Divorce

This last blog post is on divorce.  This is a rough topic for many families and can be a very sensitive subject.  There are so many reasons why someone would divorce.  For example, reasons could include things such as abuse (physical or emotional), adultery, addiction (of any kind), and abandonment (either physical or emotional).  Whatever the reason, this can be a shattering experience for everyone in the family. 

There are three kinds of divorce:

1.       Legal divorce

2.       Economic divorce

3.       Parental divorce

Legal divorce is settled by the courts and the marriage is dissolved officially by law.  The second kind, economic divorce is when you separate your things.  This could include finances (you separate bank accounts), property, etc.  The last one is parental divorce where the parents split.

Often times if a family that is involved in divorce has children, it leads to joint custody.  This is where they share both resources and physical places to live.  Often, the mother gets the most custody with the children staying in her home for the majority of the week.  Father’s will normally get a situation like dinner every Wednesday and ½ of the weekends every month.  This can be hard to balance once kids get into extracurriculars and have games and performances on days that might otherwise have been spent with dad.

We went over some interesting statistics in class that I would like to mention:

1.       70% of Americans said 2 years after their divorce that they could have and should have saved the marriage

2.       70% of divorced men are remarried in 2 years (this can be attributed to the fact that most father’s don’t have their children for the majority of the time so they have time available to go and date and meet new people unlike mom who is still in charge of the children’s daily lives.

3.       Blended families divorce rate is 63%

4.       The average dad of a divorced family has lives 400 miles away from their kids (either because the mom moves away or the dad has to move to make more money)

Often, people who divorce will get remarried.  This can be especially challenging because not only are you marrying someone else, often, children are involved and that adds a whole new dynamic which can be hard to balance and navigate.  Everything you were used to in a previous marriage could change in an instant and it will take time to adjust. My professor gave 3 guidelines to keep in mind when blending families:

1.       Accept that it will take 2+ years to adjust to a new “normal”

2.       The biological parent should do ALL of the heavy discipline (this doesn’t mean that you take a back seat, this means that you counsel together but the biological parent does the delivery of your mutual decision

3.       Step parents are a lot like fantastic aunts/uncles

4.       You will need to counsel behind closed doors more than other couples

5.       Blended families don’t have to be failures

Whatever situation you find yourself in, I hope you find that some of this information to be informative and helpful to you.  Thank you for spending time with me this semester as we navigated all of the many topics of families.  It has been so fun to share the things that I have learned and I hope that the information I shared with you will continue to inform and bless your lives as well as the lives of those around you who you choose to share it with.  I wish you the best in applying all of your new knowledge and would love to hear how it goes for you!