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Essays About Divorce: Top 5 Examples and 7 Prompts

Essays about divorce can be challenging to write; read on to see our top essay examples and writing prompts to help you get started.

Divorce is the legal termination of a marriage. It can be a messy affair, especially if it includes children. Dividing the couple’s assets also often causes chaos when divorce proceedings are in session. 

Divorce also touches and considers religion and tradition. Therefore, laws are formed depending on the country’s history, culture, and belief system.

To help you choose what you want to talk about regarding this topic, here are examples you can read to get an idea of what kind of essay you want to write.

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1. Divorce Should Be Legalized in the Philippines by Ernestine Montgomery

2. to divorce or not to divorce by mark ghantous, 3. what if you mess up by manis friedman, 4. divorce: a life-changing experience by writer louie, 5. divorce’s effects on early adult relationships by percy massey, 1. the major reasons for divorce, 2. why i support divorce, 3. my divorce experience, 4. how to avoid divorce, 5. divorce and its effects on my family, 6. the consequences of divorce, 7. divorce laws around the world.

“What we need is a divorce law that defines clearly and unequivocally the grounds and terms for terminating a marriage… Divorce is a choice and we all should have the freedom to make choices… in cases where a union is more harmful than beneficial, a divorce can be benevolent and less hurtful way of severing ties with your partner.”

As the title suggests, Montgomery and his other colleagues discuss why the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country, needs to allow divorce. Then, to strengthen his argument, he mentions that Spain, the root of Christianity, and Italy, where the Vatican City is, administer divorce. 

He also mentions bills, relevant figures, and statistics to make his case in favor of divorce more compelling. Montgomery adds that people who want a divorce don’t necessarily mean they want to marry again, citing other motives such as abuse and marital failure.

“Divorce, being the final step in a detrimental marriage, brings upon the gruesome decision as to whether a married couple wishes to end that once made commitment they had for each other. As opposed to the present, divorce was rare in ancient times…”

Ghantous starts his essay with what divorce means, as not only an end of a commitment but also the termination of legal duties and other obligations of the couple to each other. He then talks about divorce in ancient times, when men had superior control over women and their children. He also mentions Caroline Norton, who fought with English family law that was clearly against women.

“So even though G‑d has rules,… laws,… divine commandments, when you sin, He tells you: ‘You messed up? Try again.’ That’s exactly how you should be married — by treating your spouse the way G‑d treats you. With that much mercy and compassion, that much kindness and consideration.”

Friedman’s essay discusses how the Torah sees marriage and divorce and explains it by recounting a scene with his daughters where they couldn’t follow a recipe. He includes good treatment and forgiveness necessary in spouses. But he also explains that God understands and doesn’t want people in a failed marriage to continue hurting. You might also be interested in these essays about commitment .

“Depending on the reasons that led up to the divorce the effects can vary… I was fourteen years old and the one child that suffered the most emotional damage… My parents did not discuss their reasons for the divorce with me, they didn’t have to, and I knew the reasons.”

The author starts the essay by citing the famous marital promise: “For better or worse, for richer or poorer,” before going in-depth regarding the divorce rate among Americans. He further expounds on how common divorce is, including its legalities. Although divorce has established legal grounds, it doesn’t consider the emotional trauma it will cause, especially for children.

Louie recounts how his life changed when his dad moved out, listing why his parents divorced. He ends the essay by saying society is at fault for commercializing divorce as if it’s the only option.

“With divorce becoming more prevalent, many researchers have taken it upon themselves to explore many aspects of this topic such as evolving attitudes, what causes divorce, and how it effects the outcome of children’s lives.”

Massey examines the causes of divorce and how it impacts children’s well-being by citing many relevant research studies. Some of the things he mentions are the connection between the child’s mental health, behavioral issues, and future relationships. Another is the trauma a child can endure during the divorce proceedings.

He also mentions that some children who had a broken family put marriage on a pedestal. As a result, they do their best to create a better future family and treat their children better.

Top 7 Prompts on Essays About Divorce

After adding to your knowledge about the subject, you’re better prepared to write essays about divorce.

There are many causes of the dissolution of marriage, and many essays have already discussed these reasons. However, you can explain these reasons differently. For example, you can focus on domestic abuse, constant fighting, infidelity, financial issues, etc.

If you want to make your piece stand out, you can include your personal experience, but only if you’re comfortable sharing your story with others. 

If you believe divorce offers a better life for all parties involved, list these benefits and explain them. Then, you can focus on a specific pro of legalizing divorce, such as getting out of an abusive relationship. 

If you want to write an essay to argue against the negative effects of divorce, here’s an excellent guide on how to write an argumentative essay .

This prompt is not only for anyone who has no or sole guardian. If you want to write about the experiences of a child raised by other people or who lives with a single parent, you can interview a friend or anyone willing to talk about their struggles and triumphs even if they didn’t have a set of parents.

Aside from reasons for divorce, you can talk about what makes these reasons more probable. Then, analyze what steps couples can take to avoid it. Such as taking couples’ therapy, weekly family get-together, etc. To make your essay more valuable, weigh in on what makes these tips effective.

Essays About Divorce: Divorce and its effects on my family

Divorce is diverse and has varying effects. There are many elements to its results, and no two sets of factors are precisely the same for two families. 

If you have an intimate experience of how your immediate and extended family dynamic had been affected by divorce, narrate those affairs. Include what it made you and the others around you feel. You might also be interested in these essays about conflict .

This is a broad prompt, but you can narrow it down by focusing on an experience you or a close friend had. You can also interview someone closely related to a divorce case, such as a lawyer, reporter, or researcher. 

If you don’t have any experience with divorce, do not know anyone who had to go through it, or is more interested in its legal aspects, compiles different divorce laws for each country. You can even add a brief history for each law to make the readers understand how they came about.

Are you looking for other topics to write on? Check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

Persuasive & Argumentative Essays about Divorce: Free Tips

A divorce is a life-changing experience that affects spouses and their children (if there are any). Since divorce rates are relatively high in modern society, more and more people face this problem nowadays.

When you are assigned to compose an argumentative essay about divorce, you should be as careful as possible. Remember that the split-up of marriage can be a painful experience for everyone involved.

The article will give you useful advice on how to write an outstanding paper on the topic. Learn the essential features of the following types:

  • persuasive essay about divorce,
  • for and against essay,
  • causes and effects of divorce essay,

Check tips from Custom-writing.org below and write the best paper!

  • 💍 How to Write It
  • 📂 Essays by Type
  • ✒ Causes and Effects

✍️ Divorce Essay Topics

💍 how to write a divorce essay.

The general structure of essays on divorce is quite common:

  • introduction;
  • conclusion.

Yet, there are some variations of what info to include in the body, depending on the essay type. The following structure is applicable for divorce argumentative essay. To learn about the features of other types, keep on reading our article.

Argumentative divorce essays are composed according to the standard structure:

1. Thesis Statement about Divorce

A divorce essay introduction isn’t anything extraordinary as you have to introduce your topic and position.

  • You should always give broad information about the issue and state the main problems you will discuss in your writing.
  • Make a general statement about the consequences of divorce or the common divorce effects on people.
  • Then write your thesis statement on divorce. Clearly explain to the audience the topic you’re going to discuss and your position on that topic. In case you find this task difficult, try using a thesis generator for argumentative essay . This will save you some time.

That’s it! Now your divorce essay introduction is ready.

What’s next?

2. Main Body

This section presents all of your ideas and arguments related to the topic of divorce.

  • Here you can write about the adverse effects of divorce on children or the most common reasons people divorce.
  • Use compelling arguments and support your ideas with examples.

There are tons of surveys and statistics about divorce on the internet, so it won’t be too challenging to gather the information you need.

3. Conclusion

In the last paragraph, you have to sum up your paper and leave a final expression.

  • Summarize every idea presented in your divorce essay.
  • Restate your thesis statement on divorce, relying on your reasoning.
  • Then list your concluding thoughts on this topic.

Make your sentences clear and easy to follow. Use synonyms to improve your writing style. Such an approach will help you convince the readers and express your thoughts better.

📂 Divorce Essays by Type

The content and reasoning of each paper on divorce depend primarily on the type of essay . See the following sections to understand how to write each of them.

Here are a few types you can consider:

Argumentative Essay about Divorce

When it comes to divorce, there are many disputable topics—for example, the reasons people separate or its impact on children. It’s easy to find support and statistics for both issues. And you’ll need them as facts are a crucial part of a divorce argumentative essay.

As a starting point:

Research your idea and choose a side to support. Make sure that among all argumentative essay topics about divorce, you selected the most interesting for yourself. In your thesis statement, concisely express your position, so the reader can quickly get it.

Then, start writing the entire essay. Regardless of what type of paper you are writing—anti or pro divorce argumentative essay—your writing should meet these requirements:

  • Base your points on logic;
  • Present both sides of the arguments, but support only one;
  • Take into consideration counterclaims;
  • Support all the arguments by valid evidence;
  • Use a calm, informative tone.

Don’t forget to incorporate quotes and figures to convince your readers.

Persuasive Essay about Divorce

What is the goal of writing persuasive essays ? It’s to convince your reader that your position on a particular problem is true.

Therefore, writing this paper means that you should identify an individual problem related to the topic. In the introduction of your persuasive essay about divorce, you should choose your side and deliver it to the reader.

Crucial note:

Similarly to an argumentative essay, you have to provide credible facts to support your position. Yet here, you use them to back up your opinion and persuade your reader.

While composing your persuasive essay about the legalization of divorce, remember its distinctive features:

  • Based on emotions;
  • Presents only one side of the argument;
  • Ignores counterclaims;
  • The tone is dynamic, emotionally-charged, and aggressive to some extent.

Cause and Effect Essay on Divorce

Whether it concerns old parents or a young couple, divorce typically has the same causes and effects. You can often see them clearly, even in books or movies.

The essay outline for the causes and effects of divorce essay is quite common:

  • Introduction.

In your divorce essay introduction, provide a general background and compose a clear thesis statement. For example, your thesis might look like this:

A divorce, caused by the spouses’ expectations mismatch, results in a lack of communication between children and one of the parents.

In this part of your essay, investigate the cause and effect of divorce, you stated before.

For the given thesis, the main points would be the following:

The primary cause of divorce is the mismatch in the spouses’ expectations from the marriage.

The divorce often results in a lack of children’s interactions with one of the parents.

  • Conclusion.

Synthesize all of your arguments and give your audience a space for a further investigation of your issue.

Narrative Essay about Divorce

If your assignment is to write a family essay, you can choose from a wide range of topics. For this purpose, a marriage essay or a divorce essay would be perfect.

In a short paper about your family, it isn’t easy to cover many topics. So choose only one.

Look through some narrative essay topics and select the one you like:

  • The story of my divorce: how did I decide to break up with my spouse?
  • My life completely changed after my parents divorced.
  • How my life looked like before the divorce with my wife/husband and how it looks now.
  • The way divorce destroys healthy communication between children and parents in my family.

For and Against Divorce Essay

As you know, both the negative and positive effects of divorce are disputable, making them appealing to discuss. There are many recent studies and relevant statistical data on the topic to help you write such an essay.

This topic would also be great for a speech on divorce.

Wondering what are the for and against divorce arguments? Take a look at the following:


If a person is in an abusive relationship, divorce might be the only option. It’s better to feel safe and protected than to be predisposed to violence.

You are still a family: you raise children and have a set of values. Consider preserving them and saving your family.

Are you that type of person that cannot forgive adultery? Then, break with your spouse and don’t waste your time.

Are you sure you and your partner are capable of living on their own? Often, spouses are financially dependent and cannot afford to lead the household after the divorce.

If a spouse continually mistreats their children and is unwilling to change their behavior, consider getting divorced.

