Divorce and All the Consequences

# Divorce and All the Consequences Divorce is one of the most stressful life events many people go through. Even when the separation is wanted, necessary, or may bring more peace in the long run, it often comes with grief, anxiety, guilt, financial stress, and extensive practical and relational reorganization. For children, their parents' breakup can feel like a crack in the very foundation: predictability, belonging and security. It is important to hold two truths at once: a divorce can be harmful, and a family marked by chronic conflict can also be harmful. It is not the word "divorce" alone that determines children's outcomes, but the process around the separation, the quality of parental cooperation, the level of conflict, and the support the child receives afterwards. In the book *Skilsmissebarna – the stories that weren't told* Sanna Sarromaa has interviewed adults who grew up with divorce close to their bones. Her accounts provide a valuable entry to the divorce's "long tail": how the experiences can shape views of love, commitment and security well into adulthood. ## Divorce as a process – not a single event Many people describe divorce as "what happened when I was 7" or "that summer dad moved out." Psychologically, however, divorce is rarely a single point in time. It is a process that often begins long before the break (with distance, arguing, silent contempt or emotional disconnection), and continues long afterwards (with new partners, living arrangements, financial changes, loyalty conflicts and identity adjustments). For children this process can feel like persistent uncertainty: Who is in charge? Who takes care of whom? What can I trust? In a period when children normally "borrow" calm from their parents' regulating capacity, the parents themselves may be emotionally overloaded. Then children can be left more alone with big emotions than they developmentally have the capacity for. Sarromaa's material points directly to this long-term perspective: divorce does not simply pass. It becomes a reference point in the way some people learn to understand love. ## The child's security: Attachment and fear of abandonment A central psychological lens here is attachment theory. It concerns how children, through repeated experiences with caregivers, develop expectations about others: Is the world safe? Are others available? Am I worthy of love? When a child's primary base splits, it can awaken a fundamental fear: "If those who were supposed to be safe can disappear from each other – could they disappear from me too?" Sarromaa describes how many children of divorce carry with them a strong fear of being abandoned. This does not mean that all children of divorce develop lasting difficulties, but it points to a typical vulnerability: when love becomes associated with breakups, closeness can also feel risky. In adulthood this can show up in several ways: - **Over-adaptation and reassurance-seeking**: becoming very concerned with "not being a bother" to avoid rejection. - **Control and jealousy**: trying to prevent loss by monitoring and controlling. - **Emotional distance**: holding back so it hurts less if it ends. - **Ambivalence toward commitment**: longing for closeness but becoming uneasy about it. These are not "weaknesses" of personality. They are often creative strategies that once made sense in an unpredictable environment. ## The paradox: The vow to never divorce – and the increased risk anyway Many who grow up with divorce promise themselves they will never do the same. At the same time, research shows that children of divorce on average have a higher risk of relationship breakdown as adults. This can feel like a painful paradox. How can this be understood psychologically? 1. **Modeling and expectations**: Children learn relational logic by observing. If the closest example of "long-term love" ended in separation, it can be easier to assume that breakups are the typical ending. 2. **Stress-sensitivity in conflict**: If the level of conflict in the childhood home was high, one may as an adult be more triggered by disagreement. Conflict can feel like a warning that love is about to disappear. 3. **Vulnerability to "self-protective distance"**: One withdraws to avoid being abandoned – but the distance can itself create a breakup. The decisive point is to see this as an understandable dynamic, not as destiny. Patterns can be recognized, processed and changed. ## The importance of conflict: Children can tolerate a lot – but not prolonged unsafe disagreement One of the most robust findings in research on children and divorce is that it is not just about parents moving apart, but about the **level of conflict** and the quality of the relationship between the parents. High and persistent conflict can become embedded in a child's nervous system: increased vigilance, stress responses, sleep problems and a feeling of having to "read the room" all the time. Over time this can increase the risk of mental health problems. It is important to be precise here: conflict in itself is not dangerous. Disagreement is normal in close relationships. What often becomes burdensome for children are conflicts that: - become frequent and intense - contain contempt, ridicule or threats - are unpredictable and "never resolved" - pull the child in as messenger, judge or comforter When children do not know whether there will be a fight at dinner, or whether a perfectly ordinary conversation can suddenly escalate, the home becomes less regulating. The child can then lose what should be a psychological given: the ability to be a child. ## Triangulation: When the child becomes a tool in the parents' fight A particularly demanding dynamic is **triangulation**. This means that the child – consciously or unconsciously – is drawn into the parents' relationship to handle tension between the adults. Triangulation can look like: - the child being used as a messenger ("Tell your father that…") - the child becoming emotionally allied with one parent ("At least you understand me") - the child getting the role of peacemaker ("Don't fight, please") - the child creating "problems" to bring the parents together about something (an unconscious strategy to reduce tension) Sarromaa's descriptions of "symptoms" carried forward can be understood in this