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I remember giving a similar article to XWH when all this craziness started.

He read it and said "Don't worry DD will be FINE, she will be mad at me for a little while but will get over it. She will be able to come over my apartment with her friends and have sleepovers and BBQs".

Truth: DD stopped talking to him; never stayed at his apartment once (he now lives with PP) and is "still mad at him"

#8, #9, #10 is especially true for DD.

Thought the info was important to post but I know if I send it to XWH it will be like giving it to a "brick wall". Sad.


18 Shocking Statistics About
Children and Divorce


These days most people accept divorce as a way of life, completely unaware of the damage they are doing to their children. Tell your friends, acquaintances and co-workers to read these shocking statistics about divorce and children. It may help save a child�s life down the road. (And no, I�m not figuratively speaking either�.just keep reading to find out what I mean.)

Statistics about Children and Divorce


1. Half of all American children will witness the breakup of a parent�s marriage. Of these, close to half will also see the breakup of a parent�s second marriage.� (Furstenberg, Peterson, Nord, and Zill, �Life Course�)

2. Among the millions of children who have seen their parents divorce, one of every 10 will also live through three or more parental marriage breakups. (The Abolition of Marriage, Gallagher)

3. Forty percent of children growing up in America today are being raised without their fathers. (Wade, Horn and Busy, �Fathers, Marriage and Welfare Reform� Hudson Institute Executive Briefing, 1997)

4. Of all children born to married parents this year, fifty percent will experience the divorce of their parents before they reach their 18th birthday. (Fagan, Fitzgerald, Rector, �The Effects of Divorce On America)

The EMOTIONALLY Damaging Statistics about children and divorce

5. Studies in the early 1980�s showed that children in repeat divorces earned lower grades and their peers rated them as less pleasant to be around. (Andrew J. Cherlin, Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage �Harvard University Press 1981)

6. Teenagers in single-parent families and in blended families are three times more likely to need psychological help within a given year. (Peter Hill �Recent Advances in Selected Aspects of Adolescent Development� Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 1993)

7. Compared to children from homes disrupted by death, children from divorced homes have more psychological problems. (Robert E. Emery, Marriage, Divorce and Children�s Adjustment� Sage Publications, 1988)

These statistics about children and divorce are pretty shocking, aren�t they?

The DEATH of a parent is LESS devastating to a child than a DIVORCE. (Even I wouldn�t believe this if I didn�t see the statistic myself.)

The PHYSICALLY Damaging Statistics About Children and Divorce


8. Children of divorce are at a greater risk to experience injury, asthma, headaches and speech defects than children whose parents have remained married. (Dawson, �Family Structure and Children�s Health and Well Being� National Health Interview Survey on Child Health, Journal of Marriage and the Family)

9. Following divorce, children are fifty percent more likely to develop health problems than two parent families. (Angel, Worobey, �Single Motherhood and Children�s Health�)

10. Children living with both biological parents are 20 to 35 percent more physically healthy than children from broken homes. (Dawson, �Family Structure and Children�s Health and Well-being� Journal of Marriage and the Family)

11. Most victims of child molestation come from single-parent households or are the children of drug ring members. (Los Angles Times 16 September 1985 The Garbage Generation)

12. A Child in a female-headed home is 10 times more likely to be beaten or murdered. (The Legal Beagle, July 1984, from �The Garbage Generation�)

This is what I mean when I said �these statistics on divorce and children could save a child�s life someday.� Did you read #12? A child raised by his/her mother is 10 times more likely to be beaten or murdered.

The Long Term Effects and Statistics About Children and Divorce

13. A study of children six years after a parental marriage breakup revealed that even after all that time, these children tended to be �lonely, unhappy, anxious and insecure. (Wallerstein �The Long-Term Effects of Divorce on Children� Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 1991)

14. Seventy percent of long-term prison inmates grew up in broken homes. (Horn, Bush, �Fathers, Marriage and Welfare Reform)

Problems Relating to Peers

15. Children of divorce are four times more likely to report problems with peers and friends than children whose parents have kept their marriages intact. (Tysse, Burnett, �Moral Dilemmas of Early Adolescents of Divorced and Intact Families. Journal of Early Adolescence 1993)

16. Children of divorce, particularly boys, tend to be more aggressive toward others than those children whose parents did not divorce. (Emery, �Marriage, Divorce and Children�s Adjustment, 1988)

Suicide Statistics About Children and Divorce

17. People who come from broken homes are almost twice as likely to attempt suicide than those who do not come from broken homes. (Velez-Cohen, �Suicidal Behavior and Ideation in a Community Sample of Children� Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 1988)

High School Drop Out Statistics About Children and Divorce

18. Children of divorced parents are roughly two times more likely to drop out of high school than their peers who benefit from living with parents who did not divorce. (McLanahan, Sandefur, �Growing Up With a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps� Harvard University Press 1994)

I can�t stress how important it is to know all the facts before you get a divorce. Your child�s life is in your hands. If you�re seriously considering divorce and you haven�t attempted to save your marriage , I�ve just given you 18 reasons why it�s at least worth a try to keep your family together.