If you decided to divorce after a single quarrel, don’t hurry up! Reconsider your decision and give your relationship a try.

✒ Divorce: Causes and Effects

We have a pleasant bonus for you! Below, you can find useful arguments and insightful ideas that you can use in your papers on divorce. Apply our concepts in any type of essay, adjusting them to your topic.

Divorce essays can cover the following issues:

Generally Known Facts on Divorces

When covering this issue in your persuasive essay on divorce, you will have to cover the problem altogether. Include the common marriage problems that psychologists all over the world study. Use their statistical data on divorces when crafting your argument.

Divorce is quite a broad topic, and you may want to narrow it down. With so much information available, you could write a research paper on divorce without any difficulty.

Statistical Data on Divorces

Good divorce essays should include enough statistical data. It will add more scientific value and reveal your research abilities. Besides, facts and figures present many exciting topics to comment on.

For example:

You can do significant research concerning divorce causes and consequences. Draw a contrast between divorce in several countries, or examine the age and education of people who officially separate more often.

Reasons for Divorces

What does an essay on divorce mean without discussion of its reasons?

Find out different sociologists’ viewpoints on the reasons for divorces. Then underline the cause you consider to be the most truthful one.

You can also provide your own theory on the grounds for divorces in your persuasive essay on divorce. The key point is to prove the accuracy of your statement.

Divorce Prevention Ideas

If there is a problem, there must be some solution. So, think of the possible ways to make a marriage work.

Investigate divorce causes from a scientific point of view. Examine the primary studies that reveal why people actually break up. Also, discuss the precautions that can help married couples avoid significant conflicts.

Effects of Divorce on Children

Parents sometimes forget that their divorce isn’t only about them but also about their children. It causes psychological problems for kids, which you can classify in your paper. Don’t forget to add some statistical data on divorce to support your arguments.

Every child reacts differently to their parents’ breakup. It’s a rare case when divorce consequences are positive, making the effects on kids an urgent topic to discuss.

Positive Effects of Divorce

Sometimes divorce isn’t a catastrophe but rather the only way to heal wounds and begin a new life. Often, people don’t recognize that they need to change their lives for the better. This situation is primarily related to abusive marriages or those with regular cheating.

In these cases, the positive effects of divorce may seem easy to understand. However, psychologists have to make great efforts to persuade people to end their relationships. Write a paper making this same argument.

  • Negative outcomes of divorce on children.
  • Connection between divorce and antisocial behavior of children.
  • Family crises and the issue it causes: divorce, remarriage, stepparents, adoption.
  • Effect of divorce on teenagers’ academic performance.  
  • Causes and consequences of divorce .
  • What can be done to decrease divorce rates in America?  
  • Does parental divorce affect the rates of juvenile delinquency ?
  • The most widespread reasons for divorce.
  • Analyze marital success factors and Gottman’s predictors of divorce.
  • Impact of divorce on child’s mental health.
  • Change of divorce law throughout history.
  • Positive and negative changes in children’s behavior after divorce.
  • Divorce : a disaster or a benefit?
  • Is cheating one of the main reasons of divorce?
  • Gender stratification impact on divorce trends.
  • Effect of divorce on family relationship.
  • Do divorced parents change their child-rearing styles?
  • List of factors typically associated with higher divorce rates.
  • The support required for all the members of divorced and single-parent families .
  • Analyze the reasons for high divorce rates .
  • Does divorce only impact adolescent in a bad way?
  • Effect of poverty on divorce rates.
  • Specifics of divorce in the UAE.
  • Does divorce lead to depression?
  • Family therapy and its role in decreasing divorce rates.
  • The impact of divorce on children-parents relationship.
  • Evaluation of child custody in divorce proceedings.
  • How to manage the stress of divorce.
  • Effect of divorce on children’s self-esteem.
  • How to minimize the devastating consequences of divorce.
  • Addiction as the reason for divorce.
  • Effective communication in marriage and its role in preventing divorce.
  • Divorce as the only way out of an abusive relationship.
  • Financial issues of divorce and how to overcome them.
  • Parental support is the best way to help children to go through divorce.
  • How do adolescents adjust to parental divorce?
  • Do boys and girls react to the parental divorce the same way?
  • Social media can destroy relationship and lead to divorce.
  • Can Christian counseling help couples to resolve their issues and avoid divorce?
  • Poverty among divorced women.
  • Young marriage has more chances to break-up.
  • Respect is the best way to get marriage satisfaction and avoid divorce.
  • Is interfaith marriage doomed to divorce?
  • Why a successful marriage may end in divorce?
  • Marriage contract will help to facilitate the legal side of divorce process.
  • Reduction of the number of divorces.
  • Personal development after divorce.
  • How family relationships influence future marriage and divorce chances of children.
  • Child support in case of marriage divorce.
  • Will lack of family and work balance definitely result in divorce?

If you are stuck on writing, you can always ask us for help! Whether you need a persuasive essay on divorce or any other paper, we are here and ready to assist.

Thanks for reading the article! Share it with friends who may need our tips or assistance.

Further reading:

  • Top Ideas for Argumentative or Persuasive Essay Topics
  • Best Argumentative Research Paper Topics
  • 197 Inspirational & Motivational Argumentative Essay Topics
  • Gun Control Essay: How-to Guide + Argumentative Topics
  • Proposal Essay Topics and Ideas – Easy and Interesting
  • Free Exemplification Essay Examples

🔗 References

  • Essay Introductions
  • Transitional Words and Phrases
  • Argumentative Paper Format
  • The Writing Process
  • Divorce Argument Essay: Bartleby
  • Cause and Effect Essay: The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Roane State Community College and UNC at Chapel Hill Writing Center
  • Counterargument: Gordon Harvey, the Writing Center at Harvard University
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Wow! Thanks for this! This will help me on my speech topic a lot! Thank you Jack‼️

Construction workers sitting and standing around, some wearing hard hats, during a break outside a building, with a temporary orange safety fence visible.

Alberta, Canada, 2005. Photo by Alex Webb/Magnum

A manly divorce

Straight men rarely write about the end of their marriages. our enduring ideas about gender explain this silence.

by Joshua Coleman   + BIO

The past few decades witnessed a flood of personal essays and memoirs about divorce. Perhaps the most successful was Eat, Pray, Love (2006) by Elizabeth Gilbert, which has sold more than 12 million copies to date, and became a movie starring Julia Roberts. In her breakaway bestseller, Gilbert describes her ‘devastating, interminable divorce’ and the search for fulfilment that followed it. The book’s popularity is not only due to Gilbert being a gifted writer, but also her ability to capture a cultural perception of marriage as an institution often antithetical to personal growth and self-development. What’s more, the book is just one of dozens tracking the same territory: the freedom and self-exploration that comes of departing from past strictures and setting a new course.

While men have written their fair share of marital advice books, only a handful of marriage memoirs have been written by them. Which prompts the question: aren’t men also happy to leave bad marriages, work their way through their feelings of guilt, and ultimately find a better life? And, if they are, why aren’t more saying so? Are such proclamations considered to be the domain only of women, rendering such ideation too feminine for men to acknowledge? Does it look too narcissistic for men to also have a ‘What I learned from my divorce’ narrative? Or are men just not that interested in the topic – or, for that matter, are they not liberated by divorce itself?

In the context of the traditional, heterosexual marriage, it’s important to acknowledge that women’s freedom to negotiate a relationship more in line with their ideals, or to leave altogether, is relatively recent. It is also important to acknowledge that this freedom has not been universally achieved, either globally or in the United States. From that perspective, the archetypal hero’s journey narrated by Gilbert and other female memoirists is likely born – among other aspirations – from a desire to push back against historically oppressive forces. As the historian Stephanie Coontz argued in her opinion piece ‘How to Make Your Marriage Gayer’ (2020) for The New York Times :

Right up to the 1970s, when an American woman married, her husband took charge of her sexuality and most of her finances, property and behaviour … During the 1970s and 1980s, wives won legal equality with husbands and courts redefined the responsibilities of spouses in gender-neutral terms. By 1994 a majority of Americans repudiated the necessity for gender-specialised roles in marriage, saying instead that shared responsibilities should be the ideal.

However, legal equality has not necessarily made marriage a more equitable place for women. As Coontz notes, while the model of shared responsibility has become the ideal in principle, it remains far from the reality in practice. Today’s women – at least those in heterosexual marriages – do twice the amount of childcare and almost twice as much housework compared with men, including women in full-time employment. Men after marriage do less housework than when they were single, while women do even more, especially when they become mothers .

Women are also more likely to carry the emotional burdens of their extended network of family and friends – to keep track of birthdays, gifts and crises – and to respond with cards, calls and outreach; a task sociologists refer to as ‘kinkeeping’. While this orientation has the potential to make for deep and lasting relationships with friends or family, the sociologists Ronald Kessler and Jane Mcleod observe that this effort takes an emotional toll when it involves helping loved ones manage stressful life events. In those cases, what they call a ‘cost of caring’ leaves women more vulnerable to depression, anxiety and burnout, a reality from which men are often insulated.

While men arguably love their wives as much as their wives love them (and, in some cases, even more), their identities are less oriented around care work per se, and more commonly toward achievement, self-direction and status, as a survey of men and women in 68 different countries confirmed in 2009. However, the stereotype of the self-centred and clueless male paints a pale portrait of what many men experience today. It also ignores the cost paid by men pressured to prize status and invulnerability over connection. For example, men account for almost three out of four ‘deaths of despair’, as the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton term it, either from a suicide or overdose, especially those down the economic ladder. Many men feel rudderless today since the role of provider and protector is no longer a pathway to identity. Men who lack the ability to provide, protect or significantly contribute to the family are psychologically the least likely to be able to offer their wives the kind of vulnerable, emotional and collaborative support that predicts today’s stable marriages. They’re more likely to retreat into anger, addiction and internet use, a dark triad of traits stemming from a preoccupation with self-reliance. Unfortunately, being vulnerable, talking about their feelings and asking their wives about theirs is the last thing most men want to do when they’re feeling small or defective. And they certainly don’t want to write about it.

It doesn’t help that so little understanding for men can be found across the political spectrum. As the economist Richard Reeves writes in Of Boys and Men (2022), progressives are quick to label problematic male behaviours in marriage as evidence of toxic masculinity and propose that men should be rehabilitated to learn how to communicate their feelings and needs in more socially adaptive ways. The populist Right, on the other hand, weaponises men’s dislocation and offers false promises such as removing women from the workforce or re-establishing men’s seat at the head of the family economic table – all the while failing to endorse family or work policies that would aid working men, women and their families.

I t’s important to ask: ‘Who’s leaving whom?’ Maybe men also don’t write about their divorces because of the shame that attends their wives’ leaving them, since, in the US at least, most of the time men are the ones getting left. Because men are more conflicted about showing weakness or vulnerability, it’s not difficult to see why men aren’t lining up to reveal themselves in this way, or finding a narrative of growth or transformation. In addition, men can face worse health effects than women after divorce or widowhood. They’re more likely to die or become ill if they don’t remarry or re-couple. Since husbands are the primary beneficiaries of their wives’ behaviours – such as scheduling doctor’s appointments, therapists or social engagements – the absence of this care can lead men’s orientation toward independence on a self-neglectful, even self-destructive course.

Another reason men – at least those in heterosexual marriages – sometimes do worse after divorce is that, for a significant percentage, their wives are their best friend, if not their only friend. Women commonly have much more extensive social networks, which may explain why they’re more likely to show resilience post-divorce, even if they’re often more at risk financially. Friendship is important and carries a whole host of psychological and health benefits. My wife calls her closest friends her ‘sister wives’. I like the double helix of the term, the way it encircles them as siblings and spouses, where platonic rather than romantic love is the bond. She talks to them often, sometimes daily. I like talking to my wife too, but not all of the time, and sometimes not as much as she wants. She accepts that we have temperamentally different inclinations towards conversation. And her acceptance of that disparity allows me to feel comfortable expressing vulnerability in ways that I would likely avoid under less favourable marital conditions.

