The effects of divorce on our society are difficult to prove, but what we do know is that some people go on and have far better lives and some don't.
For the majority we can say divorce carved its mark on our life and we live with it for the rest of our days - for better or worse.
If the marriage bore children into the world, the effects of divorce are not just on the divorced.
We need to find an answer to this very normal and large problem, given our rather poor track record society-wide when it comes to dealing with these relationship issues and family breakdowns.
Our children are innocent. Parents know this is true and yet often rely upon childhood resilience to be a comfort that children will survive the fall out.
Whilst children are often resilient, resilience is not enough to become well adjusted adults.
A particularly pertinent question exists: If children adjust, then why are there so many dysfunctional adults?
The simple answer is most don't. Instead our children modify behaviour, change expectations, absorb patterns, shut down, and become resigned to situations that are beyond their ability to solve.
It could be better said, children get used to it, reconcile, alter, and rearrange, but this is far from coming to terms with it.
While outwardly they may appear to adjust, perhaps inwardly it would be more accurate to say they cope- a strategy that underlies personal survival.
While we relish in supporting our children to adjust, we do this by leading them to gain the tools and knowledge that is needed for this adjustment to happen in a healthy manner. One way we do this is a shift from what has become normal.
The most common terms used to describe a family that has been touched by separation, divorce or some form of family breakdown are ‘broken home’ or ‘split family’.
It leaves our children believing that something needs to be fixed, put back together or made whole. We need to change this. It is not necessary for our homes to be broken, nor for our families to be split any longer.
Mum and Dad may not live together and indeed family structure altered, but there can be greater harmony when co-parenting is done well, including much loved step-parents.
To move beyond the ‘broken home’ or ‘split family’ paradigm we need to change terminology and give our children another phrase to describe their new family structure.
A term that is free of judgement; neither good nor bad, advantaged nor disadvantaged, split nor whole, broken nor together, right nor wrong - it only describes what is. This new term is a ‘complex family’. It is when our family portrait no longer sits comfortably within a traditional photo frame.
Despite all our differences, most will agree that since separation life is more complex.
Relationships, schedules, discipline, expectations, holidays, pets, schooling, you name it- it is no longer simple.
To lift the grey cloud that shadows our children, who are innocently trapped within an adult drama, we remove any chance they may feel disadvantaged or handicapped by their parents decisions.
It is true that many children believe they are partially responsible for their parents split - as inconceivable as it is to the parents.
To genuinely demonstrate a family environment where divorce is an event that occurred in its history, without acrimony for years to come, we need to give our children the best start to their own life journey as possible.
Become a healthy Complex Family today.
Jill Darcey
www.complexfamily.com