Children of divorce are at higher risk for divorce than children of intact families. You would think that this would deter the younger generation from matrimony, but findings show that generation Y is more motivated than ever to get married and stay married. We as a culture should do everything we can to help them meet this goal. Our churches can do much to help these young married hopefuls stay married for a lifetime.

In 1965 the divorce rate surged, peaking in 1979 at the rate of 23 divorces per 1000 couples. This was the boomer generation who ended their marriages in record numbers leaving their children bereft, not knowing what a healthy lasting marriage is all about. It was even true of the church whose divorce rate was no different than that of the secular community. Rather than steering clear of marriage these boomer-off-spring are embracing it. According to Pamela Paul in her book, The Starter Marriage, "Today’s generation is reacting against divorce by romanticizing marriage. They are searching for the permanence and connection that was lost when their families dissolved. This younger, more hopeful generation wants what their parents rejected and is seeking it in increasing numbers."

Culture is obliging these young hopefuls with a more positive take on marriage as well. We are becoming "The Marriage Culture" with television shows like, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire,The Bachelor, Bachelorette, Married in America and Regis and Kathie Lee’s Wedding Week, which had 10,000 applicants who wanted to tie the knot on live TV. A 1996 Redbook article by Lois Smith tells, "Why Marriage is Hot Again." On June 11, 2000 The New York Times reported that the "I do’s" were expected to reverberate more than usual this year." This was published before the September 11th tragedy which has only spurred marriages on. In October, 2001 the New York Times reported that Fayetteville NC chapel owner Mary Spicer says there have been a record number of marriages since the 9/11 bombings. "Our chapel does 50 weddings a year and did 17 last week."

Sentiments were echoed in Norfolk, VA. Not only are the number of marriages increasing, but the number of divorce dismissals have also increased. In Harris County Texas there was a record number of divorce dismissals. District Court Judge Linda Motherly says that there is a general sense that people realize that their lives have changed forever. When a couple files for divorce their problems seem insurmountable, but in a tragedy like this it puts everything in perspective. They feel like the things they worry about are small potatoes compared to the trade center families. It seems that after a brief period of the anti- marriage sentiment of the 60’s and 70’s America is harkening back to a pro-marriage position.

The problem is that this young, brave generation with its positive spin on marriage has poor role models of what a healthy marriage should be. Not only do they not have healthy role models, but they are indeed harmed from their parent’s divorce. Children of divorce display problems in the following areas:

Self-esteem---how they feel about themselves

Performance---how they function, grow and adapt to life

Social skills---how they get along with peers, work, church, community and the world at large

Intimate relationships and marriage---how they respond to intimates

The Heritage Foundation’s June 5, 2000 Report on The Effects of Divorce on America states that children of divorce suffer from more depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, have higher rates of suicide, feelings of rejection, drug and alcohol abuse, delinquency and criminality and diminished learning capacity which leads to more school failure. They have poor interpersonal relationships, are increasingly the victims of abuse and neglect, and are two times as likely to divorce than children from intact families.

Mavis Hetherington’s For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered (Norton 2002) states that 25% of children from divorce have serious social, emotional, or psychological problems. They are depressed, impulsive, irresponsible, or anti-social. 20% of children in step families are emotionally troubled in contrast to 10% of children from intact families. Fewer than 20% of young adult stepchildren feel close to their step moms. 70% of young people from divorced families see divorce as an acceptable solution, even if children are present. Only 40% of children from intact families have this attitude. With this baggage the pro-marriage generation has a lot of weight to carry up the hill of successful matrimony.

In our work we have also found some common wounds of adult children of divorced parents

• The inability to trust in relationships
• Fear of failure and doom—the sense that "the other shoe is going to drop" anytime things go well.
• Insecurity which causes them to become controlling in relationships or become passive-aggressive and resist the requests of their partner.
• The inability to communicate effectively.
• No role models of problem solving or conflict resolution because their parents’ only solution to their problems was dissolution.

