Is divorce really helping or hurting American families and relationships? With 40-50% of marriages ending in a divorce, the question has come up are they actually helping the family’s or corrupting them (Morin). A marriage that is failing can sometimes destroy the whole family including the kids life’s in the family. Divorce has a strong enough effect to hurt and disrupt all the relationships around the family. Also 60% of Americans that try to remarry end up having another divorce (Clark).
Current evidence shows getting a divorce can be significantly worse than working on and through the relationship.
There is no doubt the American people are getting divorces, they are by far more common and accepted in today’s culture but the question is why? Why would a family get a divorce if they know some of the serious consequences that can come with it. Commitment has been shown to be a clear factor in why some couples stay together.
There are times when divorce is necessary, but those in other situations where often later show the couple wish they would have tried harder before divorcing (Berlin). Many people in today’s culture give up, if something is not how they like it or someone they don’t like is associated with what they are doing they give up. This directly translates into life and comes back to effect you later on in life. Quitting shows up in life especially when you start to do it early in life, also maybe it’s the way children are brought up.
If you are brought up in a divorce family you definitely would have a different perspective on it, either good or bad. There are many factors that put a couple at higher risk for divorce. It may be helpful to know some of the statistics and facts about divorce. Some of the top reasons people get divorced in today’s society is money, losing identity, and especially getting married for the wrong reasons (Clark). When I say the wrong reasons, the thing is that many of the people today getting married are very young and either in college or just getting out.
If your marriage is starting to go down hill then before giving up on it there are many different ways couples try to save and rebuild the relationship. After looking through some research the ways that most couples restart or slow down and examine their relationship is by looking at there intentions going through therapy, building a bridge over problems, apologizing to one another, and steering away from control (Clark). They key component here is that the couples try one or maybe 2 of these things to save the family. Now one of these is probably more significant then others and most common, and that is therapy. The top three types are couples therapy, family therapy and imago therapy. Couples therapy is when both of the partners in marriage are together guiding through the relationship they have built. Now while some individual counseling can help one of the parents to overcome certain issues that could well affect the built relationship, looking at your built relationship as a whole is a responsibility for the couple as a unit, not as individuals(Stepler). Almost every marriage counselors know this and will only work with an individual if the partner has agreed to join sessions later.
The second major type is family therapy, most of the time used when one of the partners in the marriage are being different and do not wanna go to any type of therapy. Some of these models such as family systems therapy can be used at anything from an individual level to a full out family, and some of the best types of marriage counseling are those that consider the dynamics of the wider family and their effects on a couple. Family therapy can look at ways that individuals in a family have taken on or have assigned roles in the everyday life of the family. Now how those roles make them feel, and how to move the roles around if members of the family are unhappy with their places. It can be useful to combine family therapy with other types of marriage counseling, such as more traditional couples therapy, in order to get a broader picture of the problems and hence possible solutions.
The third major type of therapy is Imago, this can be mainly used if the marriage partner is reluctant to commit to counseling if he or she believes that all types of marriage counseling are based on standard psychotherapy talking cures. The fear of criticism or of being asked to talk about feelings that are difficult to put into words can be very off-putting. Imago Relationship Theory seeks to avoid this by looking at how couples form relationships based on their individual weaknesses and how these are mirrored in the choice of partner. It is a way to heal these needs without assigning blame and can be very successful in terms of helping couples rethink their dynamic. Marriage therapists who use this technique generally subscribe to the relational model of psychotherapy as opposed to the individual model, further reducing pressure on any reluctant individual. Most people who use say that it can be very productive, because of the conversations forced and started.
Divorce And Family Therapy In The US. (2022, Jul 15). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/divorce-and-family-therapy-in-the-us/