The Legacy of Infidelity and Divorce

READ – The Marriage-Go-Round
Amazon Link to After His Affair

The following is a chapter excerpt from the new book, After His Affair Women Rising From The Ashes Of Infidelity, by Meryn Callander.  The dark side of family life may be real, but, as Callander teaches, so are the many paths to healing.

The Legacy of Infidelity and Divorce

Infidelity—and the divorce that often follows—is a legacy passed from one generation to the next. As adults, these children of infidelity are more likely to be unfaithful to their own partner, and children of divorced parents have a higher than average divorce rate as adults.

Jennifer Harley Chalmers, Ph.D., Surviving an Affair, believes one of the important lessons children learn when a parent is unfaithful is thoughtlessness: “doing what you please, regardless of how it affects other people.”

Research by Judith Wallerstein, co-author of The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, shows that experiencing parental divorce during childhood has a sleeper effect. The worst symptoms often appear when children of divorce leave home and try to form intimate relationships and families of their own, but do so with much less ability to trust and little idea of what a lasting marriage looks like. Ana Nogales’s study, reported in Parents Who Cheat: How Children and Adults Are Affected When Their Parents Are Unfaithful, indicates that this sleeper effect applies similarly to children of infidelity.

In 2012, one quarter of adults under forty-five in the U.S. were children of divorce. This means that today, in the U.S. alone, many millions of people are struggling with the residue of divorce in their personal lives. Wallerstein questions what it may mean that a million new children a year are added to our “march of marital failure.” Now if we add the children of parents who separate, and children of infidelity, to those numbers…

Seeing more and more relationships fail or fall to infidelity reinforces the belief that failure is inevitable. Yes, adults have greater freedom and more opportunity than perhaps ever before, but there are hidden costs—and the costs are escalating. It is for each parent to determine the legacy they will leave for their children.

Marriage: To Be or Not To Be?

In a culture inundated with disposable items and the relentless production lines of new and improved models, when something doesn’t work, or doesn’t bring the satisfaction it initially did, people are ever ready to dispose of it. Relationships—like many things—are more easily disposed of than worked on. If a person’s car breaks down, what do they do? Do they take it to the junkyard or to the mechanic? What does it say of a person—of a culture—when their relationship is more disposable than their car?

These dilemmas are exacerbated by the increased pressure we put on marriage. The expectations of marriage have grown as other social networks—with friends, extended families, neighborhood groups and so on—have broken down. In marrying, the expectation is that the couple will form a lifelong bond that is safe, nurturing, loving, financially stable, and exciting.

Andrew Cherlin, author of The Marriage-Go-Round, believes we have a “schizophrenic culture about marriage.” He explores the American habit of marriage “churning”—people divorcing and remarrying quickly. “We value marriage, but we also value thinking about ourselves—what makes us happy, what makes us most fulfilled. We think if we are not happy we have the right to end our relationships.”

On average, marriages end after eleven years. This raises the question: Have the past decades created such levels of narcissism that we will not tolerate a relationship that doesn’t give us unabating bliss? Psychotherapist Rachel Morris believes that our modern culture is counter-intuitive to sticking with marriage through the long haul; that to do so is totally at odds with modern messages of choice and freedom and ambition.

Despite the seeming incompatibility between marriage and modern messages of choice and freedom, growing numbers of young adults are saying they want a monogamous marriage, and growing numbers of Americans are disapproving of infidelity. Yet we are more likely to accept infidelity in our own relationships, rather than see it as the automatic deal-breaker we saw it as in the past—and more likely to confront it directly with the help of therapists and counselors.

It’s important to help people understand what it means to work on a relationship and to withstand periods of adversity, and to deeply reflect on what they—as individuals, as a couple and a family—lose when they leave.

While not all marriages can—or should—be saved, no therapist can save a marriage if either partner is not committed to working on the issues brought to the fore through the infidelity. Sometimes too much damage has been done, or reconciliation remains elusive, or the unfaithful partner is unwilling to leave the affair in order to work on the relationship. Couples who have a strong commitment to rebuilding their relationship and have the strength and determination to do so, have a high probability of staying together and renewing a relationship that grows in depth, honesty, and intimacy.

Many parents end their marriage prematurely, believing that the children will “get over it.” As reported in The Unanticipated Legacy of Divorce, by Judith Wallerstein, et al., the whole trajectory of an individual’s life can be profoundly altered by parental divorce. From the viewpoint of the children, divorce is a cumulative experience.

When the time comes to choose a life mate and build a family, the effects of divorce are exacerbated. Parental divorce affects the children’s personality, ability to trust, expectations about relationships, and ability to cope with change. Ana Nogales, Ph.D., Parents Who Cheat: How Children and Adults Are Affected When Their Parents Are Unfaithful, reveals a parallel pattern in children of parents who betrayed. While martyrdom is not a healthy option for children to carry into future relationships, ending a marriage because the grass looks greener elsewhere—or because they are running from conflict, or it just looks easier—says little of a person’s character. Ultimately children benefit from parents who show them how a conscious and loving couple can grow together, through good times and bad.

Recommended Books:

• Parents Who Cheat: How Children and Adults Are Affected When Their Parents Are Unfaithful, by Ana Nogales, Ph.D
• Jennifer Harley Chalmers, Ph.D., Surviving an Affair
• Parents Who Cheat: How Children and Adults Are Affected When Their Parents Are Unfaithful, by Ana Nogales
• The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, Judith Wallerstein
• After His Affair –  Women Rising From The Ashes Of Infidelity, by Meryn Callander.  
• The Marriage-Go-Round, by Andrew Cherlin,