Solutions to the Wounds of Divorce for Adult Children

• Awareness of how your parents’ divorce affected you
• Dealing with the pain of their divorce and moving to a place of healing and forgiveness
• Putting the unhealthy thoughts and beliefs about yourself and your marriage behind you
• Learning marriage relationship skills.

Marriage Skills Can Help Young Couples

Diane Solee, Director of the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, says that with one in two marriages ending in divorce it is time that couples learned that marriage, like any other valuable asset, is a skill. It has to be learned. She states. "I wish that brides could have a bridal registry of marriage skills courses. New marriage research show us what makes marriages work and what causes them to fail. Teaching this to young newlyweds can serve as divorce prevention, a route not available to their parents. All couples disagree. They just need to learn the skills on how to handle them."

Special Marriage Skills Designed for Adult Children of Divorced Parents

In our book, Adult Children of Divorced Parents: Making Your Marriage Work we have designed many specific marriage skills just for adult children of divorced parents. Often ACODP’s as we call them respond poorly in marital situations and have no idea why they react in unhealthy ways. The answer to their behavioral dilemmas may be locked in their unconscious and awareness of how their parent’s divorce affected them can be very helpful. We have developed an exercise called My Parent’s Divorce Saga, in which the person writes a narrative of his or her parent’s divorce including important dates, times, places and especially feelings. This exercise often unearths important information that leads to healing. It also can show adult children how these wounds are haunting them in their marriage.

Adult children of divorced parents also internalize certain destructive beliefs that are programmed into their psyches. Beliefs like: Marriage does not work, If my parents failed at marriage, then I will fail also, all conflict is bad because it will bring about the failure of my marriage. These false beliefs can make for an unhealthy marriage and can even foster divorce. We have developed an exercise called The True Vision Exercise that is designed to help ACODP’s dispel their false beliefs about marriage. Here is how it works.

Draw a line down the center of a piece of paper, making two columns. At the top of the right column write the word "BELIEFS" Under this column write all of the false beliefs that have been a part of your thinking as a result of your parent’s divorce. At the top of the left column write the word "EVIDENCE" Now move into the logical, rational, left side of the brain. This is the side that makes decisions on facts, not feelings. Under this column, write all the objective observable realities that you can which you know to be true. List all the data you can to prove that your impression or idea is true. You may use what your partner says and does, as well as background information, as a means of determining the truth as objectively as possible. Here is an example of this exercise.

Under the column of BELIEFS you may write:

• My father cheated on my mother therefore men are not to be trusted.
• Most men cheat.
  
• Since my mother wasn’t enough to keep my father, then I will not be enough to keep my mate.
• Marriage does not work

Then list the EVIDENCE showing the truth as you know it about you, your spouse, and your marriage.

• We believe in Marriage…till death do we part
• We believe in Christ as the center of our marriage
• We go to church almost every Sunday and believe in the Ten Commandments.
• We will learn skills to make our marriage work and practice them regularly

Make several copies of this list and put it where you would see it several times a day, like on the bathroom mirror, on the fridge, in the kitchen, or taped on the computer monitor. Read the list every time you walk by a copy and repeat it to yourself daily, whenever you feel fearful. Eventually, this repetition will begin to reprogram your unhealthy thoughts and feelings. Researchers have found that replication, that is repeating a process over and over, is the best way to reprogram trauma from childhood. You do not have to live in the shadow of your parent’s divorce. You can be set free.

To order a copy of Adult Children of Divorced Parents: Making Your Marriage Work click here

As marriage counselors who work with a great many hurting couples on a daily basis, we are surprised at how little engaged couples think about the marriage. They get so busy buying the dress, renting the tuxedos, designing the cake, preparing the ceremony that often times the marriage relationship gets put on the back burner. Sometimes just mentioning pre-marital counseling to the blissful bride- and groom-to-be elicits a somewhat dumbstruck response. “But we’re so happy,” they say as they look affirmingly into each other’s eyes. “How could anything go wrong?” At that point our realism kicks in and we want to say, “Just give it time, sister, something will go wrong.” Why will it go wrong? because that blissful feeling won’t last forever.

