Childhood perspectives | Divorce Harder on Men | Shacking Up - 5/22/07

Tue May 22 22:14:13 EDT 2007

- 75% OF MARRIED COUPLES REPORT HAVING HAD VERY DIFFICULT CHILDHOODS
- DIVORCE HITS MEN HARDER
- 'SHACK' ATTACK ON NUPS: UNWEDDED BLISS AS DIVORCE DECLINES

#####################

- 75% OF MARRIED COUPLES REPORT HAVING HAD VERY DIFFICULT CHILDHOODS

This one is thought provoking and more evidence for an argument I've been
making that we should include genograms in marriage education - help couples
gain some perspective on intergenerational realities.  There is nothing like
participating in a large genogram class to help you see that EVERYONE had a
childhood with parents that might have loved you too much and expected too
much or loved you too little and expected too little - or all sorts of
combinations/permutations in between. I encourage you to take the genogram
class in Denver and think about how you might add these tools to what you
currently offer.  And/or explore "The Museum Tour" exercise in the PAIRS
program. AND, submit workshops on ways to address these issues with couples
at the 2008 conference.  75% is a whopping number.  - diane

> 706
> Genograms & Cutoff
> Robert Mathis, PhD
> Help couples identify the intergenerational influences of their family system,
> understand the effects of cutoff on marriage, and, using their genograms, give
> them a broad view for change.

Making the Most of Life, Even Without a Perfect Childhood
The Washington Post
By Abigail Trafford
Tuesday, May 22, 2007; HE04

Looking back, what would you most want to change about your life? The
question is posed to a group of older men and women in Greenville, S.C., who
have been meeting every week in a continuing education program for more than
a decade.

The most frequent answer? Parents! Roughly 20 percent of the group replies
that their parents are what they would most like to change in their lives.
Oh, to have had a better childhood, a cleaner start. After more than half a
century, the hurt is still raw. After successful lives as artists, teachers,
business managers, ministers, government leaders, they hold on to simmering
rage. After becoming parents and grandparents themselves, they let their
judgment harden.

A man in the group explains it to me: His father died when he was a
teenager. His mother was needy, demanding and angry. Nothing he did was ever
right. He left home at 16 and never looked back . . . except in anger.

I'm shocked. I think of my own childhood, its sorrows with a depressed,
alcoholic mother. There were times growing up when I wished I had parents
like my friends', the good mothers who drove carpools and brought cookies to
school. But now a photograph of my parents rests on a table, a
black-and-white of a young attractive couple, sitting side by side, playing
a duet with recorders, and I know, in so many ways, I am my parents'
daughter. At this point, long after my parents have died, I can't imagine
wanting to change them -- to return them to the parent pool and get some
better models, as a way to revise the darker scripts of childhood or protest
the ancient suffering.

Yet for some, the shadow of the early years is clearly long. The emotional
experience of parents, researchers tell us, lays down the framework for
adult relationships. People who experienced a safe harbor of love and
support as children go into marriage with an advantage of knowing what to
expect and how to behave in a satisfying relationship.

But those with bleaker pasts don't feel so safe in adult relationships. When
you were a child, did you get comfort if you were upset or frightened? If
not, and you're still upset about it, "you won't expect to get what you need
in the [current] relationship," says California psychologist Carolyn Pape
Cowan. And so the pattern of disappointment and rage may continue.

People with difficult childhoods often set out to do just the opposite of
their parents. Many are able to build safer relationships in adulthood
despite a painful family legacy.

But who has a perfect childhood? The dysfunctional family has become an icon
in pop culture. Look at the movie "Little Miss Sunshine": It's hard to see
where the dysfunction begins or ends. But as the French would say: Cherchez
mom & pop. Indeed, a high proportion of men and women who get married have
negative feelings toward their parents.

In a study of middle-class couples in California, an amazing 75 percent of
the participants reported having had very difficult childhoods. How can
couples go through the predictable stresses of a long marriage and flourish
into old age if they start out with such negative feelings toward their past
and their parents?