landscape: the child adapts to an unstable system, and the strategies may follow into adult relationships. In adulthood the echo of triangulation can appear as a tendency to: - create drama when the relationship becomes too calm (because calm feels unfamiliar) - test a partner's love through provocation - seek third parties (friends, family, social media) to regulate the couple's tension The point is not to "pathologize" children of divorce, but to make visible how early relational experiences can shape later interaction. ## Divorce, grief and loyalty: What the child rarely says out loud Children often grieve differently than adults. They can switch quickly between play and sadness. They can become more irritable, clingier or more withdrawn. They may get stomachaches, become unsettled at school or have outbursts of anger that seem "too big." In many families a loyalty conflict arises: the child senses that love for one parent can feel like betrayal of the other. Some children also become what can be called emotional thermometers – they try to sense which parent "tolerates least" and adapt accordingly. Adults can, without meaning to, reinforce this by speaking negatively about the other parent, sharing too much about finances or infidelity, or seeking comfort from the child. Then the child becomes a carrier of adult feelings, and the space of childhood shrinks. ## Separation or chronic conflict: The difficult choice Sarromaa emphasizes that we should not trivialize the consequences of divorce for children. It is an important corrective in a culture that sometimes moves too quickly to say "children will be fine." At the same time it is equally important to acknowledge that consequences can also be significant if parents remain in a relationship characterized by chronic, untreated conflict. There is no simple formula that fits all families. But there are questions that can help: - Can we be respectful in disagreement, or does it become contempt and belittling? - Have we tried to understand our patterns, or are we just repeating them? - Are the children being pulled into the conflict, or are they being shielded? - Do we have support around us, or are we standing alone in the chaos? Here **couples therapy** can be an important measure, whether the goal is to repair the relationship or to carry out a separation in a gentler way. For some it is most helpful to get support to end the "war," regardless of whether they stay together or go their separate ways. ## "Dark feelings" in love: irritation, contempt and what goes unsaid Long-term relationships cannot withstand forbidding difficult feelings. Many associate love with the idea that one "should not get irritated" or that good couples "never argue." The reality is that irritation, dissatisfaction, jealousy, disappointment and even contempt can appear in all close relationships. The difference lies in how the feelings are handled. - If irritation is expressed as personal criticism ("You are always so…"), it creates distance. - If it is expressed as a need and vulnerability ("I get worried when… can we talk about it?"), it can create connection. A common path to relational collapse is that negative feelings either: 1. explode into attack and defense, or 2. are frozen into silence and emotional disconnection. Both create insecurity. Over time this can become a climate where breakups feel more likely – and for children of divorce it can also activate old expectations that "this will probably break anyway." ## Openness, acceptance and constructive conflict as protective factors What often distinguishes couples who come out stronger from difficulties from those who break apart is less about avoiding conflict and more about developing skills for **constructive conflict**. Some key protective factors are: - **Openness**: being able to bring up topics before they become toxic. - **Acceptance of difference**: understanding that a partner's otherness is not necessarily a threat. - **Repair**: the ability to apologize, adjust course and find each other again after clashes. - **Clear boundaries toward the children**: handling disagreements between adults without involving the child. Being able to tolerate discomfort together is in practice a competence in love. It makes the relationship more robust, and it also makes the children's inner world more stable – whether the parents stay together or separate. ## Paths to healing for adult children of divorce For adults who feel that their childhood divorce still "resides in the system," it is often helpful to work on three areas: 1. **The story you tell yourself** - What did I learn about love? - What rules do I live by (for example: "I must manage on my own" or "Closeness ends in breakup")? 2. **Emotional regulation in close relationships** - What happens in my body during conflict? - Do I withdraw, attack, or over-adapt? 3. **Relational choices and skills** - Do I choose partners who confirm old patterns? - Can I practice clear communication, boundaries and repair? This is not about "finishing" with the past, but about integrating it: seeing what you carried with you without letting it control everything. ## Final reflection Divorce leaves traces, but traces are not the same as a sentence. It can change a child's experience of security, shape expectations about love and increase vulnerability to breakups later in life. At the same time it is entirely possible to develop healthy, stable and warm relationships – even with a childhood history in which the love between parents did not hold. What often matters most is not that a separation happens, but how the adults handle it: whether conflict is reduced, whether the child is shielded from loyalty battles, whether feelings are met with respect, and whether it is made clear to the child that a reliable base still exists. Divorce is not a single event. It affects life courses. Precisely for that reason it deserves a language that takes the consequences seriously, without making them destiny – and with an eye to the fact that healing is possible, both for children and adults. --- **Do you want to explore this topic further?** This is a topic psychologist Sondre Risholm Liverød talks more about in the podcast episode of the same name. You can find the episode as part of the practice material at [BeBalanced.ai](https://bebalanced.ai).