Divorces Traumatize Young Adults as Well as Children

When a marriage hits the skids, many parents decide to stay together until their kids go away to college, believing that their children will be old enough by then to escape the trauma of their disintegrating family.

But a new study indicates that young adults are usually traumatized when they call home to find out that mom and dad don’t have the same address anymore.

“The common wisdom is that it’s not going to affect kids already out of the home,” said Katherine Stone Kaufmann, a clinical social worker who conducted the study as part of her dissertation at Harvard University. “What I found out is that is not correct.”

Kaufmann interviewed 15 male and 15 female college students ages 18 to 23 at private colleges in the Boston area in 1985 and 1986 and found that most reacted strongly to the news that their parents were breaking up.

At least two-thirds of the students reported feelings of aloneness, anger, anxiety, pressure and sadness had increased as a result of their parents’ separation.

Seventy-three percent of the women and more than one-third of the men in the study reported having trouble with their studies because of the trauma; 20% of the students reported they increased their consumption of alcohol or drugs; 37% had sleeping problems, and 27% had eating problems.

The average length of their parents’ marriage was 23 years. All the parents had at least separated, and in 90% of the cases at least one parent had filed for divorce. Half the students’ parents were divorced.

All the students were already at school when the separation occurred. The average length of time they were at school before the separation was nine months.

“For some there was the sense that their parents had been waiting. Some kids were even told that. What happened in other instances was that when the kid went away to school the dynamics of the family changed. We know that changes. A lot of couples become very disenchanted after their children leave. They realize they have been together for the children,” she said.

Kaufmann also found that the parents’ problems affected their childrens’ views on such things as marriage and relationships at a time of their lives when they were often involved in relationships or thinking about getting married.

Seventy-three percent of the students said the breakup had changed their views on marriage and relationships, primarily by making them more wary and skeptical about the chances of forming and sustaining healthy relationships. But a majority of the students still said they planned to marry.

Some of the women said their parents’ separation had made them realize that they must establish separate identities for themselves to avoid being as vulnerable as their mothers if their marriages failed, she said.

Kaufmann said there is no simple advice for parents trying to decide when to divorce. If their relationship is fairly harmonious, it may be beneficial for the children if the parents stay together as long as they can. If the atmosphere at home is unpleasant, it may be better not to wait, she said.

There were some positive results. Eighty-seven percent said the divorce had benefited them in some way. Most students had developed closer relationships with their siblings.

“Some of them were amazed they had survived it,” Kaufmann said. “They thought they would crumble. But in fact they were still standing.”