"JUST WHOM IS THIS DIVORCE 'GOOD' FOR? Washington Post Just Whom Is This Divorce 'Good' For? By Elizabeth Marquardt Sunday, November 6, 2005; B01
It happens to about 1 million American children every year. Their parents sit them down and deliver the news that they're divorcing. ... We found that children of so-called "good" divorces often do worse even than children of unhappy low-conflict marriages -- they say more often, for example, that family life was stressful and that they had to grow up too soon; and they are themselves more likely to divorce -- and that they do much worse than children raised in happy marriages. In a finding that shatters the myth of the "good" divorce, they told us that divorce sowed lasting inner conflict in their lives even when their parents did not fight. No matter how "good" their parents were at it, the children of divorce were travelers between two very different worlds, negotiating often vastly different rules and roles.
Although only one-fifth told us that their parents had "a lot" of conflict after splitting up, the children of divorce said, over and over, that the breakup itself made their parents' worlds seem locked in lasting conflict. Two-thirds said their parents seemed like polar opposites in the years following the divorce, compared to just one-third of young adults with married parents. Close to half said that after the divorce they felt like a different person with each of their parents -- something only a quarter of children from intact families said. Half said their divorced parents' versions of truth were different, compared to just a fifth of those with married parents. More than twice as many children of divorce as children of intact families said that after the divorce they were asked to keep important secrets -- and many more felt the need to do so, even when their parents did not ask them to. "
