Dear Chris,
I’m seriously considering leaving my
wife but am worried about what that might do to my kids. My wife and
I have been together for 15 years and our kids are ages 7, 4 and 3.
Seems like all I’ve done for the last decade is go to work, come
home and take care of other people, either my wife or my kids. I
used to get a lot of enjoyment out of taking care of them, but in
the last few years I feel myself pulling away. I think I might be
already gone, but still coming home each night. My questions are: 1)
Is there any coming back once a guy’s already left in his mind? and
2) What are the effects of divorce on kids?
Signed,
Halfway Gone
Dear HG,
These are good questions for a guy in your situation to be asking.
The answer to the first question is yes — sometimes people who have
emotionally left a union do find ways to reinvest themselves. Of
course, the question is whether you want to reinvest yourself.
We all make a complex deal with our long-term partners, though it’s
seldom explicitly negotiated. This deal outlines who does what in
various situations. It sounds to me like the old deal in your
marriage has run its course. If you are willing to reinvest in the
marriage, my guess is that it’ll be because you are able to create a
new deal with your wife. The old deal was heavily focused on
deferring important parts of yourself, supposedly for the good of
the family. There are lots of reasons people do this, but what’s
important is that this deal is no longer meeting your needs. I say
“no longer” because it obviously met important needs of yours for
over 10 years before the drawbacks of this deal became your primary
focus. This is your piece of the puzzle and if you have the
willingness, you can use this situation to see it clearly so the
pattern doesn’t repeat itself (either with your wife or with someone
else). Other questions you may want to ask yourself are: Why was I
willing to strike a deal of sacrifice for so long? What need of mine
was met through my sacrificing behavior? If I were to stop engaging
in this part of the deal in ways that are caring and engaged in my
marriage, what would that look like?
Unfortunately, I don’t have a simple answer to your second question.
Though people have been researching the outcomes for children in
relation to divorce and high conflict unions for decades, the facts
are still not clear. That’s because it’s nearly impossible to
untangle the effects of divorce from the effects of other
circumstances that usually accompany divorce. That being said, we
have learned some things about the effects of divorce on children.
As a group, young adults who grew up in families with divorced
parents do score lower on various measures of well being. These
include higher unemployment rates, higher rates of cigarette and
alcohol use, lower academic achievement, and lower incomes. However,
we’ve learned that these differences are much lower than we thought
they were a decade ago. We’ve also learned that these differences
exist when we study children of divorce as a group, but when we look
closer it’s apparent that more than half of all children of divorce
are as well adjusted as children from intact families. This tells us
that perhaps other factors which may be commonly associated with
divorce may have more impact on a child’s well being than divorce
itself. What are these factors? Two of the biggest are conflict and
parental involvement.
High levels of unproductive conflict are very closely associated
with problems in children, including poor self-esteem, delinquency,
depression, aggression, and disobedience. This is not the same,
however, as the idea that conflict is “bad” for children. It’s
helpful for kids to witness their parents engage in conflict
resolution that’s caring and productive. Problems happen when family
conflict is frequent, includes hostility, and doesn’t result in
resolution. Interestingly, children whose parents have this hostile
and unproductive style suffer the effects even if they don’t witness
the conflict. Violence in the family system is the most extreme
example of this, and is most closely associated with measures of
maladjustment in children. Obviously, these kinds of harmful
conflicts can occur in families that are intact as well as divorced.
Parental involvement is also closely associated with good outcomes
for children. In your case, if the “pulling away” you describe
includes withdrawing from your relationship with your kids, divorce
is not your biggest problem with regards to their welfare. Kids need
dads who are interested, invested and share meaningful time together
(i.e., being present and tuned in to the child). Available research
suggests that quantity of shared time is not nearly as important as
quality of time in father-child relationships, whether they’re from
intact or divorced families.
In general, HG, research suggests what we all know through common
sense: healthy kids come from healthy parents. If you’re not able to
be a healthy person in the context of your marriage (i.e., engaged
with your kids and at least cooperative with your wife), then your
kids will likely be impacted. Divorce, on the other hand, will also
put your kids into a higher risk group for problems. You may be able
to mitigate that risk with a civil and cooperative relationship with
your wife, and being involved with your kids. If you go this route,
it may be helpful to read “The Good Divorce” by Constance Ahrons,
Ph.D.
Chris Reynolds works in
private practice in Anchorage, where he specializes in individual
therapy, couples therapy and sexual issues. He can be reached
through his website at
www.reynoldstherapy.com.
PLEASE NOTE:
Readers are welcome to submit personal questions about relationships
with husbands, wives, boy/girlfriends, children, friends, etc.
Published questions may be edited for anonymity or brevity. Have you
been pondering a question you'd like another perspective on? Please
e-mail Chris at
chris@reynoldstherapy.com for possible inclusion in the next
edition of Alaska Wellness. And remember: “There are no bad
questions!”