However, many men today are caught between knowing what’s enough vulnerability with their wives – and what’s too much. Years ago, I saw a cartoon with two women in conversation; the caption read: ‘I want a guy who will well up with tears, I just don’t want one who actually cries.’ While that may or may not be true for the majority of women, it’s certainly true for some, at least based on my own private practice. Which is to say that men aren’t the only ones doing the gender policing around men’s emotions.

It’s good to be able to talk over your feelings but also good to know when to put them away

Some of these differences begin in childhood. Men are sometimes less fluent with feelings in adulthood, in part because parents, even parents today, are more likely to use emotion words with girls than they are with boys. This may also occur because girls begin talking at a younger age and remain more verbal than boys throughout their lives. The psychology professor Thomas Joiner found that, overall, boys are more secretive with their parents than are girls, and less responsive to and inclusive of their mothers. ‘The fact that, when the genders are combined into one group, gender rises to the top as a predictor of speech frequency, even beyond a personality characteristic like expressivity, shows its fundamental importance,’ Joiner writes in Lonely at the Top: The High Cost of Men’s Success (2011). ‘Speech frequency is of obvious importance to interpersonal exchange; indeed, it can be viewed as its currency … Talk can be viewed as tiny stitches in a social fabric; the more stitches, the more varied and durable the fabric.’ Men have fewer friends, fewer sources of support, and are far less likely to reach out for help. This means that, when they fall, there’s often no one there to catch them. Worse, they often won’t let anyone know that they’re falling.

Our society, and we therapists, idealise communication, vulnerability and expression of emotions, overall, for good reason. But, sometimes, not expressing yourself – more often the domain of men – has its own value. It’s similar to the parenting differences observed between women and men. Mothers tend to be more communicative, more sympathetic to the child, and more prone to guilt or worry about them. Fathers tend to be less conflicted about limit-setting, less preoccupied with the inner life of the child, and more oriented toward stimulation and excitement. Too much of one spoils the child. Too much of the other induces less self-reflection and emotional awareness. While everyone’s needs are different, the same could be said of a healthy marriage: it’s good to be able to talk over your feelings but also good to know when to put them away. As we therapists sometimes advise: ‘Before you say you don’t feel heard, consider how well you listen.’

Perhaps this is why the comedian Chris Rock’s observation – that men care about three things only: sex, food and silence – gets such a big laugh. There’s some truth in it. But I think it’s less about silence than it is the absence of conflict. While women can’t be described as liking conflict, some report that they see it as affirming when their husbands complain, since at least it shows he’s thinking about the relationship. Meanwhile, men often experience their wives’ complaints as a failure in their role as men or partners.

Because men in both straight and same-sex marriages are more preoccupied with sex than are women, they also suffer a greater cost by its absence. More to the point, sex is often a way that men gain access to their vulnerability and expressiveness, something women value. I often see couples caught in a downward spiral where the wife says she doesn’t want to be sexual unless her husband shows more vulnerability and openness, and the husband states that he has more difficulty accessing his vulnerability and romantic feelings without sex. I occasionally hear wives say they feel used by their husband’s preoccupation with having sex with them. I think that misunderstands the meaning of sex in marriage: for most men, it’s not just about the sex. It’s about the connection. Well, that and the sex.

It is tragic, though not surprising, that fathers are more likely to be estranged from their girls than from their boys

My experience counselling men and couples for the past four decades shows me that men also long to have close, intimate relationships, and sometimes leave their wives to pursue them when they feel too rejected or ignored. Yet a man leaving his marriage for love seems freighted with more condemnation or contempt than a woman. Culturally, this seems less permissible, and may also explain why men aren’t telling their stories. Perhaps we still have the idea that leaving a marriage is a more selfish act for a man because we assume that women agonise more about its effect on their children. In addition, our outdated ideas about men in marriage, along with men’s more self-reliant orientation, may cause us to believe that men don’t care as much and therefore don’t deserve as much empathy. Those beliefs might also be fuelled by the fact that, traditionally, men have been better able than women to land on their feet financially and have a better chance of re-coupling post-divorce.

Yet, fathers in my practice worry a lot before and after their divorces. In particular, they worry about how the divorce will affect their children and their relationship with them. With good reason, as it turns out. Recent research by the sociologist Rin Reczek at Ohio State University and colleagues found that, while roughly 6 per cent of people report a period of estrangement from mothers, a whopping 26 per cent of respondents report estrangement from fathers, especially by daughters. While not all of those fathers are divorced, my research shows that some 70 per cent of estranged parents became so after a divorce.

It is tragic, though not entirely surprising, that fathers are more likely to be estranged from their girls than from their boys. Daughters often seem to speak the same language as their mothers, their inclinations toward empathy allowing them to sense what she is feeling or thinking at an almost psychic level. As the journalist Ruth Whippman observed in The New York Times in 2018:

At both its best and its worst, the mother-daughter relationship can at times be as close as two humans can get to telepathy. With two people who are both heavily socialised to anticipate and meet everyone else’s emotional needs, the dynamic can become a kind of high-alert empathy, each constantly attempting to decode what the other might be thinking, hypersensitive to any change in pitch or tone, like a pair of high-strung racehorses.

While that disposition can make for a close relationship, it is not without its burdens. Mothers and daughters are the most common dyad seeking my services after the daughter has cut off contact. It’s another example of the way that care work, a predominantly female enterprise, can cause problems. Estrangement sometimes results because the daughter knows no other way to shed herself of the tidal pull of her mother’s emotions, especially painful ones. As Deborah Levy writes of a fictional mother in her novel Hot Milk (2016): ‘I must never look at her defeat with all I know, because I will turn it to stone with my disdain and my sorrow.’

N on-heterosexual marriages are less governed by gender-role expectations, though men in same-sex marriages still behave differently from women in same-sex marriages. Like straight men, gay men are less likely to engage in the kind of care work that is more common with women in straight and lesbian marriages but are more likely to share the care equally between the two partners when needed. Gay men appear to do better both in marriage and in communication, and have the lowest divorce rates in comparison with straight and gay women. They are more likely to openly discuss their sexual preferences and have agreements about the circumstances and types of sexual contact allowed outside the marriage. In The Case Against the Sexual Revolution (2022) Louise Perry writes :

[T]he average differences in male and female sexuality become glaringly obvious when we look at the gay and lesbian communities. Although it may be controversial to point out how dramatically these two sexual cultures differ, there is plenty of hard data that it would be dishonest to ignore. Lesbian women are remarkably keen on committed monogamy: the median lesbian woman in the UK reports just one sexual partner within the last year, and a majority report having known their sexual partners for months or years before they first had sex. Lesbian women are also significantly more likely than gay men to get married or enter into a civil partnership.

However, in comparison with gay male or heterosexual couples in marriage, lesbian marriages are also the most likely to end. As Coontz writes in her 2020 opinion piece:

Women put more energy into maintaining and deepening intimacy than most men do and have much more extensive expectations of empathy and emotional support. They also monitor relationship quality more closely and have higher standards for it. These traits can produce exceptionally intimate, supportive relationships, but they also consume a lot of energy and can generate stress or disappointment. This may help explain why lesbian partnerships, despite their high average quality, have higher breakup rates than gay-male couples or different-sex couples.

I asked Diane Ehrensaft, a psychology professor and gender specialist at the University of California, San Francisco and the author of Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender Non-Conforming Children (2011), about how these dynamics express themselves in transgender marriages and divorces. ‘I think to answer that question you have to break it down into: when one or both of the partners is trans when they come into the relationship, versus when one person transitions while in the relationship, and, within that category, when they start out as a heterosexual couple versus a same-sex couple,’ she explained in an email. ‘Mostly what I’ve observed when one person transitions after getting together, the trend seems to be that the woman in a previously heterosexual relationship doesn’t want to be with a woman, whereas I’ve noticed in same-sex gay relationships the couple is more likely to stay together if one transitions to transfeminine, and in same-sex two women relationships, it’s the woman who usually wants out if her partner transitions to transmasculine. So, I guess you might say that women either have their finger on the pulse more about what works for them or are less flexible about switching gears in their sexual relationships.’ She went on to clarify that her statements were observations, not hard data.

T he German historian Ute Frevert observed that: ‘[E]motions are not only made by history, they also make history.’ Perhaps nowhere is this truer than in the ways that feelings, far more than economics, social class or status, became crucial in determining whom to love and whom to leave. Sociologists of modernity such as Anthony Giddens in the UK, Ulrich Beck in Germany, and Pierre Bourdieu in France have noted that, as our lives began to be less governed by religion, neighbourhood or gender, our emotions became far more central in helping us decide whom to be close to or avoid. This highlights that, while women’s orientation toward care work and men’s emphasis on self-reliance may seem predetermined, it is in some ways historically recent. ‘In the localised and hierarchical society of the premodern era, no interactions were impersonal,’ the historian Coontz explained in an email quoting from her forthcoming book on the history and future of love and marriage. ‘Men had to gauge the moods to soothe the feelings of their social superiors; while women felt no obligation to be considerate of their social inferiors. But as work moved out of the home and politics became more competitive, men had to distance themselves from personal emotions and focus on “the bottom line”. Their wives became responsible for providing men a refuge from the demands of the workplace and the market, anticipating their needs and offering a place for emotional recuperation. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the doctrine of separate spheres made it inappropriate for men to read and respond to other people’s emotions, and inappropriate – indeed unacceptable – for women NOT to do so.’

Expanding on the role of emotions, the Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz describes three narratives that attend today’s contemplations of divorce – revelation , accumulation , and trauma. In this process, individuals retrospectively explain the desire or decision to disentangle themselves from the person with whom they were romantically involved by labelling and using emotions as a moral foundation to support decisions to stay or leave. ‘I shouldn’t have to feel so neglected all of the time.’ ‘I deserve to be with someone who is more affirming of who I am.’ ‘His anger was a form of emotional abuse and I don’t have to put up with that.’

Illouz notes that, over the course of the 20th century, the reasons for divorce became more affective and abstract. While alcoholism or neglect were most commonly given as reasons to divorce in the 1940s, by the 1970s and beyond, ‘growing apart’, ‘becoming more distant’ and ‘feeling unloved’ took their place. The ‘Relationships in America Survey’ (2014), sponsored by the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture, found the following reasons for divorce listed by respondents: infidelity (37 per cent); spouse unresponsive to needs (32 per cent); growing tired of making a poor match work (30 per cent); spouse’s immaturity (30 per cent); emotional abuse (29 per cent); different financial priorities (24 per cent); and alcohol and/or drug abuse (23 per cent).

The opportunities for men to display their masculinity and honour have largely eroded

‘[E]motional intimacy has been a force of dis-institutionalisation, making marriage more likely to follow psychology than sociology, individual temperament rather than roles and norms,’ writes Illouz in The End of Love: A Sociology of Negative Emotions (2021). And in Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation (2011), she writes :

It is therefore unsurprising that love has been historically so powerfully seductive to women; it promised them the moral status and dignity they were otherwise denied in society and it glorified their social fate: taking care of and loving others, as mothers, wives, and lovers … Women’s social inferiority could thus be traded for men’s absolute devotion in love, which in turn served as the very site of display and exercise of their masculinity, prowess, and honour.

Yet history marches on. The opportunities for men to display their masculinity and honour have largely eroded, and the ability for women to strongly push back against a perspective of them as inferior has been strengthened by the many ways that women have caught up to men and are surpassing them.

