Critical Life Events Flashcards
What are life events?
Life events are defined as discrete experiences that disrupt an individual’s and families usual activities causing a substantial change and readjustment.
Some of the critical life events that affect the family functioning?
- child birth
- death
- marriage, and
- divorce
Read up on Divorce
The decision to end a relationship can be traumatic, chaotic, and filled with contradictory emotions. There are also specific feelings, attitudes, and dynamics associated with whether one is in the role of the initiator or the receiver of the decision to breakup. For example, it is not unusual for the initiator to experience fear, relief, distance, impatience, resentment, doubt, and guilt. Likewise, when a party has not initiated the divorce (i.e. the one who is the receiver of the decision to breakup), they may feel shock, betrayal, loss of control, victimisation, decreased self-esteem, insecurity, anger,
a desire to “get even,” and wishes to reconcile.
To normalise clients’ experiences during this time, it may be helpful to know the typical emotional stages that have been identified with ending a relationship. It may also be helpful to understand that marriages do not breakdown overnight; the breakup is not the result of one incident; nor is the breakup the entire fault of one party. The emotional breaking up process typically extends over several years and is confounded by each
party being at different stages in the emotional process while in the same stage of the physical (or legal) process of divorce.
Read up on Emotional Stages of Divorce
I. DISILLUSIONMENT OF ONE PARTY (sometimes 1-2 years before verbalised)
A. Vague feelings of discontentment, arguments, stored
resentments, breaches of trust
B. Problems are real but unacknowledged
C. Greater distance; lack of mutuality
D. Confidential, fantasy, consideration of pros and cons of divorce
Development of strategy for separation
E. Feelings: fear, denial, anxiety, guilt, love, anger, depression, grief
II. EXPRESSING DISSATISFACTION (8-12 months before
invoking legal process)
A. Expressing discontent or ambivalence to other party,
Marital counseling, or
B. Possible honeymoon phase (one last try)
C. Feelings: relief (that it’s out in the open), tension, emotional roller coaster, guilt, anguish, doubt, grief
III. DECIDING TO DIVORCE (6-12 months before invoking
legal process)
A. Creating emotional distance (i.e., disparaging the other person/situation in order to leave it)
B. Seldom reversible (because it’s been considered for awhile)
C. Likely for an affair to occur
D. Other person just begins Stage I (considering divorce) and feels denial, depressed, rejected, low self-esteem, anger
E. Both parties feel victimised by the others
Feelings: anger, resentment, sadness, guilt, anxiety for the family, the future, impatience with other, needy
IV. ACTING ON DECISION (beginning the legal process)
A. Physical separation
B. Emotional separation (complicated by emotional flare-ups) Creating redefinition (self-orientation)
C. Going public with the decision
D. Setting the tone for the divorce process (getting legal advice
and setting legal precedent: children, support, home)
E. Choosing sides and divided loyalties of friends and families
F. Usually when the children find out (they may feel
responsible, behave in ways to make parents interact)
G. Feelings: traumatised, panic, fear, shame, guilt, blame,
histrionics
V. GROWING ACCEPTANCE (during the legal process or
after)
A. Adjustments: physical, emotional
B. Accepting that the marriage wasn’t happy or fulfilling
C. Regaining a sense of power and control, creating a plan for the future, creating a new identity, discovering new talents and resources
D. This is the best time to be in mediation: parties can look forward and plan for the future; moods can be more
elevated (thrill of a second chance at life)
VI. NEW BEGINNINGS (completing the legal process to four years after)
A. Parties have moved beyond the blame and anger to
forgiveness, new respect, new roles
B. Experiences: insight, acceptance, integrity
C. Comparing Mediation and Litigation
Divorce effects on Children
Separation of father and mother affects their
children the most. Usually, divorce brings about a lot of different changes in daily life of the children, and most of such changes are sad, like loneliness, stresses, nervousness, etc. Sometimes, a child may want to protest against the situation by exhibiting strange and unusual behaviours, such as persistent bed wetting,
uncontrollable crying and heightened separation anxiety. At other times the behaviour change might be more subtle and is manifested in other forms such as failures in school, withdrawal or other problematic behaviours. Normally, the first reaction of children on the news about the divorce is confusion, denial, fear, which can be followed by aggression, anger, depression, suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, etc. After this, emotional stresses decrease and the child starts learning to cope with the divorce, however, most often it does have a long term impact on the child.
Long-term effects of divorce on children include various fears, such as fear of committing to a relationship, fear of
rejection, fear of abandonment; constant misunderstandings and tension, etc. It affects their self-
identities, their ideas about self-in-relations, their feelings
of trusting, security and stability. This has significant
psychological impact on the child.
Divorce effects on Couple
The tensions and misunderstandings between the couples usually start long before the divorce, making the life of both man and woman really terrible. Sometimes there are serious problems, like an affair with someone else, alcohol or drug dependence, family violence, and so on, which can result in divorce. But sometimes two people simply do not want to live together anymore and cannot get along well with each other.
The most common psychological reactions to the decision to divorce is worry, sleeplessness, nervousness, depression, different fears, and/or anger. Some people can start drinking, smoking, overeating or even having drugs. Most often, divorcing adults cannot do well at work and can lose their jobs, may need medical help or can do something harmful for the society. The couple in divorce also have to come to term with other losses such as mourning loss of intact family, restructuring marital and parent-child relationship, adjusting finances responsibilities, adapting to living apart, giving up
fantasies of reunion and realignment of relationships with extended family as they try to stay to connected.
Divorce Economic and Social Effects
Divorce also affects the economic and social situation of the family. Once the divorce has been finalised, one parent usually leaves the family, thereby forever altering the family structure.
In such case the family then becomes a one-parent family, which then becomes it new social status. Divorce usually has significant effect on the economic situation of the family because post-divorce the family is solely depended on the earnings of one parent, with the other parent only providing limited financial support in form of maintenance. Sometimes, after divorce families start living much financially-constraint life; because family income decreases considerably and children have to be risen on a single salary. For example, usually a single-parent family would move to a smaller flat or apartment,
as well as the parent might need to send the children to more economical schools and give up some extracurricular programs, etc.
Explain high conflict and low conflict divorces.
In high-conflict marriages, conflicts and problems are
probably visible to all members of the family, including
children. In a high-conflict marriage there is yelling, screaming, and throwing things; sometimes there is even violence and abuse.
But in a low-conflict marriage in which one or both spouses are unhappy, the problems are usually not so public and noticeable; marital problems are more private and children are unlikely to know that anything is seriously wrong.
