Divorce can keep families divided for a long time

Item from the Smart Marriages Archive, reproduced in the Divorce Statistics Collectio n

Divorce keeps families divided long after the decision to split

By Dina April
Special to The Chicago Tribune
July 21, 1999

Im the product of a broken home. Granted, Im now 36 years old and have
my kids of my own, but the ramifications of my parents decision some 24
years ago continue to have a profound impact on my life and the lives of
my extended family.

If you ask my mother, shell tell you my parents breakup was due to some
inappropriate behavior on my fathers part. My father is a man of few
words and hes not talking. But, whatever their reasons, their decision
to break up a family is still reverberating today. In fact, we are only
just beginning to see how the increase in the divorce rate that began a
couple of decades ago will impact our parents as they reach retirement
age.

My mother has been in a relationship with a divorced man for 22 years.
Because they felt they were both burned in their previous marriages, they
have refused to commit to each other. During their younger years, this
didnt seem to matter much, but it did serve to be detrimental to the
melding of their families, which now is extremely significant. You see,
now, my mothers companion, although physically well and financially
sound, has had a severe mental breakdown at the age of 71. But, instead
of a large loving family rallying around him to help him get well, he has
a disjointed group of disconnected people fighting about his fate. So,
he sits in a rehabilitation facility with addicts half his age while my
mother, my sister and I, his biological kids and his executors look for
an answer. Meanwhile, he broods and remains deeply depressed and
suicidal.

And, what is he depressed about? Oh, some, even he, will tell you it was
retiring, or his brothers death, but if you probe deeper it really has a
lot to do with creating a dysfunctional family. From his grandsons Bar
Mitzvah, to the difficulties of his own relationship with my mother
because commitment has never been achieved, it has been a year of events
that exemplify how divorce keeps on destroying families as the years go
by.

As our Baby-Boomer-50-percent-divorce-rate generation ages, who will be
their guardians in their later years? Will our society be filled with
fighting families spinning their wheels of decision-making while their
parents wither away? Theres probably a business opportunity for someone
to act as an intermediary when bickering families are deciding how to
handle the debilitating consequences of an aging parent. It is obvious
that the generation that decided marriage and family are expendable will
ultimately feel the consequences of their actions when they reach the end
of their lives. At a time when they need the most love and support, they
may experience the resentment, confusion and anger that they themselves
created in an act many years before.

Recently, the man that had been like a godfather to me passed away. He,
too, tore his family apart a number of years ago. He found a new wife
and cut off contact with many people from his past, including me. Yet,
at the moment he died, who might you expect was with him? Ironically, it
wasnt his new wife but his ex-wife. And, from what Im told he held her
hand and went peacefully to the next plane. You see, when we build
relationships, make children and form lives together we are creating
bonds that literally last a lifetime. When we break apart those
promises, make new ones and break apart again, we not only hurt those
around us, we hurt ourselves too. Certainly there are situations where
the dissolution of a marriage is the only answer, but in many cases it is
not. In fact, we seem to look at marriage in much the same way we look
at our environment. We use it up, throw it away and get something new as
if we are on automatic pilot. We have lost our ability to express
loyalty.

I read a book recently called " A Return to Love" by Daphane Rose Kingma.
In it, Kingma espouses that our high divorce rate indicates that
marriage just doesnt work anymore. She says that in future generations
our committed relationships will look much different than they do
currently and that marriage just may become a thing of the past. This
view saddens me, for I believe that it is within long-term relationships
that we can learn the most about ourselves. When we spend a lifetime
together we share a reference point, create a bond of intimacy, and
ultimately grow as individuals. When we enter marriage already
contemplating that it wont work out, we do an extreme disservice to
ourselves and to the children we create within that relationship.

In the end, our search for utopia will catch up to us. And, our
never-ending quest for the perfect family will certainly make our later
years a roller-coaster. If a peaceful transition to the new world is
what youre after, keep your family intact. Otherwise, find a good
attorney and put your wants and needs in writing so your disjointed
family can go on civilly leading their separate lives.

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