Consider the following statistics, cited by Reeves in Of Boys and Men :

  • Girls are about a year ahead of boys in terms of reading ability in OECD nations, while the advantage for boys in mathematics is increasingly shrinking.
  • Boys are 50 per cent more likely than girls to fail at mathematics, reading, and science.
  • Girls are more likely to graduate from high school.
  • While the Ivy League colleges in the US were always predominately male, every one of them today is majority female.
  • Women account for around half the managerial positions in the US economy.
  • Many previously male-dominated professions, including medicine and financial management, are rapidly tilting female, especially among younger professionals.
  • The proportion of women lawyers has increased tenfold, from 4 per cent in 1980 to 43 per cent in 2020.
  • In 1968, only 33 per cent of young women in their teens and early 20s said they expected to be in paid work at the age of 35. By 1980, the share was 80 per cent.

This isn’t to say that parity has been reached across the board. Only one in five executive-level company directors is a woman and, of the Fortune 500 firms, just 44 have a female CEO. The share of venture capital money going to female founders is less than 3 per cent. So, at the upper reaches of the economy, there is still much more work to do for women. But, the further you progress down the economic ladder, it’s men who are struggling far more than women.

So, why don’t men write more about their experiences?

Joyce Maynard – a bestselling author of 18 books, including two memoirs – has been hosting writing retreats for more than 20 years. While most of her memoir retreats have been open to men, she notes that they seldom attend. ‘Women have been telling each other their stories all their lives, and it’s not unfamiliar for them to do so,’ she told me in a phone call. ‘But it’s been my experience that for a man to reach a place of openness to exposing emotional pain or struggle, something in his experience had to bring him to his knees.’ Maynard added that, as someone who twice attended previously all-male educational institutions in the Ivy League, she had long observed the difficulty of men – particularly high-achievers – to acknowledge loss or vulnerability. She told the story of attending the recent 50-year reunion of her almost all-male class at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. ‘After decades of feeling the requirement to present themselves as successful,’ she said, ‘as they approached age 70, my classmates were no longer trying to set the world on fire. They had survived failed marriages, trouble with adult children, health issues. Many seemed relieved to finally be able to set down the mantle our culture had instructed them to carry all those years. They were able to reveal their more authentic selves in a whole new way. And, of course that’s what writing memoir requires: a willingness to look at one’s failures as well as one’s victories, and then make sense of them.’

To be clear, some men are writing memoirs on this topic: ‘The Marriage Lesson That I Learned Too Late’ (2022) by Matthew Fray; The Marriage Advice I Wish I Would’ve Had (2014) by Gerald Rogers; Falling Forward: A Man’s Memoir of Divorce (2014) by Chris Easterly; A Man’s Guide to Surviving Divorce: How to Cope and Move On with Life (2011) by R L Blackwood; and Men on Divorce: The Other Side of the Story (1997), an anthology by the editors of Women on Divorce (1995) – both female. But they pale in comparison with those authored by women authors.

T he challenges that exist in today’s marriages are exacerbated by our highly individualistic culture in the US, where the gospels of twining one’s soul with another’s while prizing identity and independence are characterised as eminently achievable. Yet reconciling these often-contradictory forces requires enormous emotional and material assets. ‘The very idea of living “autonomously” and organising life as a self-defined, goal-driven, and future-oriented project would seem to require resources, private space, and an independence from other people that only the affluent and upwardly mobile might possess,’ writes the sociologist Joseph E Davis in Chemically Imbalanced: Everyday Suffering, Medication, and Our Troubled Quest for Self-Mastery (2020).

And not to be a bummer but, while the hero’s journey of leaving a bad marriage can make for compelling and sympathetic memoirs, in the US, 67 per cent of second marriages end in divorce too, and 73 per cent of third marriages fail to go the distance. As Joni Mitchell sang in ‘Help Me’ (1974): ‘We love our lovin’. But not like we love our freedom.’ Freedom to stay. Freedom to leave. Freedom to choose. Perhaps a more apt lyric is Sheryl Crow’s: ‘If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?’

So, maybe, like many things in life, men want the freedom not to talk about it, let alone write it down. Or they want the freedom to hide how sad, lonely or hurt they feel by the loss of their marriages or the decline in the relationships with their children. Maybe they worry that they’ll look weak or inadequate in the eyes of women – let alone men – if they reveal how lost and alone they feel.

And maybe they’re not wrong.

Photochrom image of a narrow street lined with Middle-Eastern buildings; people are walking down the middle of the street and some are holding umbrellas.

Nations and empires

The paradoxes of Mikha’il Mishaqa

He was a Catholic, then a rationalist, then a Protestant. Most of all, he exemplified the rise of Arab-Ottoman modernity

Aerial view of a large pipeline construction site with machinery and vehicles cutting through green fields and hills under a partly cloudy sky.

Nature and landscape

Land loneliness

To survive, we are asked to forget that our lands and bodies are being violated, policed, ripped up, silenced, sacrificed

Newborn baby being held by a person wearing blue gloves, with another masked individual looking at the baby in a medical setting.

Human reproduction

When babies are born, they cry in the accent of their mother tongue: how does language begin in the womb?

Darshana Narayanan

A black-and-white photo of soldiers in uniform checking documents of several men standing outdoors, with laundry hanging in the background.

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Decolonising psychology

At times complicit in racism and oppression, psychology has also been a fertile ground for radical and liberatory thought

Rami Gabriel

Aerial view of an industrial site emitting smoke, surrounded by snow-covered buildings and landscape, under a clear blue sky with birds flying overhead.

Politics and government

Governing for the planet

Nation-states are no longer fit for purpose to create a habitable future for humans and nature. Which political system is?

Jonathan S Blake & Nils Gilman

Three women in traditional attire stand outdoors in a dry landscape. One person carries a child on their back while another holds a walking stick.

Anthropology

The Ju/’hoansi protocol

Hunter-gatherer societies are highly expert in group deliberation and decision-making which respects both difference and unity

Vivek V Venkataraman

Ann Gold Buscho Ph.D.

An Honest Look at the Pros and Cons of Divorce

Consider these topics and how to minimize the negative effects of divorce..

Posted September 27, 2023 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

  • The Challenges of Divorce
  • Take our Relationship Satisfaction Test
  • Find a therapist to heal from a divorce
  • Divorce can cause positive and negative outcomes for both the parents and children involved.
  • Among the pros are greater freedom, room for growth, and an improved environment for children.
  • However, stress and financial challenges can complicate outcomes for the family.

Are you considering divorce? Or has your spouse decided to end the marriage ? Divorce is a complicated and emotional process that can have both positive and negative consequences. Some outcomes are positive for some people but affect others negatively.

Here are some of the pros and cons of divorce.

These are generally considered the pros of divorce:

Freedom and Independence

Pros: Divorce can provide individuals with the freedom and independence to make their own choices and live life on their terms. Don (not his real name) felt that he was in a constant power struggle with his wife. He wanted control over his own life, his environment, and his decisions.

Cons: Some may find this newfound independence overwhelming or lonely , especially if they are accustomed to a long-term partnership. Stuart had grown accustomed to a social life managed by his wife. After the divorce, he withdrew from friendships and struggled with depression .

Escape From Unhealthy Relationships

Pros: Divorce can provide an escape from abusive or toxic relationships, which can lead to improved mental and physical health. Ingrid had lived with an angry husband who frequently berated her in front of other people. She felt she always walked on eggshells to avoid triggering him. After her divorce, she felt liberated and relieved of the chronic stress, and her migraines stopped.

Cons: The divorce process can be emotionally challenging, and most people experience intense emotions during a divorce, such as sadness, anger , guilt , and anxiety . However, these emotions usually subside as you adjust to your new life.

Opportunity for Personal Growth

Pros: Some people view divorce as an opportunity for personal growth and self-discovery, leading to a stronger sense of self and increased self-esteem . Tina told me that she felt she had finally found herself after her divorce. She had spent 20 years trying to be the wife her husband wanted. Now, she felt she could come into her own.

Cons: The emotional toll of divorce can hinder personal growth, at least in the short term. In the early stages of divorce, most people are overwhelmed and operating in “crisis mode.” It may be very hard to imagine what your future will look like. Nevertheless, you can focus on building a life that you will find fulfilling. Be patient; it may take one to two years to fully recover from the divorce.

Improved Financial Situation

Pros: Depending on the circumstances, divorce can lead to improved financial stability and the ability to make independent financial decisions. Clara and her husband argued about money all the time. He felt she bought too many clothes, and she accused him of buying expensive electronics. They could not agree on a budget, so they spent beyond their means every month, unable to save for retirement . Both felt that if they divorced , they could become financially independent and stable.

Cons: Divorce can also result in financial hardships, especially if there are disputes over assets, child support, or alimony. Many people have to reduce their lifestyles when they divorce. The same income now has to support two homes. There may be legal expenses, additional therapy costs, or alimony. Downsizing is frequently the best solution, at least for a few years.

Better Environment for Children

Pros: In cases of high-conflict or abusive marriages, divorce may provide a safer and more stable environment for children. Lee and Ellis argued frequently in front of their children. At times, they yelled at each other and shoved each other around, stopping only when their children begged them to or cried. Children in two stable, calm homes feel safer and more secure.

essay against divorce

Cons: Children may still experience emotional turmoil and adjustment issues during and after a divorce. Children will also experience the loss of the family unit and may have symptoms due to the trauma of witnessing their parents in conflict. It is normal for children to need 1-2 years to adjust to the new family structure.

These are usually considered the cons of divorce:

Emotional and Psychological Stress

Divorce is almost always emotionally and psychologically taxing, leading to stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. Some individuals may struggle with these challenges for an extended period, impacting their overall well-being. Some seem to get stuck in their anger or grief after the divorce and can't “move on.” Working with a therapist can help you work through the emotions so that you can rebuild your new life.

Financial Challenges

While some experience improved financial situations, others may face significant financial challenges, including legal fees, dividing assets, and maintaining separate households. The financial burden of divorce can be long-lasting, affecting both spouses and their children. Supporting two homes may be stressful , and your children may be aware that money is tight.

If possible, protect them from the stress or worry that they might pick up from you. Megan, a child I worked with, told me, “There won’t be Christmas presents this year because Mom took all our money.” Megan felt insecure and angry at her mother.

Impact on Children

One of the most common worries parents express is how the divorce will “damage our children.” Divorce can create a more stable and peaceful home environment in some cases, which may be better for children’s well-being. Children often face emotional and psychological challenges during and after divorce, and it can strain parent-child relationships when they are drawn into loyalty binds or assume the roles of ally, messenger, spy, or confidante.

Social Stigma

In some cases, divorce may free individuals from a marriage that wasn’t socially or culturally accepted. Divorce can still carry a social stigma in some communities and cultures, leading to judgment and isolation. While the stigma of divorce has decreased over the past decades, many people still carry an internalized stigma. James said that the voice in his head kept saying, “You’re a failure, you’re a loser, you’ll never be happy, etc.” Remind yourself that it is the marriage that failed, not necessarily that you failed. It helps to understand your contribution to the failure of the marriage so that you can avoid those mistakes in the future.

Legal Process Complexity and Stress

The legal system can provide structure and protection during divorce proceedings. The law is there to protect you if necessary. Navigating the legal system can be time-consuming, expensive, and emotionally draining. However, if you choose an alternate dispute resolution process that keeps you out of court, the divorce will be less stressful. Consider mediation or a collaborative divorce instead.

Whether you are contemplating divorce or your spouse has already made the decision, these topics are worth discussing, perhaps with the help of a therapist. Some of these points may not be relevant to your circumstances, but seek guidance and support if you do decide to divorce. With the help of an experienced divorce coach or therapist, you may be able to reduce some of the negative outcomes.

© Ann Gold Buscho, Ph.D. 2023

Ann Gold Buscho Ph.D.

Ann Gold Buscho, Ph.D. , is the author of The Parent's Guide to Birdnesting: A Child-Centered Solution to Co-Parenting During Separation and Divorce.

