Discovering the Real Jesus in Monroe

I meet all the time with young adults whose biological parents have separated or divorced. Almost always, there’s devastation. I also meet with people who say they are thinking about divorce. They’ve picked up the idea that if they divorce the “kids will be OK.” That is false. It’s just their way of trying to justify their own inability to work through their failing marriage. (In my opinion there are only a few, and they are rare, exceptions to this.  A lot of couples simply do not have the tools to fix their marriage. Increasingly we should not be surprised by this, since the current parentless generation is spawning teens who have never seen a healthy marriage before. Unless something transformational happens in them they will mirror their parents’ failures.)

The best book I’ve found about this is by Columbia U scholar Judith Wallenstein – The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. She’s done what may be the only longitudinal study of what happens to kids whose parents divorced, and she follows these kids into adulthood. Anyone contemplating divorce who thinks “The kids will be OK” needs to read this book so that myth will be shattered.

“By tracking approximately 100 children as they forge their lives as adults, she has found that contrary to the popular belief that kids would bounce back after the initial pain of their parents’ split, children of divorce often continue to suffer well into adulthood. Their pain plays out in their relationships, their work lives and their confidence about parenting themselves.”