Facilitating Forgiveness and Reconciliation in 'Good Enough' Marriages
27 Pages Posted: 28 May 2015
Date Written: 2014
Abstract
Scholars have found that the long-term effects of divorce on children’s well-being depend on the level of parental discord before the divorce. In cases where the level of parental discord was high, children’s well-being improved after the divorce. In contrast, where the level of parent discord before the divorce or separation was low, children’s well-being deteriorated after the divorce and these negative effects often lasted in adulthood. Studies have also found that marital enrichment programs with a forgiveness component can help couples experiencing marital dissatisfaction. This essay argues that lawmakers should educate parents seeking to divorce about the effects of divorce on children’s well-being and offer free marital enrichment programs with a forgiveness component to parents who wish to attempt to "save" their marriages.
Keywords: African American families, Latino/Hispanic families, custody, low-Income fathers, nonmarital children, nonmarital Families, shared parenting, and unmarried/never-married parents
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