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142 Divorce Essay Topics

Divorce is a sensitive topic, comprising many sociological, psychological, legal, and other nuances worth exploring. On this page, you’ll find thought-provoking divorce topics on various aspects of this problem, such as its impact on children or its legal and cultural perspectives. Read our divorce essay topics and research questions to understand this issue better.

💔 TOP 7 Divorce Topics

🏆 best divorce essay topics, 🤔 the causes of divorce essay topics, 👍 thought-provoking divorce topics to discuss, 🎓 interesting divorce research topics, ❓ research questions about divorce.

  • Divorce and Single-Parent Families
  • Reasons and Implications of Divorce
  • The Impact of Divorce on Children’s Psychological Wellbeing
  • Causes and Effects of Divorce
  • Negative Effects of Divorce on Children
  • Personal Essay on Sociological Imagination, Divorce, & Marriage
  • Divorce as a Controversial Topic
  • Marriage and Divorce Rates Decline in Qatar This paper discusses the decline in the rate of marriages and divorces in Qatar in recent years, analyzes the reasons, explores the cultural and traditional attitudes.
  • Effects of Divorce on Children This paper investigates the causes of divorce and also looks into the adverse effects that a divorce has on children, especially, teenagers.
  • Reasons for High Divorce Rates The significant growth in divorce rates can be associated with multiple factors that become more important today and impact the lives of all people.
  • Parental Divorce: Influence on Children Divorce may affect a child’s development by making them engage in risk-taking behaviors, experience divorce-related stress, and significantly lower their self-esteem.
  • The Impact of Divorce and Separation on Family Relationships Divorce and separation has become a tradition in the contemporary world. Spouses barely finish 10 years in marriage before they start having misunderstandings.
  • Juvenile Delinquents and Parental Divorce: What Is the Connection? Reasons that cause the increase in the number of juvenile delinquents. Connection with the rise in the number of juvenile delinquents and the increase in the number of divorce rates.
  • Factors Promoting Higher Divorce Rates The paper analyzes reasons that would make couples consider divorce as the only solution whenever the marriage is riddled with challenges.
  • Effects of Divorce and Poverty in Families In the event of a divorce children are tremendously affected and in most cases attention is not given to them the way it should.
  • Positive and Negative Effects of Divorce After a divorce, couples, and children endure numerous psychological, behavioral, and academic effects that analyses in the article.
  • Divorce Issues: Causes and Effects on Children Simply put, a divorce is the lawful dissolving of a matrimonial relationship, comprising of any ceremonial breakup between a husband and his wife based on constituted customs.
  • Divorce and Family Disorganization in the UAE To understand the problems of UAE families well, we need to look at how modernity affects families in these places.
  • Reasons of Divorce Analysis The reasons of divorce may be various. Some of them are rather banal, like material troubles or pestering. The others may be shocking and depend only on the fantasy of the spouses.
  • Cheating as the Cause of Divorce Family life is associated with a variety of unique difficulties that can arise throughout the partnership. There are periods in the family called crisis periods.
  • Parental Divorce and Consequences for Children Divorces are a common occurrence in the modern world, and most people are accustomed to the idea of a separated family.
  • Divorce as a Family Affair and Its Consequences Divorce is not necessarily the best option to solve problems within a family, but if it is inevitable, one should be ready for it, both mentally and physically.
  • The Impacts of Divorce on Family Relationships The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of divorce and separation on family relationships. The researcher will apply qualitative research approach to analyze data.
  • Discussion of Marriage and Divorce Impact Marriage can provide evidence economic benefits to both parties; divorce, on the other hand, can be costly, that’s why the paper examines the economics of marriage and divorce.
  • Consequences of Divorce of Parents for Children Divorces represent a sensitive topic in the US, and it is scientifically interesting to research how these events affect children.
  • Divorce and Its Impact on Children’s Wellbeing Marriage and divorce are distinct events that affect the daily lives of children. This essay aims to review literature sources that discuss the impact of divorce on children.
  • Divorce Among Challenges Facing Families Today This essay shows that divorce has detrimental effects on families and explains the challenges and their potential effect on family members during and after the divorce.
  • Divorce from the Biblical Laws’ Point of View The Bible consistently asserts that marriage is an enduring responsibility, however, some of its passages rescue a couple from the lifetime covenant of marriage.
  • How Divorce Affects Children Divorce and the years of distress that follow could potentially cause psychological trauma for children that affects their lives for many years to come.
  • How Different Women Are Trying to Obtain a Divorce The experience of these three women in the courtroom would likely differ very much because of the variation in the legal systems, social and political contexts.
  • Is Infidelity a Leading Cause of Divorce According to Statistics?
  • How Does Poor Communication Contribute to Marital Dissolution?
  • The Role of Financial Strain in Divorce.
  • Cultural and Religious Differences: The Influence of Divergent Values on Marital Harmony.
  • The Consequences of Unrealistic Expectations in Marriage.
  • The Link between the Lack of Intimacy and Marital Dissatisfaction.
  • Substance Abuse and Addiction: Examining Substance-Related Causes of Divorce.
  • The Role of Incompatibility and Personality Clashes in Marriages.
  • Work-Life Imbalance: The Impact of Demanding Careers on Marital Stability.
  • What Are the Effects of Parenting Styles Clash on Marital Harmony?
  • The Challenges and Effects of Long-Distance Relationships on Divorce Rates.
  • Cultural Pressure and Arranged Marriages: How Societal Expectations Affect Marital Outcomes.
  • The Impact of Psychological Conditions on Marital Dissolution.
  • The Shifts in Life Goals and Their Influence on Marriage.
  • Social Media and Technology: Investigating the Role of Digital Interactions in Divorce.
  • How Does the Absence of Empathy Contribute to Marital Breakdown?
  • Early Marriages and Divorce: The Relationship Between Age and Marital Stability.
  • The Emotional Strain of Fertility Challenges and Divorce Rates.
  • The Influence of Traditional Expectations on Marital Satisfaction.
  • Jealousy and Insecurity: The Impact of Trust Issues on Marriage.
  • Unrealistic Media Portrayals of Love: How Media Shapes Relationship Expectations.
  • The Influence of In-Laws on Marital Harmony.
  • The Impact of Different Child-Rearing Beliefs on Children.
  • Lack of Conflict Resolution Skills: The Importance of Effective Problem Solving.
  • The Consequences of Emotional Disconnection and Neglect.
  • The Intersection of Abuse and Marital Dissolution.
  • Political and Social Beliefs: How Do Political Differences Affect Marital Relationships.
  • External Stressors: The Impact of Work, Health, and Life Events on Marriage.
  • How Do Busy Lifestyles od Spouses Contribute to Relationship Strain?
  • Educational Disparities: Exploring the Link Between Education Levels and Divorce.
  • Divorce Influence on Children’s Social Development Children with divorced parents perform worse academically than children with married parents. However, not every child reacts the same way to their parents getting divorced.
  • Expansion of Medicaid and Minimum Wage Increment to Alleviate Divorce A breakdown of how two public policies, namely, Medicaid expansion and minimum wage increment, can be used to alleviate divorce forms the basis of the paper.
  • Marriage and Divorce in the Modern World Marriage is a social institution and it defines parenthood. Families are often affected by divorce both ideologically and financially.
  • The Problem of Divorce Divorce is a reality that affects millions of individuals and families worldwide. In certain situations, it can be a necessary step to escape from an unhealthy or abusive relationship, but some believe that divorce is too easy to obtain and contributes to the breakdown of traditional family structures. This paper…
  • Parental Divorce’s Negative Impact on Children Children from divorced families have more behavioral problems, and marital upheavals leading up to parental divorce threaten future learning ability.
  • Family Issue: Impact of the Divorce on the Children The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of a research article about the topic of divorce and its impact on children.
  • Divorce in Islam in Contrast with Christianity In contrast with Christianity, Islam permits divorce, as marriage is not considered sacral but rather an earthbound contract between two individuals that can be canceled.
  • Marriage Issues and Divorce Rates in America One needs to look at the modern institution of marriage in America in order to explain the problem of divorce in the current social situation.
  • Divorce and Female Vulnerability in American Society One of the issues to be addressed related to marriage and divorce is enhancing gender equality in marriage exit through introducing new policies.
  • Perfect Family Myths on Divorce and Parenting This paper discussed four myths about family. These myths target the issue of divorce, family structure, and the responsibilities of parents.
  • Divorce Rates and Causes of Their Rising The purpose of this research was to identify and present the main causes of the increase in divorce rates that have been observed across the US in recent decades.
  • Mediation and Its Role in the Divorce Process As one of the methods of ADL (alternative dispute resolution), mediation allows people to resolve the issue without litigation, so they have more power over the process.
  • Divorce Law in the United Kingdom There exists dissimilarity between valid, voidable and void marriages under English Act. A valid marriage would be terminated legally.
  • Adolescent Adjustment to Parental Divorce The primary research question is what factors determine adolescents’ adjustment after they experience divorce and how it affects their socio-emotional skills.
  • Marital Success Factors vs. Gottman’s Predictors of Divorce People who are starting a family strive to satisfy a complex of needs—for love, children, experiencing common joys, understanding, and communication.
  • Gender Stratification and Divorce Trends Gender stratification can be examined through numerous sociological theories, which explain changes in divorce trends.
  • Child Custody Evaluations in Divorce Proceedings The guidelines to be considered are those of visitation and relocation, the children competency to state and choose their preferred parent to stay with upon the divorce procedure.
  • Marriage and Divorce: Poverty Among Divorced Women This paper aims at looking into the possible connection between divorce and poverty among women given that many women are employed and are financially independent.
  • Divorce: Rates and Effects on Teenagers This paper aims at investigating the cause of divorce, examining the effects of divorce on teenagers as well as giving recommendations for the action.
  • Six-Year Follow-up of Preventive Interventions for Children of Divorce The article written by a number of researchers deals with the behavior of adolescents whose parents have been divorced.
  • Increase of Divorce Rates in America In every developed country, the rate at which couples divorce has climbed, although not necessarily steadily, from whatever point in modern history one may choose.
  • Outcomes of Divorce on Children: Infants to Adults Divorce is no doubt a horrifying tragedy for children of whichever age to face. Regardless of the cause for the divorce, may it be an abusive situation, children suffers greatly.
  • Divorce and Child’s Mental Health in the UK The given project is devoted to the investigation of children’s mental health and factors that might impact it, specifically, parents’ divorce.
  • Divorce Law History in the USA Many aspects stand for grounds for divorces, but once they emerge, specific laws and regulations should be implemented to help people dissolve their marriages.
  • Divorce Effects on Children’s Behavior Adults need to study and understand the impact of divorce to help children cope with stress, regulate their behavior, and avoid potential negative consequences.
  • Sociological Effects of Divorce on Children Children significantly suffer from the divorce of their parents, and the effects include depression, the feeling of worry, criminal behavior, social isolation, and others.
  • Family Relationships and Divorce Psychology The paper dwells on the problems that may arise throughout the divorce process. The researcher discusses the consequences of divorce and compares the outcomes for boys and girls.
  • Divorce Impact on Child-Rearing Styles The impact of divorce or separation on child-rearing styles can be different, depending on sex, age, education level, relationships with the child, and social background.
  • Divorce Activities and Family Psychology After reviewing the results of the study, the researcher came up with several recommendations regarding before- and post-divorce activities.
  • Effects of Divorce on Adolescents The reality of divorce leaves the adolescents in an awkward position that negatively affects their development. The following paper explores the impacts of divorce on teenagers.
  • Cohabitation and Divorce Across Nations and Generations
  • Divorce Laws and Divorce Rate in the U.S.
  • The Relation Between Premarital Cohabitation and Divorce
  • Relationships With Parents and Effects of Divorce
  • Does Divorce Cause Low Self-Esteem in Children
  • Death and Divorce: The Long-Term Consequences of Parental Loss on Adolescents
  • Marriage, Divorce, and Interstate Risk Sharing
  • The Divorce and Its Effects on the Family and Women‘s Rights
  • Social Psychological Risk Factor for Divorce Is Communication
  • Psychological and Emotional Aspects of Divorce
  • Divorce Laws and the Structure of the American Family
  • Exploring How Parental Divorce Before the Age of Six
  • Culture, Ethics, and the Issues of Divorce and Adultery
  • Factors Responsible for the Probability of Divorce
  • The Divorce Rate Within the Christian Community
  • Reasons Behind the High Divorce Rate for African American Women
  • Epistemological and Psychological Views of Divorce
  • Short and Long-Term Effects of Divorce on Children
  • Children, Adolescents, and Divorce Effects
  • The Physical and Social Costs of Divorce on a Mother
  • Divorce Has Major and Long-Lasting Effects on Children
  • Does Divorce Affect Children Negatively?
  • Does Divorce Cause Low Self-Esteem in Children?
  • Does Divorce Create Long-Term Negative Effects for Children?
  • How Does Divorce Affect a Child’s Behaviour?
  • Should Reform in Law Make It Harder for a Divorce?
  • What Is the True Meaning of Divorce?
  • What Are the Causes for Rising Cases of Divorce?
  • What Is the Reason for Divorce?
  • What Are the Types of Divorce?
  • What Are the Five Stages of Divorce?
  • Is Divorce an Option in Marriage?
  • Who Suffers the Most in a Divorce?
  • How Long Does a Divorce Take?
  • Is It Okay to Marry a Divorced Man?
  • Should Divorce Be Easier or Harder?
  • What Can People Do Instead of Divorce?
  • Who Decides What You Get in a Divorce?
  • What Is the Most Important Stage of Divorce?
  • How Do You Tell Your Husband You Want a Divorce?
  • How Long Does It Take To Recover From Divorce?
  • What Is the Average Length of Marriage Before the Divorce?
  • What Are the Disadvantages of Divorce?
  • What Are the Positive Effects of Divorce?
  • Is It Better to Divorce or Separate?
  • Why Does the Wife Get Half in a Divorce?
  • What Are Some Common Feelings Experienced by Adults After a Divorce?
  • How Should a Woman Prepare for Divorce?
  • Why Should People Avoid Divorce?
  • Can Divorce Be Positive for Kids?
  • How Do You Know if It’s Time for a Divorce?