Neurobiologists have found that there is a chemical released in the brain when a couple falls in love. This chemical is called phenylethlamine and it functions in the body much like an amphetamine thus explaining the superhuman feelings of a couple who is falling in love. They often make statements like “I feel like I can walk on air”, “I don’t need to eat”, “The grass is greener”, “The sky is bluer.” Since phenylethlamine is released in the presence of your partner, you want to spend every waking moment with him and most couples do just that. Amazingly enough during this stage of their relationship, they never seem to tire of one another.

But unfortunately there is a villain in this fairy tale. Phenylethlamine highs cannot last. As with any chemical your body builds up a tolerance to it and the body requires more and more of the substance to acquire love’s special spark. Neurobiologists say it takes about four years for the chemical to fade, to run its course. Once the chemical is gone, the couple is faced with the difficult challenge of doing love with their own basic brain chemistry. This can create quite a struggle for many married couples.

Now that we as therapists know this information, we can warn young lovers that their relationship will be tested. This is where those couples who have had pre-marital counseling seem to shine. Statistically, those couples weather the storms of the first year of marriage better than couples who did not participate in pre-marital counseling. And with the 57% divorce rate in this nation, we think pre-marital counseling is a good idea for every couple.

Proverbs says that there is wisdom in many counselors. There are a great many pre-marital programs available through pastors, lay ministers, singles sponsors, or trained relationship therapists. Our program is just one of many. A fresh, objective perspective can be very effective in giving you guidance. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what happens in pre-marital counseling, let us familiarize you.

A good pre-marital counseling program will acquaint couples with the six areas that couples conflict about which often lead to divorce. In therapy we call these toxic subjects because it can become toxic for couples to discuss them. These issues are money/finances, sex, in-laws, child rearing, roles (delegation of responsibilities and jobs in managing the home), and religion/spiritual leadership. In counseling couples are given ample time to discuss these issues thereby aiding conflicts that might ensue. Many young lovers come back to us in the first year of marriage and thank us for helping them develop a plan to handle the problems they naively thought wouldn’t occur.

Another key to a successful marriage is healthy conflict resolution. Pre-marital counseling will help couples develop their conflict-resolution style. We have our own inventory we give couples that we have included at the end of this article.

Relationship researchers have determined that there are certain conflict-resolution styles that can lead to divorce. These are stonewalling (withdrawal), defensiveness, criticism, and contempt. Pre-marital counseling can help couples find these marital parasites early.

The next important issue that relationship counseling should cover is communication. During the blissful, phenylethlamine stage of a relationship, it is quite natural for couples to read each others’ minds, even finish each others’ sentences. How many times have you heard young couples say, “We just think alike”, “She knows me so well”, “I feel whole in his presence”? Once again we find this aided by the couple’s brainchemistry. No wonder so many pre-marital couples think they don’t need counseling to aid in communication. It’s all too shocking when these mystical mind-reading processes come to a halt, which incidentally is at our four-year critical mark. This is when couples really have to learn to communicate.

Good pre-marital counseling teaches couples tools to do just that. Communication techniques that promote understanding, foster empathy, bring about insight, and facilitate forgiveness are essential parts of pre-marital counseling.

In addition to providing all of these helps for young couples, pre-marital counseling can help you with any unresolved individual baggage you may knowingly or unknowingly carry into your marriage. Issues such as low self-esteem, unresolved issues in your family of origin, unresolved guilt, and others can rear their ugly heads and reek havoc on a new marriage. More than anything pre-marital counseling gives couples the confidence that they can beat the odds and become the soul mates God intended them to be.

