Over the past 50 years, there has been a great change in the family structure of our society. The institute of marriage has decreased, while the rate of divorce and cohabitation has drastically increased. How are these changes affecting the families involved? Many studies have been done about the effects on the partners and their children, but few studies have followed the grown-up children and their romantic relationships. The following research studies look at different aspects that affect the offspring's romantic relationships. The Family of origin can have significant effects on offspring's adult romantic relationships.
Amato and Booth (2001), Professors of Sociology at Penn State, studied the transmission of marital relationships quality over generations. From 1980-1997, they conducted a 17-year longitudinal study with a nationally representative sample of 297 parents and their married offspring by means of verbal interviewing. The data was acquired from when the children were at home living with their parents and when they had moved away and married themselves. There were five main questions regarding quality of relationships that were studied. Amato and Booth found that the parents' reports of marital discord are positively related to offspring's reports of marital discord. Next, the marital quality is not spurious because there were many controls used for the parents and child's characteristic variables, but there is an indirect link that children replicate the behavior they see their parents displaying, which is observational learning. For instance, children learn the problematic interpersonal behaviors that the parents display. Subsequently, there was no evidence supporting the idea that parent-child relationships affect transmission of marital quality. Finally, the children's marriages were affected by shifts in the quality of parents' marriage. If parental marriage becomes more harmonious, then children's marriage benefits, but if they become worse, then the children's marriages will suffer. The quality of the child's subsequent marriage is not based on whether the parents divorce, but on the marital discord present in the household.
Tallman, Rotolo, and Gray (2001) conducted a study different aspects of the "intergenerational continuity or discontinuity" on newly married couples. They theorized that when children observe the behavior and expectations from their family of origin, they carry those learned ideas and behaviors into their future marriages. Unless these behaviors are changed early on in their marriage, it will continue with them throughout the rest of the marriage. A randomly selected sample of newlyweds, from the state of Washington, were interviewed in their homes and participated in videotaped discussions involving problem solving between the couple. This occurred during 3 yearly observations. The sample was divided into four groups based on their family of origin types: INT (both spouses from intact families), HDIV (only husband from divorced family), WDIV (only wife from divorced family), and BDIV (both spouses from divorced families). The experimenters measured and compared the stability of each of these groups based on three indicators. The three indicators were distrust, magnitude of disagreements, and marital conflict. Distrust was measured by the Dyadic Trust Scale. Magnitude of disagreements was measured during an interview that was conducted each year. Marital conflict was measured by trained judges who observed the videotapes of the couples. The results showed that initially none of the groups showed any variance, but over 3 year period, the BDIV had increased in amounts of distrust, magnitude of disagreements, and had a greater increase in marital conflict. For the WDIV and HDIV, the partner from the intact family responded more positively to negative statements and also remained positive about conflicts and problem solving. This helped to positively change the attitudes and responses of the partner from the divorced family. One result that was surprising was that there was a significant increase in the amount of negativity, involving complaining and criticizing, in the INT group. Tallman et al. hypothesized that this might happen because of natural development in marriage.
Does family disruption affect young adult's adjustment for romantic relationships? Shulman et al. studied this question by collecting data from 51 romantically involved young Israeli college students. Each student was from a divorced family and they were not married but were in a romantic relationship for at least three months. Data was collected by means of interviews and questionnaires. The interview was taped and used later for rating. The first part consisted of questions about their romantic partner. This was rated on a five point scale as to whether the relationship was special or unique. The second part consisted of questions about their parent's divorce. This was also rated on the five point scale, which dealt with the ability to resolve issues regarding the divorce. The scale was based on perception of divorce (awareness of reality and understanding of different perspectives), sense of loss in the past, sense of current loss, anger, and lack of memory (regarding the memory of the divorce). The participant was also given 2 questionnaires. The first was about the romantic partner and the second was about the parental divorce. Both of these were used to conclude the following results. Sense of loss, past and current, or anger was not correlated with the quality of the romantic relationship. But, if the participant had an integrated perception of their parents divorce, the romantic relationship seemed to have "higher levels of friendship, enjoyment, intimacy, and fewer problems" (Shulman et al.). Next, a lack of memory of the divorce showed a correlation with lack of trust in regards to the partner. The study concluded that an integrated perception of divorce was a key aspect in producing a healthy romantic relationship.
While all of these studies are not showing the same information researched or the same results, each of these studies provides substantial evidence of the affects of divorce on the offspring and their romantic adult relationships. Marital discord among the parents has a strong negative correlation with offspring's marital quality. There are vast differences in relationships quality when looking at the family of origin such as both romantic spouses being from divorced families, one spouse from a divorced family, and neither spouses from divorced families. Finally, many times the offspring's adult romantic relationships can be shaped by their own thoughts and ability of resolution from the parental divorce. Each of these aspects studied shows great information regarding the types of negative impact a divorce can have on the children. Through these studies, they show how that impact can be carried with them through life, even through their own personal romantic relationships. While none of these studies researched the direct correlation between parental divorce rates and rates of divorce offspring, each study gives information and evidence for why this correlation may exist.
Amato, P.R., & Booth, A. (2001). The legacy of parents' marital discord: Consequences for children's marital quality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(4), 627-638.
Shulman, S., Scharf, M., Lumer, D., & Maurer O. (2001). Parental divorce and young adult children's romantic relationships: Resolution of the divorce experience. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 71(4), 473-478.
Tallman, I., Rotolo, T., & Gray, L.N. (2004). Continuity or change? The impact of parents' divorce on newly married couples. Social Psychology Quarterly, 64(4), 333-346.
Children and Separation / Divorce (http://www.helpguide.org/mental/children_divorce.htm)
At Higher Risk for Divorce? (http://divorcesupport.about.com/cs/youreok/a/acodhigherrisk.htm)
Beating a Legacy of Marital Failure (http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51158)
Contributed by Katie Den Ouden, April 13, 2006.