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StudyCorgi . "142 Divorce Essay Topics." January 16, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/divorce-essay-topics/.

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These essay examples and topics on Divorce were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on June 21, 2024 .

essay against divorce

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Should You Talk about Divorce in Your College Admissions Essay

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  • Last Updated on August 5, 2024

Table of Contents

As a high school student, you should plan out your college application essay s carefully. You want to write a strong piece centered around a topic that is personal, compelling, and unique. But figuring out what that personal, compelling, unique topic is can be difficult. 

Some students feel that there are so many important moments they want to write about in their essay that they can’t choose among them. Other students may have the opposite experience: feeling as if there’s nothing that makes them special and so no topic around which to build an essay.  But, because this is your only chance to personally connect with admissions officers , it’s still important to pick a topic that will provide readers a sense of your character and your story. To accomplish this, some students decide to talk about their passions or times in their lives that made them re-evaluate themselves, and some students discuss heavier topics, such as personal loss. 

In particular, many students want to write about their experience of their parents’ divorce in their college application essay . This is a tricky topic to navigate in a personal statement, but it can be done. We’ll talk below about whether you should write about divorce and, if you do decide to focus on the topic, how best to frame your essay.

Can You Write about Divorce in Your College Essay ?

Because it can be hard to properly articulate how someone’s parents’ divorce or a loved one’s death helped them grow as individuals, many college advisors try to steer students away from writing about these more serious situations. It’s very easy, if the essay isn’t well structured, for the tragedy of divorce or death to overshadow the writer’s personal qualities that they are trying to highlight for admissions officers . 

Still, this doesn’t mean that you can’t write about your parent’s divorce and how it shaped you. Depending on how you frame the divorce, you can make the topic work in your favor, but you need to make sure that you’re writing about your role in the divorce in a way that is flattering and that shows—through concrete examples—how you grew as a result of your experiences. 

When Should You Write about Divorce in Your College Application Essay ?

Students can write about almost any topic, as long as they answer the essay prompt and show colleges that they have the right qualities to attend their school. However, if you plan on writing about divorce in your essay, we recommend thinking about a few key factors. 

First, consider how much time has passed since the divorce. If your parents have just divorced this year, it might not be appropriate to write about this as your essay topic. A divorce is a traumatic event for students of any age, so you want some distance between yourself and the divorce, enough that you can properly process its effects on your life. If your parents are recently divorced, it may be harder to gain the necessary perspective and clarity to write a strong essay. 

Next, ask yourself if you have a good reason for writing about your parent’s divorce. Some students simply pick this topic because they feel like they need to write about a challenging time in their life. However, it’s best if you have other strong reasons for writing about your parent’s divorce—generally some personal growth or resilience that the divorce highlights. If you can’t show clearly how the trauma of divorce led you to grow or develop, it may be best to seek a different topic. 

Any essay about divorce is bound to highlight emotional hardships, but you want to be careful that those challenges don’t become the central focus of the essay. It’s okay to show vulnerability in your application, and opening up about challenging experiences can help your essay stand out and seem more unique. But you’re having suffered doesn’t inherently make you a more attractive candidate to colleges. Rather, you want to be able to show how that suffering it connects to your college ambitions, how it led you to become more resilient or more focused or how it directed you toward a career assisting people who have similar traumatic experiences. 

Really, anyone writing about this topic needs to show admissions officers that they’ve emerged from this experience stronger, a better potential asset to colleges they’re applying to.   

How to Write a Strong College Application Essay about Divorce

If you’ve considered your options and writing about your parents’ divorce still seems like your best option, there are many ways to approach the topic. We have a few pointers to help you set up your essay and grab admissions readers’ attentions below:

Create a Solid Outline

As with any essay, planning is everything. You want to create a solid outline that will really help admissions officers understand you and your experience of your parents’ divorce. Start by writing a strong hook that isn’t overly cliché. You might begin by describing a particularly difficult moment in the divorce, though this runs the risk of highlighting too strongly the negative aspects of your experience. To overcome that problem, you might instead paint a picture of your current life, of the ways in which you’ve improved following the divorce . 

You can analyze the situation a little, but make sure that, throughout the middle part of your essay, you talk about how the divorce positively shaped your outlook on life. What lessons did you learn? How did you grow? How are you stronger for having undergone these difficult experiences? Answer these questions well, then talk about how these life lessons prepared you for your chosen college. 

Try Not to be a Cliche

While divorce is difficult for everyone involved, especially children, you need to remember that a lot of people go through a divorce. That means that plenty of students have written on this topic—and your reader will likely be familiar with common tropes of the genre: slammed doors and angry voices, financial challenges and difficult relocations. So, you need to help yourself stand out by making your writing more unique.

  The best way to do this is by presenting your experiences with enough specificity that the experience you’re describing is yours and no one else’s. Slammed doors may be a cliché of arguments, but if you describe the how, after they slammed the door, you watched your parent walk away through the door’s cut glass window, their image fractured into a thousand fragments by the prismed glass, no one will mistake your story for that of another student. Through specificity and concrete imagery, you can make your essay stand out.. 

It’s true that similarities will exist in anyone’s account of a divorce, but you can make your essay distinctive by adding personal details. The most important thing is to tell admissions how you specifically overcame the divorce and learned from this experience. 

Have Other People Read Your Essay

Finally, have people you trust look over your essay. It might be uncomfortable letting other people read such a personal essay, but you want to make sure that you’re submitting the best possible writing for your college application. Friends and family members can give you constructive feedback and even tell you how to improve your writing. They can also check for grammar and other spelling mistakes so your essay is fully polished and ready for submission!

At  HelloCollege , we know how difficult it can be to prepare for college and aim to make the process as simple and easy as possible. We want to help you get accepted into the university of your dreams! Schedule a free consultation today. 

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Divorce should be an option

essay against divorce

The House of Representatives committee on population and family relations approved the absolute divorce bill which allows it to proceed to plenary for debate. This is the closest we have come to finally allow people to have full freedom to decide on the course of their relationships. As a predominantly Catholic nation, this understandably will cause fierce arguments and culturally entrenched righteous indignation. However, as someone who works with families, let me offer some points on this issue.

If you as a couple do not want to consider divorce in your marriage, you don’t have to. Legalizing divorce does not threaten harmonious families. People who are happy and content within their marriages will not suddenly rush to get one just because it is available. If you worry that your spouse will divorce you the moment it becomes legal, then you have much more important things to worry about in your relationship. It can, however, save the lives of many victims of domestic violence (mostly women) and allow people to determine their own lives.

Not allowing divorce as a legal option is like not allowing emergency exits in a building. Imagine there’s a fire but the building owner didn’t put in emergency exits because he “does not believe in it” and that you were expected to keep managing the fire, not escape it. Imagine still a building infested with toxic mold but that you were not permitted to evacuate because others couldn’t fathom why you don’t have the willpower to tough it out. Most people hopefully will not need to use emergency exits in their lifetime. And you’ll be glad it’s there when you need it.

Divorce can also be a protective tool against domestic violence, which is the strongest reason why it should exist. In other countries, they found a significant reduction of spousal conflict and extreme partner violence once divorce was an accessible option. When you know that your spouse has legal rights to leave, you are disabused of the notion of your spouse as property and less likely to mistreat them. Domestic violence also takes up a significant portion of reasons for divorce, around 25-50 percent in other countries. By refusing to provide this option, you are condemning victims of domestic violence to a lifetime of hell. Not having access to options can also turn into desperation—leading some individuals to consider a lethal option.

Even without the threat of domestic violence, we should consider the natural course of intimate relationships. You can only realistically commit to a set of behaviors, not a set of feelings. You cannot genuinely promise to make someone happy. You can, however, promise to not have sex with anyone else (you can still break this promise, of course, but it is more than possible to keep). Feelings, by nature, are temporary. They can be lost and regained. They can strengthen and fade.

Love is both a feeling and an act. Love, as a feeling, can change. I do not know which Hallmark writer decided that love should be forever. The act of loving, however, is within your control and something you can choose to commit to. By accepting the nature of feelings, we must accept the possibility that we might lose the feeling of love for our spouse despite our best intentions. The act that follows this loss—whether it be active efforts to rekindle the lost feeling, redefining the marriage as platonic mutual respect, or acknowledging that the marriage is over—can still be done in a loving way. The best way to shield children from the harmful effects of separation or divorce is for both parents to commit to respecting each other and to still care for each other as co-parents. Ironically, couples who do acknowledge the wax and wane of romantic feeling are much more likely to stay together because they do not take each other for granted and make repeated intentions to stay. They also tend to be more generous and less calculative during separation and genuinely wishing each other happiness.

Divorce is not the killer of happy marriages. It is simply a life raft for people drowning in a marriage that’s already long dead. If you want to ensure the success of a marriage, we should be providing couples with resources and support to help them better adapt and not simply mandate them to stay together. If you love someone, you don’t chain them to you; them choosing to stay is a greater sense of emotional security than locking them in a divorce-less marriage.

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The Lure of Divorce

Seven years into my marriage, i hit a breaking point — and had to decide whether life would be better without my husband in it..

Portrait of Emily Gould

This article was featured in One Great Story , New York ’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.

In the summer of 2022, I lost my mind. At first, it seemed I was simply overwhelmed because life had become very difficult, and I needed to — had every right to — blow off some steam. Our family was losing its apartment and had to find another one, fast, in a rental market gone so wild that people were offering over the asking price on rent. My husband, Keith, was preparing to publish a book, Raising Raffi, about our son, a book he’d written with my support and permission but that, as publication loomed, I began to have mixed feelings about. To cope with the stress, I asked my psychiatrist to increase the dosage of the antidepressant I’d been on for years. Sometime around then, I started talking too fast and drinking a lot.

I felt invincibly alive, powerful, and self-assured, troubled only by impatience with how slowly everyone around me was moving and thinking. Drinking felt necessary because it slightly calmed my racing brain. Some days, I’d have drinks with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which I ate at restaurants so the drink order didn’t seem too unusual. Who doesn’t have an Aperol spritz on the way home from the gym in the morning? The restaurant meals cost money, as did the gym, as did all the other random things I bought, spending money we didn’t really have on ill-fitting lingerie from Instagram and workout clothes and lots of planters from Etsy. I grew distant and impatient with Keith as the book’s publication approached, even as I planned a giant party to celebrate its launch. At the party, everyone got COVID. I handed out cigarettes from a giant salad bowl — I had gone from smoking once or twice a day to chain-smoking whenever I could get away with it. When well-meaning friends tried to point out what was going on, I screamed at them and pointed out everything that was wrong in their lives. And most crucially, I became convinced that my marriage was over and had been over for years.

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I built a case against my husband in my mind. This book of his was simply the culmination of a pattern: He had always put his career before mine; while I had tended to our children during the pandemic, he had written a book about parenting. I tried to balance writing my own novel with drop-offs, pickups, sick days, and planning meals and shopping and cooking, most of which had always been my primary responsibility since I was a freelancer and Keith had a full-time job teaching journalism. We were incompatible in every way, except that we could talk to each other as we could to no one else, but that seemed beside the point. More relevant: I spent money like it was water, never budgeting, leaving Keith to make sure we made rent every month. Every few months, we’d have a fight about this and I’d vow to change; some system would be put in place, but it never stuck. We were headed for disaster, and finally it came.

Our last fight happened after a long day spent at a wedding upstate. I’d been drinking, first spiked lemonade at lunch alone and then boxed wine during the wedding reception, where I couldn’t eat any of the food — it all contained wheat, and I have celiac disease. When we got back, late, to the house where we were staying, I ordered takeout and demanded he go pick it up for me. Calling from the restaurant, he was incensed. Did I know how much my takeout order had cost? I hadn’t paid attention as I checked boxes in the app, nor had I realized that our bank account was perilously low — I never looked at receipts or opened statements. Not knowing this, I felt like he was actually denying me food, basic sustenance. It was the last straw. I packed a bag as the kids played happily with their cousins downstairs, then waited by the side of the road for a friend who lived nearby to come pick me up, even as Keith stood there begging me to stay. But his words washed over me; I was made of stone. I said it was over — really over. This was it, the definitive moment I’d been waiting for. I had a concrete reason to leave.

A few days later, still upstate at my friend’s house, I had a Zoom call with my therapist and my psychiatrist, who both urged me in no uncertain terms to check myself into a psychiatric hospital. Even I couldn’t ignore a message that clear. My friend drove me to the city, stopping for burgers along the way — I should have relished the burger more, as it was some of the last noninstitutional food I would eat for a long time — and helped me check into NYU Langone. My bags were searched, and anything that could be used as a weapon was removed, including my mascara. I spent my first night there in a gown in a cold holding room with no phone, nothing but my thoughts. Eventually, a bed upstairs became free and I was brought to the psych ward, where I was introduced to a roommate, had blood drawn, and was given the first of many pills that would help me stop feeling so irrepressibly energetic and angry. They started me on lithium right away. In a meeting with a team of psychiatrists, they broke the news: I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder; they weren’t sure which kind yet. They gave me a nicotine patch every few hours plus Klonopin and Seroquel and lithium.

I wasn’t being held involuntarily, which meant I could write letters on an official form explaining why I ought to be released, which the psychiatrists then had three days to consider. I attached extra notebook pages to the letters explaining that I was divorcing my husband and was terrified I would never be able to see my kids again if I was declared unfit because I was insane. These letters did not result in my release; if anything, they prolonged my stay. I got my phone back — it would soon be revoked again, wisely — but in that brief interim, I sent out a newsletter to my hundreds of subscribers declaring that I was getting a divorce and asking them to Venmo me money for the custody battle I foresaw. In this newsletter, I also referenced Shakespeare. The drugs clearly had not kicked in yet. I cycled through three different roommates, all of whom were lovely, though I preferred the depressed one to the borderline ones. We amused ourselves during the day by going to art therapy, music therapy, and meetings with our psychiatrists. I made a lot of beaded bracelets.

In the meetings with the shrinks, I steadfastly maintained that I was sane and that my main problem was the ending of my marriage. I put Keith, and my mother, on a list of people who weren’t allowed to visit me. Undaunted, Keith brought me gluten-free egg sandwiches in the morning, which I grudgingly ate — anything for a break from the hospital food. My parents came up from D.C. and helped Keith take care of our children. I was in the hospital for a little more than three weeks, almost the entire month of October, longer than I’d ever been away from my kids before in their lives. I celebrated my 41st birthday in the hospital and received a lot of very creative cards that my fellow crazies had decorated during art therapy. Eventually, the drugs began to work: I could tell they were working because instead of feeling energetic, I suddenly couldn’t stop crying. The tears came involuntarily, like vomit. I cried continuously for hours and had to be given gabapentin in order to sleep.

essay against divorce

On the day I was released, I didn’t let anyone pick me up. I expected the superhuman strength I’d felt for months to carry me, but it was gone, lithiumed away. Instead, I felt almost paralyzed as I carried my bags to a cab. When I arrived at my apartment, I couldn’t figure out where I should sleep. It didn’t feel like my home anymore. We couldn’t afford to live separately, even temporarily, but the one thing that our somewhat decrepit, inconveniently located new apartment had in its favor was two small attic bedrooms and one larger bedroom downstairs. I claimed this downstairs room for myself and began to live there alone, coming into contact with Keith only when we had to be together with our children.

You might assume that my fixation on divorce would have subsided now that my mental health had stabilized and I was on strong antipsychotic medication. But I still did not want to stay in my marriage. If anything, I felt a newfound clarity: Keith and I had fundamentally incompatible selves. Our marriage had been built on a flaw. My husband was older, more established and successful in his career. These were the facts, so it had to be my job to do more of the work at home. Unless, of course, I decided to take myself and my work as seriously as he took his. But that was unappealing; I had managed to publish three books before turning 40, but I didn’t want to work all the time, like he does.

I wondered if my marriage would always feel like a competition and if the only way to call the competition a draw would be to end it.

We picked the kids up from school and dropped them off, or really mostly Keith did. I appeared at meals and tried to act normal. I was at a loss for what to do much of the time. I attended AA meetings and the DBT meetings required by the hospital outpatient program, and I read. I read books about insanity: Darkness Visible, The Bell Jar, An Unquiet Mind, Postcards From the Edge. I tried to understand what was happening to me, but nothing seemed to resonate until I began to read books about divorce. I felt I was preparing myself for what was coming. The first book I read was Rachel Cusk’s Aftermath, which has become the go-to literary divorce bible since its 2012 publication. In it, Cusk describes the way her life shattered and recomposed after the dissolution of her marriage, when her daughters were still very young. She makes the case for the untenability of her relationship by explaining that men and women are fundamentally unequal. She posits that men and women who marry and have children are perpetually fighting separate battles, lost to each other: “The baby can seem like something her husband has given her as a substitute for himself, a kind of transitional object, like a doll, for her to hold so that he can return to the world. And he does, he leaves her, returning to work, setting sail for Troy. He is free, for in the baby the romance of man and woman has been concluded: each can now do without the other.”

At our relationship’s lowest moments, this metaphor had barely been a metaphor. I remembered, the previous winter, Keith going off on a reporting trip to Ukraine at the very beginning of the war, leaving me and the kids with very little assurance of his safety. I had felt okay for the first couple of days until I heard on the news of bombing very close to where he was staying. After that, I went and bummed a cigarette from a neighbor, leaving the kids sleeping in their beds in order to do so. It was my first cigarette in 15 years. Though that had been the winter before my mania began, I believe the first seeds of it were sown then: leaving the children, smoking the cigarette, resenting Keith for putting himself in harm’s way and going out into the greater world while I tended to lunches, homework, and laundry as though everything were normal.

In Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, as in Aftermath, I found an airtight case for divorce. The husband was the villain and the wife the wronged party, and the inevitable result was splitting up. I felt an echo of this later on when I read Lyz Lenz’s polemic This American Ex-Wife, out this month, marketed as “a deeply validating manifesto on the gender politics of marriage (bad) and divorce (actually pretty good!).” The book begins by detailing how Lenz’s husband rarely did household chores and hid belongings of hers that he didn’t like — e.g., a mug that said WRITE LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER — in a box in the basement. “I didn’t want to waste my one wild and precious life telling a grown man where to find the ketchup,” Lenz writes. “What was compelling about my marriage wasn’t its evils or its villains, but its commonplace horror.”

This was not quite the way I felt. Even though I could not stand to see my husband’s face or hear his voice, even though I still felt the same simmering resentment I had since I entered the hospital, I also found myself feeling pangs of sympathy for him. After all, he was going through this too. When we were inevitably together, at mealtimes that were silent unless the children spoke, I could see how wounded he was, how he was barely keeping it together. His clothes hung off his gaunt frame. And at night, when we passed in the kitchen making cups of tea that we would take to our respective rooms, he sometimes asked me for a hug, just a hug. One time I gave in and felt his ribs through his T-shirt. He must have lost at least 15 pounds.

It began to seem like I only ever talked to friends who had been through divorces or were contemplating them. One friend who didn’t know whether to split up with her husband thought opening their marriage might be the answer. Another friend described the ease of sharing custody of his young daughter, then admitted that he and his ex-wife still had sex most weekends. In my chronically undecided state, I admired both of these friends who had found, or might have found, a way to split the difference. Maybe it was possible to break up and remain friends with an ex, something that had never happened to me before in my entire life. Maybe it was possible to be married and not married at the same time. Then I went a little further in my imagination, and the idea of someone else having sex with my husband made me want to gag with jealousy. Maybe that meant something. I was so confused, and the confusion seemed to have no end.

I read more books about divorce. I received an early copy of Sarah Manguso’s Liars, marketed as “a searing novel about being a wife, a mother, and an artist, and how marriage makes liars out of us all.” In it, John, a creative dilettante, and Jane, a writer, meet and soon decide to marry. Liars describes their marriage from beginning to end, a span of almost 15 years, and is narrated by Jane. The beginning of their relationship is delirious: “I tried to explain that first ferocious hunger and couldn’t. It came from somewhere beyond reason.” But the opening of that book also contains a warning. “Then I married a man, as women do. My life became archetypal, a drag show of nuclear familyhood. I got enmeshed in a story that had already been told ten billion times.” I felt perversely reassured that I was merely adding another story to the 10 billion. It made it seem less like it was my fault.

The beginning of my relationship with my husband wasn’t that dramatic or definitive. I thought I was getting into something casual with someone I didn’t even know if I particularly liked, much less loved, but was still oddly fascinated by. I wanted to see the way he lived, to see if I could emulate it and become more like him. He lived with roommates in his 30s — well, that was the price you paid if you wanted to do nothing but write. I wanted what he had, his seriousness about his work. We went on dates where we both sat with our laptops in a café, writing, and this was somehow the most romantic thing I’d ever experienced. On our third date, we went to his father’s home on Cape Cod to dog-sit for a weekend, and it was awkward in the car until we realized we were both thinking about the same Mary Gaitskill story, “A Romantic Weekend,” in which a couple with dramatically mismatched needs learn the truth about each other through painful trial and error. Our weekend was awkward, too, but not nearly as awkward as the one in the story. On the way home, I remember admiring Keith’s driving, effortless yet masterful. I trusted him in the car completely. A whisper of a thought: He would make a good father.

In Liars, cracks begin to form almost immediately, even before John and Jane get engaged; she is accepted to a prestigious fellowship and he isn’t, and he is forthright about his fear that she will become more successful than he is: “A moment later he said he didn’t want to be the unsuccessful partner of the successful person. Then he apologized and said that he’d just wanted to be honest. I said, It was brave and considerate to tell me. ”

Through the next few years, so gradually that it’s almost imperceptible, John makes it impossible for Jane to succeed. He launches tech companies that require cross-country moves, forcing Jane to bounce between adjunct-teaching gigs. And then, of course, they have a baby. The problem with the baby is that Jane wants everything to be perfect for him and throws herself into creating a tidy home and an ideal child-development scenario, whereas John works more and more, moving the family again as one start-up fails and another flourishes. Jane begins to wonder whether she has created a prison for herself but pacifies herself with the thought that her situation is normal: “No married woman I knew was better off, so I determined to carry on. After all, I was a control freak, a neat freak, a crazy person.” The story John tells her about herself becomes her own story for a while. For a while, it’s impossible to know whose story is the truth.

I thought about Keith’s side of the story when I read Liars. Maybe it was the lack of alcohol’s blur that enabled me to see this clearly for the first time — I began to see how burdened he had been, had always been, with a partner who refused to plan for the future and who took on, without being asked, household chores that could just as easily have been distributed evenly. Our situation had never been as clear-cut as it was for Lyz Lenz; Keith had never refused to take out the trash or hidden my favorite mug. But he worked more and later hours, and my intermittent book advances and freelance income could not be counted on to pay our rent. As soon as we’d had a child, he had been shunted into the role of breadwinner without choosing it or claiming it. At first, I did all the cooking because I liked cooking and then, when I stopped liking cooking, I did it anyway out of habit. For our marriage to change, we would have needed to consciously decide to change it, insofar as our essential natures and our financial situation would allow. But when were we supposed to have found the time to do that? It was maddening that the root of our fracture was so commonplace and clichéd — and that even though the problem was ordinary, I still couldn’t think my way out of it.

Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story, by Leslie Jamison , is in some ways the successor to Aftermath — the latest divorce book by a literary superstar. It is mostly an account of Jamison’s passionate marriage to a fellow writer, C., and the way that marriage fell apart after her career accelerated and they had a child together. It then details her first months of life as a single mother and her forays into dating. In it, she is strenuously fair to C., taking much of the blame for the dissolution of their marriage. But she can’t avoid describing his anger that her book merits an extensive tour, while his novel — based on his relationship with his first wife, who had died of leukemia — fails commercially. “It didn’t get the reception he had hoped for,” Jamison writes, and now, “I could feel him struggling. He wanted to support me, but there was a thorn in every interview.” C. grows distant, refusing to publicly perform the charming self that Jamison fell in love with. “I wished there was a way to say, Your work matters, that didn’t involve muting my own,” Jamison writes.

For all my marriage’s faults, we never fought in public. Friends encouraged us to reconcile, saying, “You always seemed so good together.” (As if there were another way to seem! Standing next to each other at a party, it had always been easy to relax because we couldn’t fight.) And we never did anything but praise each other’s work. Until this last book of my husband’s, that is. I had read Raising Raffi for the first time six months before it was published, while I was out of town for the weekend. I had, at that time, enjoyed reading it — it was refreshing, in a way, to see someone else’s perspective on a part of my own life. I even felt a certain relief that my child’s early years, in all their specificity and cuteness, had been recorded. This work had been accomplished, and I hadn’t had to do it! There had been only a slight pang in the background of that feeling that I hadn’t been the one to do it. But as publication drew nearer, the pang turned into outright anger . The opening chapter described my giving birth to our first son, and I didn’t realize how violated I felt by that until it was vetted by The New Yorker ’s fact-checker after that section was selected as an excerpt for its website. Had a geyser of blood shot out of my vagina? I didn’t actually know. I had been busy at the time. I hung up on the fact-checker who called me, asking her to please call my husband instead. (In case you’re wondering, Keith has read this essay and suggested minimal changes.)

I related to the writers in Splinters trying to love each other despite the underlying thrum of competing ambitions. But most of all, Jamison’s book made me even more terrified about sharing custody. “There was only one time I got on my knees and begged. It happened in our living room, where I knelt beside the wooden coffee table and pleaded not to be away from her for two nights each week,” she writes. Envisioning a future in which we shared custody of our children made me cringe with horror. It seemed like absolute hell. At the time we separated, our younger son was only 4 years old and required stories and cuddles to get to bed. Missing a night of those stories seemed like a punishment neither of us deserved, and yet we would have to sacrifice time with our kids if we were going to escape each other, which seemed like the only possible solution to our problem. Thanksgiving rolled around, and I cooked a festive meal that we ate without looking at each other. Whenever I looked at Keith, I started to cry.

We decided to enter divorce mediation at the beginning of December. On Sixth Avenue, heading to the therapist’s office, we passed the hospital where I’d once been rushed for an emergency fetal EKG when I was pregnant with our first son. His heart had turned out to be fine. But as we passed that spot, I sensed correctly that we were both thinking of that moment, of a time when we had felt so connected in our panic and desperate hope, and now the invisible cord that had bound us had been, if not severed, shredded and torn. For a moment on the sidewalk there, we allowed ourselves to hold hands, remembering.

The therapist was a small older woman with short curly reddish hair. She seemed wise, like she’d seen it all and seen worse. I was the one who talked the most in that session, blaming Keith for making me go crazy, even though I knew this wasn’t technically true or possible: I had gone crazy from a combination of sky-high stress and a too-high SSRI prescription and a latent crazy that had been in me, part of me, since long before Keith married me, since I was born. Still, I blamed his job, his book, his ambition and workaholism, which always surpassed my own efforts. I cried throughout the session; I think we both did. I confessed that I was not the primary wronged person in these negotiations, and to be fair I have to talk about why. Sometime post–Last Fight and pre-hospitalization, I had managed to cheat on my husband. I had been so sure we were basically already divorced that I justified the act to myself; I couldn’t have done it any other way. I had thought I might panic at the last minute or even throw up or faint, but I had gone through with it thanks to the delusional state I was in. There aren’t many more details anyone needs to know. It was just one time, and it was like a drug I used to keep myself from feeling sad about what was really happening. Anyway, there’s a yoga retreat center I’ll never be able to go to again in my life.

At the end of the session, we decided to continue with the therapist but in couples therapy instead of divorce mediation. It was a service she also provided, and as a bonus, it was $100 cheaper per session. She didn’t say why she made this recommendation, but maybe it was our palpable shared grief that convinced her that our marriage was salvageable. Or maybe it was that, despite everything I had told her in that session, she could see that, even in my profound sadness and anger, I looked toward Keith to complete my sentences when I was searching for the right word and that he did the same thing with me. As broken as we were, we were still pieces of one once-whole thing.

My husband would have to forgive me for cheating and wasting our money. I would have to forgive him for treading on my literary territory: our family’s life, my own life. My husband would have to forgive me for having a mental breakdown, leaving him to take care of our family on his own for a month, costing us thousands of uninsured dollars in hospital bills. I would have to forgive him for taking for granted, for years, that I would be available on a sick day or to do an early pickup or to watch the baby while he wrote about our elder son. I would have to forgive him for taking for granted that there would always be dinner on the table without his having to think about how it got there. He would have to forgive me for never taking out the recycling and never learning how to drive so that I could move the car during alternate-side parking. I would have to forgive him for usurping the time and energy and brain space with which I might have written a better book than his. Could the therapist help us overcome what I knew to be true: that we’d gone into marriage already aware that we were destined for constant conflict just because of who we are? The therapist couldn’t help me ask him to do more if I didn’t feel like I deserved it, if I couldn’t bring myself to ask him myself. I had to learn how to ask.

No one asked anything or forgave anything that day in the couples therapist’s office. After what felt like months but was probably only a few days, I was watching Ramy on my laptop in my downstairs-bedroom cave after the kids’ bedtime when some moment struck me as something Keith would love. Acting purely on impulse, I left my room and found him sitting on the couch, drinking tea. I told him I’d been watching this show I thought was funny and that he would really like it. Soon, we were sitting side by side on the couch, watching Ramy together. We went back to our respective rooms afterward, but still, we’d made progress.

After a few more weeks and a season’s worth of shared episodes of Ramy, I ventured for the first time upstairs to Keith’s attic room. It smelled alien to me, and I recognized that this was the pure smell of Keith, not the shared smell of the bedrooms in every apartment we’d lived in together. I lay down next to him in the mess of his bed. He made room for me. We didn’t touch, not yet. But we slept, that night, together. The next night, we went back to sleeping alone.

Pickups and drop-offs became evenly divided among me and Keith and a sitter. Keith learned to make spaghetti with meat sauce. He could even improvise other dishes, with somewhat less success, but he was improving. I made a conscious effort not to tidy the house after the children left for school. I made myself focus on my work even when there was chaos around me. Slowly, I began to be able to make eye contact with Keith again. At couples therapy, we still clutched tissue boxes in our hands, but we used them less. Our separate chairs inched closer together in the room.

That Christmas, we rented a tiny Airbnb near his dad’s house in Falmouth. It had only two bedrooms, one with bunk beds for the kids and one with a king-size bed that took up almost the entirety of the small room. We would have to share a bed for the duration of the trip. The decision I made to reach across the giant bed toward Keith on one of the last nights of the trip felt, again, impulsive. But there were years of information and habit guiding my impulse. Sex felt, paradoxically, completely comfortable and completely new, like losing my virginity. It felt like sleeping with a different person and also like sleeping with the same person, which made sense, in a way. We had become different people while somehow staying the same people we’d always been.

Slowly, over the course of the next months, I moved most of my things upstairs to his room, now our room. We still see the therapist twice a month. We talk about how to make things more equal in our marriage, how not to revert to old patterns. I have, for instance, mostly given up on making dinner, doing it only when it makes more sense in the schedule of our shared day or when I actually want to cook. It turns out that pretty much anyone can throw some spaghetti sauce on some pasta; it also turns out that the kids won’t eat dinner no matter who cooks it, and now we get to experience that frustration equally. Keith’s work is still more stable and prestigious than mine, but we conspire to pretend that this isn’t the case, making sure to leave space for my potential and my leisure. We check in to make sure we’re not bowing to the overwhelming pressure to cede our whole lives to the physical and financial demands, not to mention the fervently expressed wants, of our children. It’s the work that we’d never found time to do before, and it is work. The difference is that we now understand what can happen when we don’t do it. I’m always surprised by how much I initially don’t want to go to therapy and then by how much lighter I feel afterward. For now, those sessions are a convenient container for our marriage’s intractable defects so that we get to spend the rest of our time together focusing on what’s not wrong with us.

The downstairs bedroom is now dormant, a place for occasional guests to stay or for our elder son to lie in bed as he plays video games. Some of my clothes from a year earlier still fill the drawers, but none of it seems like mine. I never go into that room if I can help it. It was the room of my exile from my marriage, from my family. If I could magically disappear it from our apartment, I would do it in a heartbeat. And in the attic bedroom, we are together, not as we were before but as we are now.

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Home / Essay Samples / Life / Divorce / Divorce Destroys Family Life

Divorce Destroys Family Life

  • Category: Life , Sociology
  • Topic: Divorce , Family Relationships

Pages: 1 (493 words)

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Introduction

Impact on relationships, emotional instability, disruption of home environment, alternative perspectives.

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