In speaking of the African American experience, Smith writes, “The pressures of day-to-day life, financial concerns, and opposing viewpoints must still be overcome throughout the relationship. This tends to overshadow the initial feelings, and children are helpless to assist their parents who are supposed to provide safety for them. Lack of expressed love in the relationship can cause a small child to painfully assume responsibility for his parents’ conflict. The social difficulties of surviving are particularly difficult for children in black families at a low socio-economic level. They may emulate their parents and, as adults, tend to experience the same painful series of events that occurred in their childhood. The cycle never seems to stop.”
Menninger’s belief that “what children see at home, they will do to society” should become a societal mantra. It is as universal as the need for food and water. The confusion for children may lie with their possible misunderstanding of their own parents’ behavior and the significance of that behavior. Parents don’t often speak of the feelings that motivate their actions.
It is clear that children need security and love in their home life and that the parenting roles of moms and dads should be protected by the courts, which should also take into account the upheaval that the parents themselves have been experiencing. Consequences of parents’ behavior need to be understood as well, for the behavior may be dictated by the parents’ culture. Behavior choices are limited and based upon cultural norms and self-perceptions. These choices may be at odds with the predominant American culture and those permitted by courts of law. It is so difficult to assimilate a new culture’s norms and more difficult to control one’s reactions when they are driven by emotional responses to threat or anger. Often, responses are based on one’s self-esteem.
How important is self-esteem? Therapists say that low self-esteem leads to codependence and to escape from responsibilities. The belief that one is incapable of achieving relationship harmony can lead to antipathy, jealousy, and hatred, which may be expressed in violence including assaults, murder, and suicide.
The choice for marriage or “partnership dissolution” (separation and divorce) are choices manifest in geography, economics, and expectations of the marriage partner. Similarly, one’s choices reflect changes in power and control, income, threat, or rate of violence. The causes of divorce are complicated, considering what is known about diverse cultural values and one’s individual inclination towards power, control, and expectation among different cultures.
Still, it may be that a major cause of family dysfunction including parent separations and marital breakdowns is “benign neglect.” Complacency about a relationship after the novelty of love has worn off can sometimes be blamed for parent separations. A sort of laziness often replaces the courteous, thoughtful, appreciative expressions of romantic love. Differing interests, priorities, even overwork, and value changes can also be factors.
In patriarchal America, men controlled marriages—at least until the last bra was burned in the mid-sixties and the new liberated woman shared a toke with her man. In recent decades, the women’s movement has prompted the formation of new public policies that encourage gender diversity in the workplace and equal opportunities for men and women. Still, given the recent Weinstein rap and celebrity admissions my men of sexual abuse and females of their long term and silent victimization, the overriding goal continues to be job promotion, respectful business relations and equal pay for the same job functions whether performed by a man or a woman.
In marriage and love relationships, nothing less should be expected. Nothing less should be accepted.
Originally Published: From Marriage to Divorce, The Emotional Perspective An Abstract from Preserving Family Ties, An Authoritative Guide to Divorce and Child Custody for Parents and Family Professionals (WestBow Press, 2018)