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Audrey Burns

Professor Sobocinski

ENG 1201

18 March 2022

Literature Review

My research question for this essay is “Why Does Having Divorced Parents Affect A

Person’s Future Relationships.” This topic relates to me and my life because my parents got

divorced when I was four years old and I struggled with friendships and relationships growing

up. After talking with my emotional therapist we found a lot of my trust issues and insecurities

stemmed from having divorced parents and an absent father. I decided to research this topic to

learn a little bit more about why many individuals, including myself, are experiencing these

issues considering how common divorce is now. My goal is to have a better understanding of

why this is happening and why it is so common in children with divorced parents.

Over the years, divorce has sadly become very common in families. According to the

American Psychological Association, “About 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the United

States divorce.” Divorce used to be a very taboo subject and frowned upon but, over the years it

has lost its stigma. The rates of marriages ending in divorce are increasing and becoming much

more common. There are many different factors that can lead to divorce in a relationship

including financial issues, incompatibility, and infidelity. Just because divorce is so common

today, it does not make it a trend. Divorces in families can have a tremendous effect on everyone

involved in it, not just the couple in it. It can seriously affect any children involved, extended

family, or even friends.

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One of the first sources I found that I felt really helped my research was “How Divorce

Can Affect A Child’s Future Relationships” Written by Katherine Schreiber for Psychology

Today. The first thing that drew me to it was that the title was almost the exact question that I

was asking for my research question. In this article it explains multiple studies done to show how

common of an issue this really is. There are studies relating to Divorce, Attachment Style, and

Oxytocin. This source is able to cover many aspects of this question and explains the answer to it

in many different ways. Schreiber explains that studies show that “Divorce is, in fact, one of

several adverse childhood experiences (or ACEs) found to predict mental and physical illness

well into adulthood.” Schreiber also did a very good job at breaking each topic down in order for

anyone reading to gain a better understanding of what she is explaining. By doing this, she is

able to have a wider audience for this article. A lot was able to be taken away from this one

article and productive research could be made from it.

My next source is “How Successful Are The Marriages of People With Divorced

Parents?” Written by Joe Pinsker for The Atlantic. This was a source that I felt like I related to

the most surrounding this topic because growing up I was always worried about my future

marriage ending in divorce like my parents’. This is also more of a success story compared to the

last source which mostly talked about the insecurities in individuals with divorced parents. This

article talks about a man named Justin Lange who experienced his parents going through a rough

divorce and then both marrying again multiple times. Lange thought he would never marry

considering the relationships he grew up witnessing were not the most stable. In the military,

Lange met his future wife whom he is still married to. Lange explains that “actions speak louder

than words—people are willing to [make] a lifetime commitment but not willing to back it up,”

and despite his insecurities and doubts about marriage, everything changed when he met the right
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person and took things slow. This will be a good source to be a kind of counterexample in this

essay. It will show that despite having trust issues and insecurities from having divorced parents

an individual can work past it.

The next source is “The Impact Of Divorce: All Children Only Get One Childhood” By

Gene Beresin for The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds. This was a great article to get a

little deeper on the effects divorce will have on a child right off the bat and how these effects can

lead to mental illness or insecurities in adult years. Beresin explains different reasons for these

issues to form in children that actually start right off with how the parents treat the divorce. This

source differs from the other ones listed because it is the first one to explain the measures that

could be taken by the parents to prevent these future problems for the child. The only bad thing

about this source is that it was written in 2015, however the information still seemed very

relevant. This article will help the research for this essay to explain what some individuals were

missing when they experienced this.

The last source I am analyzing will be the personal interview I had with Hailee Workman

who is a woman I work with that I knew experienced relationship problems stemming from her

parent’s divorce. Workman explained to me how she grew up very confused of how a healthy

relationship was supposed to look like considering she didn’t grow up around one. She explained

that this confusion led to insecurities and trust issues with partners she had growing up. She also

explained how these problems lead her to actually be unloyal in a few of her relationships.

Hailee explained how she felt her parents were very selfish in their divorce and didn’t take any

precautions to help her or her siblings cope with it. It wasn’t until she was older that she figured

out her failed relationships and her child traumas were connected. This will be a very good
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source for research because it was very raw and relatable. Getting to personally talk and

interview with someone is and was very beneficial for the research process.

Throughout this process I started to think if I should’ve changed my question a bit

because I felt like there would ultimately be no final answer to the question. However, after

finding sources that had scientific evidence and studies to back them up made me want to

continue with this question. It is still important to find sources that are more personal because it

shows how real and common this issue really is. I have been able to find many good sources for

this research topic and believe that they will all be productive help in writing it. Despite having

found many good sources surrounding this topic already, I am continuously looking for more

sources as I continue researching this question and writing this essay.

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Work Cited

Beresin, Gene. “The Impact Of Divorce: All Children Only Get One Childhood.” The Clay

Center For Young Healthy Minds, 11 August 2015. The-impact-of-diorce-all-children

-only -get-one-childhood. Accessed 16 March 2022.

Munsey, Christopher. “Civil Wars.” American Psychological Association, 2022. https://w

ww.apa.org/monitor/nov07/civilwars. Accessed 14 March 2022

Pinsker, Joe. “How Successful Are the Marriages of People With Divorced Parents?” The

Atlantic, 30 May 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/05/divorced-pa

rents-marriage/590425/. Accessed 4 March 2022.

Schreiber, Katherine. “How Divorce Can Affect A Child’s Future Relationships.” Psychology

Today, 16 March 2021. How-divorce-can-affect-childrens-future-relationships Accessed 4

March 2022.

Workman, Hailee, Personal Communication, 2 March 2022.