"How do you achieve forgiveness?" asks Philip A. Cowan, who with his wife,
Carolyn, headed the study: "If you don't, you can't move on."

Forgiveness, Cowan says, comes when you put a negative relationship in
perspective. "Can you say: 'They were doing the best they could. They didn't
know any better?' " Those who can, Cowan continues, "do better in their
current relationships with partners and with children than people who are
still angry."

It's hard to heal old wounds. Some do it in therapy, some by forging a
loving bond with a grandchild, some through art. Whatever the pathway, the
process leads to a richer experience of love.

####################################
- DIVORCE HITS MEN HARDER

Divorce hits men harder: StatsCan
May 22, 2007 
Lorrayne Anthony
Canadian press

> "What we tend to forget in many instances, for the men in particular, they see
> children all but removed from their lives, which is a huge impact on your
> life."
> 
> The study said the relationship between marital breakup and depression was
> independent of other factors associated with breakups  changes in household
> income, social support or the number of children in the household.

The stereotype might be that a man relishes trading his wife for a fast car
or a younger woman, but a new study finds that men appear to take separation
harder than women.

While both men and women whose marriages have dissolved have a higher risk
of being depressed than people who remained with their spouses, a Statistics
Canada study found that men who had divorced or separated were six times
more likely to report an episode of depression compared with men who
remained married.

Women who had undergone marital breakups were 3.5 times more likely to have
had bouts of depression than their counterparts who were still in
relationships.

The survey found that 12 per cent of people who were no longer in a
relationship reported a new episode of depression, while just three per cent
of those who remained in a relationship had suffered new depression.

Michelle Rotermann, the author of the study, said she was surprised, and
also not surprised, by the results.

"On the one hand we know depression in general tends to be more common among
women, but there is also a lot of evidence that shows that men have fewer
social supports and social support does seem to play a role," she said.

"Perhaps one of the reasons why men are more at risk of experiencing
subsequent depression is because one of their main sources of social support
is their partner, their spouse, and now she is no longer there," said
Rotermann, an analyst at Statistics Canada.

Nineteen per cent of men who were no longer with their spouse found a
decline in social support, while only six per cent of men who remained in a
relationship found a drop. Among women the proportions were 11 per cent for
those no longer in a relationship and five for those who were.

Jenni Tipper, a research associate with the Vanier Institute of the Family
in Ottawa, said "typically women are much better at building and maintaining
social supports, which isn't often the case for men."

After a breakup, women tended to live in households with an income ranking
far below that of their male counterparts. In fact, nearly 30 per cent of
recently divorced or separated men actually experienced an improvement in
the ranking of their adjusted household income, the study reported.

The study found that 34 per cent of men and three per cent of women were
residing with at least one less child after the breakdown of their
relationship.

Tipper said the study is a good reminder that the breakdown of a marriage is
an extremely challenging transition for everybody involved.

"We sometimes tend to think that it's the woman who bears the brunt of a
divorce outcome. And there is no question that women experience higher
levels of economic strife," Tipper said. "What we tend to forget in many
instances, for the men in particular, they see children all but removed from
their lives, which is a huge impact on your life."

The study said the relationship between marital breakup and depression was
independent of other factors associated with breakups  changes in household
income, social support or the number of children in the household.

More than three-quarters of those who suffered depression in the
post-relationship period were no longer depressed four years after the
breakup, the findings show.

"It sort of suggests that, for the majority, the effects of your
relationship breaking up ... people seem to get back on their feet but there
is this significant minority for whom trouble seems to persist," said
Rotermann.

The study was based on longitudinal data from the National Population Health
Survey, which was taken at two-year intervals between 1994 and 2005. The
7,614 respondents were between the ages of 20 and 64, and free of depression
and in a relationship the first time they were interviewed.