Me 55, XWH 53, M 22 years
D17, D30
alien replaces my husband "I'm not happy" -7/08
Discover OW-8/08 (his direct report and I work there also)
H moves out 10/1/08, confront Ow 10/28/08
Plan B 1/09
D final 12/09

Quote: "First thing you do is pray; when there is nothing else to do, continue to pray."
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Hope,

Thank you for this post. Reading this reminds me of what is at stake if my M fails.

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Originally Posted by hurt_but_hopeful
Hope,

Thank you for this post. Reading this reminds me of what is at stake if my M fails.

It is unfortunate that the WS forget what is at stake and it turns into addiction to the OP and entitlement.


Me 55, XWH 53, M 22 years
D17, D30
alien replaces my husband "I'm not happy" -7/08
Discover OW-8/08 (his direct report and I work there also)
H moves out 10/1/08, confront Ow 10/28/08
Plan B 1/09
D final 12/09

Quote: "First thing you do is pray; when there is nothing else to do, continue to pray."
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Thank you for posting this. I've already bookmarked it.


Me, BW
WH cheated in corporate workplace for many years. He moved out and filed in summer 2008.
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Great article! Here is more:

An Exploration of the Ramifications...nia State University College of Medicine

� Divorce is an intensely stressful experience for all children, regardless of age or developmental level; many children are inadequately prepared for the impending divorce by their parents. A study in 1980 found that less than 10% of children had support from adults other than relatives during the acute phase of the divorce.

� The pain experienced by children at the beginning of a divorce is composed of: a sense of vulnerability as the family disintegrates, a grief reaction to the loss of the intact family (many children do not realize their parents� marriage is troubled), loss of the non-custodial parent, a feeling of intense anger as the disruption of the family, and strong feelings of powerlessness.

� Unlike bereavement or other stressful events, it is almost unique to divorcing families that as children experience the onset of this life change, usual and customary support systems tend to dissolve, though the ignorance or unwillingness of adults to actively seek out this support for children.

� Early latency (ages 6�-8): These children will often openly grieve for the departed parent. There is a noted preoccupation with fantasies that distinguishes the reactions of this age group. Children have replacement fantasies, or fantasies that their parents will happily reunite in the not-so-distant future. Children in this developmental stage have an especially difficult time with the concept of the permanence of the divorce.

� Late latency (ages 8-11): Anger and a feeling of powerlessness are the predominate emotional response in this age group. Like the other developmental stages, these children experience a grief reaction to the loss of their previously intact family. There is a greater tendency to label a �good� parent and a �bad� parent and these children are very susceptible to attempting to take care of a parent at the expense of their own needs.

� Adolescence (ages 12-18): Adolescents are prone to responding to their parent�s divorce with acute depression, suicidal ideation, and sometimes violent acting out episodes. These children tend to focus on the moral issues surrounding divorce and will often judge their parents� decisions and actions. Many adolescents become anxious and fearful about their own future love and marital relationships. However, this age group has the capability to perceive integrity in the post-divorce relationship of their parents and to show compassion for their parents without neglecting their own needs.

Conclusions
� Divorce and its ensuing ramifications can have a significant and life-altering impact on the well being and subsequent development of children and adolescents.

� The consequences of divorce impact almost all aspects of a child�s life, including the parent-child relationship, emotions and behavior, psychological development, and coping skills.

� There is a significant need for child mental health professionals, along with other child specialists, to be cognizant of the broad spectrum of possible fall-out from a divorce and then to provide sufficient support for children of divorced parents in all the necessary psychosocial aspects of the child�s life.

[u][i][b]Abuse Risk Seen Worse As Families Change[/b][/i][/u]

- Children living in households with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries as children living with two biological
parents, according to a study of Missouri abuse reports published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2005.


- Children living in stepfamilies or with single parents are at higher risk of physical or sexual assault than children living with two biological or adoptive parents, according to several studies co-authored by David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center.

- Girls whose parents divorce are at significantly higher risk of sexual assault, whether they live with their mother or their father, according to research by Robin Wilson, a family law professor at Washington and Lee University. . . .

- The previous version of the study, released in 1996, concluded that children of single parents had a 77 percent greater risk of being harmed by physical abuse than children living with both parents. But the new version will delve much deeper into the specifics of family structure and cohabitation, according to project director Andrea Sedlak.



"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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I hope not to be confused with Zelmo as I state this, but given that most experts (I can cite sources) claim that lack of proper parenting or the quality of same is a great contributor to the incidence of personality disorder, wouldn't it be safe to assume that a far greater percentage of the population is so disordered than is usually given (~3%)?

If 40% - 50% of home lack one parent, or are subject to the trauma of divorce and its attendant negativity, wouldn't one think there are a lot more disordered spouses than we currently acknowlege?

Yes, I have a personal interest in this. I now have received validation (without seeking) of my wife's condition (always with the added advice: RUN! RUN AND DO NOT LOOK BACK!). I refrain from suggesting this here, since this is Marriage Builders, not "diagnose the undiagnosable," but I think the prevalence of personality disordering may be vastly underestimated.


Preach the Gospel every day. When necessary, use words.
St. Francis of Assissi

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