Conflict Resolution Inventory

1. Which predictors of divorce apply to you (stonewalling/withdrawal, defensiveness, criticism, contempt)?
2. List several childhood conflicts or traumas.
3. How did you respond? What did you do?
4. List several relational conflicts or traumas.
5. How did you respond? What did you do?
6. The main ways you resolve conflict are (write a brief paragraph)
7. What are you going to change about your conflict style?

All married couples have conflict. These skirmishes can take on many forms. Some end in a stalemate between spouses where one or both are stonewalling or withdrawing while others can become heated and this anger causes them to say things that they later regret. But what about those fights that end in some type of verbal, emotional or even physical abuse? This abuse can make it difficult for couples to recover. Trust is eroded and intimacy is thwarted. It is hard to believe that abuse like this can occur in families, yet research shows that 1 in 6 couples in America experience some type of violence. Even very loving couples can fall prey to verbal and physical abuse.

Zach and Kelly were one such couple. We met them at one of our Soul Healers Couple’s Workshops. “I’m ashamed to tell you,” Kelly said with her voice shaking, “but Zach and I can’t seem to resolve our problems without resorting to some type of violence. We both know it is wrong but we just can’t stop.” Zach added, “ We are so embarrassed that we have never told anyone until now. One of the main reasons we came to this workshop was to find a way to stop.”

Marital violence is one of the toughest issues to deal with, but there is hope for these couples and others like them. Research suggests that as many as 80% of volatile couples suffered from some form of abuse as children. Zach and Kelly were no exception. They both grew up in homes where violence was present. These traumatized couples carry wounds from this abuse that we call soul wounds which cause them to over react in conflict situations. This tendency to give a situation more anger or emotion than it deserves is called reactivity. It causes couples to respond in a fight or flight manner when memories of past trauma are triggered. Self-protection becomes their main objective. Because of this, they are highly reactive to real or perceived danger. They also have trouble distinguishing between past trauma and current marital issues. Frequently violence seems to be the only way they can defend themselves.

A typical violent ritual for Zach and Kelly started when he would criticize and condemn her for being messy and not keeping the house clean. She would become resentful and retaliate by criticizing him for not helping. As the conflict escalated, both of them would slip into childhood memories of abuse. She felt threatened while revisiting memories of her father’s abusive criticism, and would lash back verbally and at times physically. He would get overwhelmed with reliving his father’s abuse, so to protect himself he retaliated physically. Ironically, their fighting replicated their own childhood experiences. They were re-wounding each other’s souls in much the same way their parents did. Both saw each other as a perpetrator, an intimate enemy, and therefore violence seemed to be their only way of self-protection.

In our Soul Healers Workshops we give couples two basic techniques designed to lower their violent reactions (reactivity), and help them listen and understand each other. The first technique is called The GIFT Exercise. It is built on the premise that anger is not really the main culprit behind reactivity. It is only a secondary emotion, usually felt in response to a more primary feeling, which means that anger is more of the response, than the root of a particular situation. Submerged under anger are four basic feelings that help define or give purpose to our rage. Chances are, if you are feeling anger, you can trace it to any of these four emotions. They are as follows:

Guilt

Inferiority

Fear

Trauma or pain

We have developed an acronym for these underlying emotions so that you can easily trace them to their root cause. We chose the word GIFT because it would be a GIFT to you and your spouse to identify the root of your wrath. If you respond to your mate in anger, it tends to create a defensive or angry response from them in return. Healthy communication is thwarted, and conflict goes unresolved. By tracing the root of your anger, you may be able to share it more effectively with your mate.

We challenge you to think about conflict and communicate it, not in terms of anger, but in terms of the four basic emotions that are lurking underneath it. The second communication technique is a spin-off of the first. This tool allows you to identify certain triggers in your current relationship, understand the feelings these triggers evoke, and attach those feelings to early childhood wounds. This helps you separate past issues from current interactional patterns in your marriage. The technique gives you a clear way of seeing how you can confuse childhood traumas with marital issues which cause a great deal of reactivity. It is aptly called The Digging Deeper Exercise because it enables you to find the deeper root of your conflicts.