###########################

'SHACK' ATTACK ON NUPS
UNWEDDED BLISS AS DIVORCE DECLINES
The New York Post 
By RITA DELFINER

May 22, 2007 -- The U.S. divorce rate has dipped to its lowest level in
decades, but there's a hitch - more couples are living together without
tying the knot, experts say.

The nation's divorce rate, which peaked at 5.3 divorces per 1,000 people in
1981, is now 3.6. It's the lowest rate since 1970, according to federal
figures.

"It's a spurious statistic," said Manhattan divorce lawyer Raoul Felder,
arguing it doesn't reflect the fact that some shack up.

"Now, living together without benefit of marriage is an acceptable state of
grace," he said. "It's a way of life for celebrities. Every time I look at
Page Six the child is older than the couple has been married."

Felder said he's drawn "living together agreements" that spell out who gets
what if the couple breaks up.

Matt Mutchler, University of Connecticut assistant professor of human
development and family studies, and a family therapist, said divorce rates
may be on the decline because getting one is difficult and that fact has
helped "people become more committed to working out the problems in their
marriage."

He also pointed out that "the rates of people living together outside of
marriage are increasing and that's a hard group to study. There could be
many reasons."

For instance, some may already have been divorced and are ready to commit to
a new relationship, but don't want to wed and face "potentially divorcing
again."

"People are becoming more thoughtful before they decide to marry," he said.
"It's more acceptable today if a woman becomes pregnant to not get married,
whereas in the 1980s it was not acceptable."

He said the real issue is the impact on kids whose parents break up,
regardless of whether they are married or not.

"Divorce is just a legal term," Mutchler said. "What really affects the kids
is the emotional process that occurs when their parents are no longer in a
relationship."

In another take on the statistics, some researchers say there is a "divorce
divide," where break-up rates are falling among college-educated couples,
but not among less-educated ones.

"Families with two earners with good jobs have seen an improvement in their
standard of living, which leads to less tension at home and lower
probability of divorce," the Associated Press quoted Johns Hopkins professor
Andrew Cherlin as saying.

There are many programs, courses and workshops available for those who want
to work on their marriage.

Diane Sollee is founder of SmartMarriages.com, a Web-based clearing house
for "information on how to make your marriage sexy and successful."

It's a "radical new approach to marriage, based on the idea that you can get
smarter about marriage, that it's not just about finding the right person,"
she said.

"It's understanding that disagreement and irreconcilable differences are
part of a normal, happy, successful marriage" and that couples can "learn to
cherish the differences they have and [they can] learn how to manage their
differences."

**************************
Send submissions and comments for the listserv to: diane at smartmarriages.com
Do NOT hit "reply". If you hit reply your email will go into cyberspace and
NO ONE will see your email.

This is a moderated list. Submissions and comments are read by Diane Sollee,
editor. Please indicate if your comment is NOT to be shared with the list.
PLEASE include your email address or url as part of your signature.

Please also understand that with thousands of subscribers, not all comments
can be shared. Also realize that opinions expressed are not necessarily
shared by members of the Coalition.

To SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, or Change your subscription address,
use the form at: http://www.smartmarriages.com. Click Newslist - in the
column under the puzzle piece.

To read past posts to the listserv, visit the Archive at:
http://lists101.his.com/pipermail/smartmarriages/

11th Annual Smart Marriages Conference, Denver Adam's Mark Hotel,
June 28-July 1, 2007
Download a brochure: http://www.smartmarriages.com/Brochure.07.pdf

List your program and resources on the Directory of Classes at
http://www.smartmarriages.com

Order conference audio & video CD/DVD/MP3s: 800-241-7785 or
http://www.iPlaybackSmartMarriages.com

Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, LLC (CMFCE)
Diane Sollee, Director
5310 Belt Rd NW, Washington, DC 20015-1961
http://www.smartmarriages.com
202-362-3332

FAIR USE NOTICE: This e-newsletter/site contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. We make such material available in our efforts to advance
understanding of marriage, family, couples, divorce, legislation, family
breakdown, etc. We understand this constitutes a 'fair use' of such material
as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you
wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own
that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner.