Divorce: Causes, Psychological Impact - Research Paper Example

Psychological effect and causes of divorce A family is a unit of society that plays a very important role. Thus, divorce is not a problem of a husband and a wife; it is a problem of the whole society. Thus, it is necessary to reveal the main causes of divorce ad its psychological effect in order to provide people, who went through this in their life, with necessary psychological help.Family life is not always a source of pleasure. It cant always proceed without any problems as there are many family difficulties.

Unfortunately, not every family can cope with them. The psychological reasons of divorce, as a rule, are anyway connected with the feeling of dissatisfaction with marriage of one or the both spouses (Swarns).Various opinion polls showed that any divorce, even desired one brings a serious psychological trauma to both spouses. Problems, which stand before getting divorced, are related to such aspects of life as the division of property, creation of new relationship with friends, relatives and children, formations of the new attitude to life, job search.

The main reasons of divorce are usually the following: long matrimonial conflicts, discontent with the distribution of matrimonial roles and duties, material and household problems, alcoholism of one of spouses, adultery. It is determined that those people who went through the divorce of their parents in their childhood, very often divorce with their spouses. This can be the consequence by the psychological trauma received in childhood when the parents decided to destroy the family (Amato & Sobolewski).

Impact of difficult life situations on a family leads to violation of its functions: educational, economic, sexual and so forth. These violations inevitably influence the wellbeing of family members, do not allow them to satisfy the requirements, cause a condition of internal tension and discomfort, represent a source of somatic, psychological and behavioral frustration (Rapoport).During the divorce the spouses can feel a strong stress and have various emotions such as anger and grief, fear, sense of guilt and desire to revenge the former spouse.

If the decision about divorce was made unilaterally, the partner accuses the initiator of divorce, has feeling of powerless rage or helplessness, rejection and loss. Material and parental problems which can not be solved rationally because of the psychological state and an emotional component of the interpersonal conflict, can be the content of disputes. The abandoned partner has a question: "How to live further and whether to live in general?" Such situation can even lead to suicide, thus these people should receive urgent psychological help (Cherlin).

A family is very important for the society, thus psychological work should be done in order to reduce the number of divorces. First, it is necessary to provide children who went through the divorce of parents with psychological help to prevent his/her divorce in future. Secondly, it is necessary to help divorced recover and build a new family. Such measures taken can be really effective and will help save many families and improve the life of the society.Works CitedAmato P. R.; Sobolewski, J. M.

"The effects of divorce and marital discord on adult childrens psychological well-being" (PDF). American Sociological Review 66, 2001Rapoport, Yossef. Marriage, Money and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society. Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 2.Cherlin, AJ. Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992, p. 142.Swarns, Rachel L. "More Americans Rejecting Marriage in 50s and Beyond". The New York Times, 2002.