“The new research just published by NBER charts new findings into how divorce is far more damaging to children than anyone ever imagined. It also quantifies deleterious effects far into adulthood and documents the causal effect by examining a million sibling groups to measure differing before/after affects within a family.” - World
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NewWhere is the war going to occur
As a child of divorce, I appreciate the fact that there are long term affects of divorce. In my case, I had to watch how my step-dad loved my mom for a few years before figuring out that he was showing me how to love a woman in a way she'd understand. I'd heard actually decent advice from my dad in that matter, but due to the circumstances of the divorce and how he treated my mom, I was reluctant to try to apply that.
The place where I quibble with the article is that a lot of the damage to my brother and I occurred during the marriage, and thus the key issue, IMO, is not how parents can avoid divorce, but rather how they treat each other while married, and then how they treat each other if they divorce.
To draw a picture, my brother-in-law's ex-wife has chosen to use family court as a way of waging war on her ex-husband, resulting in his estrangement from their adult children and a ton of stress on him. Is this post-divorce trauma? You bet. Is it worse than what they'd face if they were still married? I don't think so. In this case, what I counsel my brother-in-law is to keep records of the games his ex plays, and to approach his children knowing that he belongs in their lives. Hopefully sometime, someone rebukes his ex for these games to mitigate the damage she's doing to herself and her own children--one of whom we've buried as a result.
(in that case, Paul's admonition to let the unbelieving spouse leave holds, IMO)
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.