The Challenges of Divorce

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Divorce can result in the breakdown of relationships between siblings.

Children of divorce are twice as likely to report distance from a sibling than those in intact families.

One survey showed that about 70 percent of adult children estranged from parents come from divorce.

Living in a family war zone can have an even worse outcome than divorce, as conflict makes children anxious.

A significant risk factor for family estrangement is divorced parents. The breakup of a marriage, which is primarily a matter between spouses, ripples throughout the broader family.

Among the most profound yet under-acknowledged consequences of divorce is the estrangement of siblings and the alienation of parents from children. Divorce disrupts the familiar patterns of family life.

"Estrangement in divorce is often silent and obscured, many times due to legal narratives or loyalty binds," says Christine Droney, a licensed social worker providing psychotherapy to adults in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. "It is a form of disenfranchised loss where the grief is very real, but rarely named or supported."

Children are often caught in the crossfire of separating parents. Their lives — physical arrangements and emotional landscapes — change drastically, perhaps suddenly, when they live in two different households. Siblings spend less time together, with fewer opportunities to bond.

A 2018 study published in the Journal of Family Issues found that children of divorced parents are twice as likely to report distant or conflicted relationships with their siblings as compared to children from intact families.

“Children are of the marriage, not in the marriage,” says Droney. “They don’t fully know what happened, but they get collateral damage.”

Statistics from the Pew Research Center indicate that nearly 40 percent of children whose parents are divorced report feeling less close to a sibling post-divorce, for a variety of reasons.........

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