Let’s Talk about Sex: Teen Issues During Divorce
Parental divorce is traumatic and formative in the lives of children and teenagers, despite the fact that it’s become so prevalent in modern society.
Parental divorce causes a number of changes that children must come to terms with because it dissolves the marriage and separates the original family into single-parent households. In addition, there are issues to be resolved in terms of interpersonal loss, societal disruption, lifestyle modification, and emotional upheaval. The dynamics of everyone's family life are upended and reset by a divorce including children.
Teenagers and Divorce
Divorce can exacerbate adolescent complaints because they are at a more disillusioned and rebellious stage with their parents. The teenager tends to draw away rather than cling. Because of the broken parental commitment to the family, adolescents frequently feel deceived and become angrier and less talkative.
Additionally, divorce often inspires adolescent girls to become more independent from their families because they care more about their peer group. Teenagers seem to be defending their more independent behavior in the wake of divorce. Therefore, some adolescents who experience parental divorce may decide to concentrate more on themselves.
While increased independence often means assuming more responsibility for the home, this self-serving behavior is an exception. During a divorce, the dominant single parent (who suddenly has a lot on her plate) enrolls the adolescent in additional caregiving and household duties. This single parent makes good use of the greater independence of the adolescent.
Greater Independence – Greater Insecurity
However, following a parental divorce, the three main forces that propel adolescent development toward more independence—difference, separation, and opposition—tend to become more powerfully manifested. More social dependency on one's circle of friends leads to greater separation from family. Therefore, when a teen expresses their uniqueness, they tend to diverge more from the child they once were. As a result, the more a young person is driven to get and go their own way, the more antagonism to parental authority grows.
Teenage Romantic Involvement
At the same time, teenagers are starting to become aware of romantic infatuations, in-love attachments, and even love partnerships in late adolescence. The significance of the broken parental pledge and the loss of parental love for one another can significantly impact this delicate moment.
What is the adolescent supposed to do when they start to significantly care for a social partner if parental commitment is not secure, love does not seem lasting, and losing love is so painful? It might be challenging to overcome the reluctance to trust committed love and to make a loving commitment.
Divorce and Teen Sexual Involvement
A recent study discovered that, depending on when in a teen girl's life the divorce had taken place, teen pregnancy rates among girls with missing fathers were three to eight times higher. According to the study, the impact of a father's absence on early sexual engagement and teen pregnancy has also been more pronounced than on other behavioral or mental health issues.
Older adolescents and adult children of divorce often experience commitment problems in romantic relationships. They can handle these in a variety of self-protective ways. In order to be "sure," they can be extremely cautious and put off making commitments for a long time. In addition, they might maintain casual and fleeting relationships to avoid the need for commitment. In loving relationships, however, they may feel quite conflicted, eager to commit one second and then be ready to end it the next.
Further, in order to ensure that the other person won't go, they may exert a lot of control or manipulation. Alternatively, they might join a committed relationship with the idea that they can always end it and "divorce" if it doesn't work out.
Spending Time
In order to spend more time with their sex role model, adolescents often want to move in with their sex parent as their primary caregiver. This typically indicates a need for gender identification at this crucial age rather than a preference for one parent over the other.
The ability of adults to forge a different form of commitment—to a working alliance in which ex-partners are committed to working together for the benefit of the teenagers—to each other is what ultimately restores adolescent confidence in divorced parents.
Adolescents learn from witnessing this alliance in action that while adult commitment to marriage has been dissolved, parental partnership commitment is still as strong as ever.