in. Some children blame themselves for their parents’ divorce. Children initially feel bad about themselves when they learn that their parents are constantly fighting. Though some parents don’t directly blame their children for their fights, the children assume that it’s all about them. As a result, children will feel responsible for what happens to their parents’ marriage. Anger and Hate Initially, a child will feel angry at the parent who initiated the divorce regardless of the reason. A child will then show sympathy to the other parent. But as the child grows up and learns about the reasons for the divorce, especially when both parents are at fault, anger may persist and lead to long-term hate against his/her parents. Bullying Children of divorce oftentimes become victims of bullying. Many children from non-divorced parents make fun of children who come from broken families or divorced parents. Since many children of divorce lose self-esteem, they become victims of intimidation, alienation, dominance, and harassment from other children. In other cases, children of divorce become the bullies themselves. It can be associated with the fact that children of divorce experience anger and guilt towards their parents’ separation that they find bullying as a way to vent out frustrations and stress. Poor Brain Development Many children of divorce experience stress early in life upon the divorce of their parents. They exhibit the feeling of neglect, emotional trauma over their parents’ separation, and depression. These factors negatively affect the development of the brain in social, emotional, and academic aspects. In a study conducted by The University of Wisconsin-Madison, researchers found out that: “…chronic toxic stress experienced early in life have lasting negative impacts on a child.” Sexual Promiscuity Various American studies have noted that children, majority are girls, from divorced parents are more likely to engage in early sexual behavior that those from non-divorced parents. A groundbreaking research of E. Mavis Hetherington published in her book Effects of Father Absence on Personality Development in Adolescent Daughters suggested that: “Daughters of divorced parents sought more attention from men and engage in sexual intercourse at younger ages compared to other girls.” Another study conducted by Billingham, R. E., Sauer, A. K. & Pillion, L. A. in 1989, Family structure in childhood and sexual attitudes and behaviors during late adolescence. showed that: “People, whose parents were divorced, were more sexually active, had a greater number of sexual partners, had trouble in establishing long-term relationships and had shorter and more numerous love affairs than those who had married parents.” (F. H. JoÂnsson et al.) Sexual Abuse Divorce contributes much to the number of child sexual abuse in Canada and the United States. Children, mostly girls, whose parents are divorced are in greater risk of sexual abuse by men, not their father, living in their home. Based in the previous effect, the need for male-attention of daughters of divorced parents makes them vulnerable to sexual abuse by their stepfathers. A random survey conducted by Diana Russell in 1984 showed that: “Girls living in non-traditional families have been found to be sexually abused by their ‘stepfathers,’ either the married, cohabiting or casual partner of a divorced or single mother, at six to seven times the rate girls are sexually abused by their natural fathers in intact families.” She surveyed 930 adult women in San Francisco and found out that: “7% or one of approximately every six women who had a stepfather as a principal figure in her childhood years, was sexually abused by him. The comparable figures for biological fathers were 2% or one out of approximately 40 women.” Smoke, Alcohol, and Drug Abuse The emotional trauma brought about by losing the family structure because of divorce can take a great toll on the children. Without parental guidance, children resort to what they see fit as a solution or escape from depression. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse or NIDA: “Risk of drug abuse increases greatly during times of transition, such as changing schools, moving, or divorce.” The overwhelming pressure of stress associated with the change motivates children of divorce to engage in substance abuse. Discontent in Life One of the major triggers of divorce is the dissatisfaction by one or both of the married couples in various aspects of their marriage: sexual, emotional, financial, social, etc. The children, however, experience far worse dissatisfaction than the parents who got divorced. The short-term effects, like fear and guilt, that children first experience when their parents divorce became long-term effects and lingered even as they grow up and have families of their own. In a divorce study conducted by Wallerstein in 1985, children of divorced parents were interviewed to determine how they felt when the marriage of their parents was dissolved.After 5 years, Wallerstein made a follow up and found the following results: Persistence of anger at the parent who had initiated the divorce. Intensity of longing for the absent or