In doing this exercise you need to answer the following questions.

1. What is the behavior that my mate does that triggers my anger?
   When my mate does this.........I feel this...........
   
   
2. Identify the root of this anger using The GIFT Exercise.
   
   
3. Ask yourself, when have I ever felt this feeling before?
   Look for a past occurrence, preferably in childhood.
   
   
4. What do I do when I feel this feeling? What is my behavior?
   
   
5. What do I really NEED?

Here is how it works using Zach and Kelly’s marital conflict as an example:
Kelly’s Digging Deeper Exercise

1. What does my mate do that triggers my anger?
   When Zach criticizes me about how dirty the house is I feel put down and devalued.
   
   
2. Identify the root of my anger using The GIFT Exercise.
   I feel put down, and hurt, the roots being---Inferiority and Trauma.
   
   
3. When have I felt this before?
   As a child, when my father would constantly criticize me and order me to do chores, but would never help me do them.
   
   
4. What is my response?
   To get angry, yell, and not do what was asked in rebellion.
   
   
5. What did I really NEED?
   To be encouraged and complimented for what I do accomplish.

Zach’s Digging Deeper Exercise

1. What does my mate do that triggers my anger?
   When Kelly does not clean the house as I have asked, I feel that my needs don’t matter.
   
   
2. Identify the root of my anger using The GIFT Exercise.
   I feel unimportant, that I don’t matter. The roots being---Inferiority and Trauma.
   
   
3. When have I felt this before?
   When I would come home from school, often my father would be drunk on the sofa. The house would be a wreck, and he would make me clean it. If I didn’t, he would beat me.
   
   
4. What is my response?
   As a child, and now, I would hold in my frustration, and eventually explode.
   
   
5. What do I really Need?
   To feel like Kelly is on my team and that she cares about how I feel.

As you can see from this exercise Zach and Kelly’s responses to anger worked against each other. Both saw that they were responding to the frustration in their marriage in much the same way they responded as children. Zach would take it until he exploded, and then yell at Kelly. She would yell back, and then just ignore his implied or verbal requests for change. They both felt threatened, misunderstood, and disregarded. Their deeper feelings were inferiority and pain. As they began to work through this exercise, they could see that they were triggering each other’s soul wounds. They were doing and saying the very things that would hurt each other the most. It became obvious to them that their responses to anger were actually fostering violence in their marriage.

By using these two simple yet powerful tools several major things happened to this couple in a short period of time. They learned to share calmly and rationally without reactivity which perpetuated verbal and physical violence. Because there was no reactivity, they could more easily hear what each other was saying. Both Zach and Kelly understood for the first time why these issues impacted them so deeply and what was behind their frustration. They learned a great deal about each other’s soul wounds and the childhood traumas that their marital conflicts triggered. Lastly, they determined what each other’s needs actually were. Kelly saw that rather than her need being for Zach to stop criticizing her, she actually needed him to compliment and affirm her. More than a clean house, Zach realized that he wanted to feel that Kelly really cared about his needs

As a result of their deep sharing, both Zach and Kelly saw empathy from each other for the first time in years. Kelly said it best when she reported, “We actually listened to each other with our hearts, not just our ears. It created a “healing feeling” in our relationship that made us want to meets each other’s needs. It helped us heal our souls.”

The clock goes off at 6:30 am, and our team effort starts. Together we pack children’s lunches, make sure book bags are loaded and papers are signed and of course, iron just the right blouse at the last minute. At 7:30 we push the kids out the door and mumble a weak prayer for their safety. Then it’s off to a full day’s work for us. As marriage counselors the roster for the day often includes a great deal of hurt, pain, frustration and tears.

The day rolls into evening and dinner is slung on the table. Then the nightly activities of church, cheerleading and sports practice begins. By 10:30 we frequently sink into bed exhausted. A peck on each other’s lips and it’s off to dreamland.

Now I ask you when is there time for a normal busy couple to develop spiritual intimacy? After 22 years of marriage, Tom and I discovered a powerful secret about spiritual oneness. We discovered that you make time for it.

Early in our marriage we realized that our busy schedules, the demands of parenting, and the heaviness of hearing other people’s pain caused us to somewhat dry up spiritually. It was hard enough for us to maintain our spiritual center individually, much less, as a couple. This drought created distance and a sense of disconnection between Tom and I, which eventually led to a power struggle. We had disputes over seemingly insignificant things, which were blown out of proportion. This caused a breach of trust between us. Little did we know that our problem was rooted in our spiritual dryness.

Don’t get the wrong idea here, just because we are marriage counselors doesn’t mean that we are immune to marital discord. In fact, it can be quite embarrassing to slide into unhealthy relationship patterns when we

spend all day instructing couples not to do so. Luckily we learned from our own spiritual plight, and we can now pass these lessons on to the next generation of spiritual lovers.

So how did we find our way out of our spiritual desert? The story goes like this. One anniversary Tom was looking for a gift that was unique, personal and, because we were graduate students, very cheap!

He decided to make me a Spiritual Journal. He took a simple notebook, filled it with paper and made tabs for various sections. He included a section for prayer requests, one for answers to prayer, one for spiritual insights, and one for inspirational readings, sayings and scriptures that I read during the day.

I was so delighted about my new gift that it generated much conversation between us. I wanted to share my spiritual insights with him, and tell him how I saw God in everyday things like the family of Cardinals that were feeding outside my window. I wanted to tell him about my prayer requests and answers to prayer. This led to us praying more together and sharing much more of our spiritual selves with each other. Some days we couldn’t wait to see each other to discuss what we wrote in our journals. To our surprise, our spiritual lives began to flourish. We started feeling more connected to God, earth and especially each other.

Trust bloomed where there was once fear and negativity. Our power struggle faded. We felt a sacred closeness that was deep and rich. It was then that we realized what was happening. We were developing spiritual intimacy.

We learned from this experience that spiritual oneness is less mystical and more practical that many people think. It involves getting excited about the simple things of God and making the time to share them. Spiritual intimacy can occur while you are sitting on the deck watching your kids frolic in a wading pool, or sliding down the slide with your two-year old in your arms. It can be in sacred prayer and meditation before you fall off to sleep at night while holding one another.

For those of you who are having trouble getting started, here are some practical steps.

• See sacredness in everyday things, and remember to share them with each other.
• Discuss blessings that occur throughout the day.
• Share prayer requests and answers to prayer on a regular basis.
• Tell your spouse about something inspirational that you read at least once a week.
• Surprise him or her with a saying or two under his or her pillow at night.
• Start a spiritual journal, just for the fun of it.

The spiritual oneness that we have developed is almost

intoxicating. We now believe that we understand the Genesis passage

in the Bible more clearly, where it says that the two shall become one flesh. Tom and I feel that we have grown into becoming one flesh, and so can you.

Relationship experts say that most fights are not what they seem to be about. The chronic conflict over your husband cleaning up his crumbs from the counter top is really not about the crumbs at all. There is a deeper root. As a couple we did not know how to get in touch with what those deeper roots were. This dilemma led us to develop an exercise designed to help us get in touch with what is underneath our anger in marital spats.

Anger theorists teach that anger is not a primary emotion. It is a secondary response to 4 primary feelings they are: Guilt, Inferiority or inadequacy, fear, and hurt or pain. Since this list was hard to remember in the “heat of battle” we developed and acronym to remember it—

Guilt
  Inferiority
   Fear
     Trauma or Pain

The acronym spells the word GIFT which not only makes it easy to remember, but it is also a gift to each other to communicate more effectively.

In the past when we became angry we merely exchanged angry words. This just made our partner even more angry and did not bring clarity or understanding. Now when one of us is mad we say “When you do this------ I feel guilt, inferiority or what emotion might best fit the situation. This causes us to calmly discuss our marital dilemmas and brings understanding where there was once frustration.