Adapting to a New Family Situation

• When letting your adult children know that you are going to get a divorce, parents should encourage an honest dialogue in a supportive family setting. This can help adult children understand that they are not at fault and that they are still a family. Adult children who have to choose sides will find it much more difficult to adapt to the new family situation. It is important that the family continue to act as a unit by being together during important events and holidays.
  
  

Reversion To Younger Emotional State

• Regardless of the age of children, a divorce is bound to have some negative consequences. Changes in the family structure are difficult to accept, whether it is by divorce or other factors, such as death in the family. Studies have shown that adult children sometimes revert to a younger emotional state when their parents divorce. The struggles come in their ability to accept the changes in the structure of the family, which for many years had remained the same. Some studies have focused on the issue of what occurs with men and women in later-divorcing families. These studies have demonstrated that men experience more social and economic disadvantages than women when parents divorce after children have reached adulthood.
  
  

Effects on Relationships

• One study of the effects of divorce on adult children was that the personal relationships of adult children suffered as a consequence of their parents' divorce. In one particular study, adult children who had reached the age of 20 when their parents divorced were more likely to have ended their own relationships by the age of 33 than their peers whose parents had not divorced. Adult children who had seen their parents together many years may begin to doubt their own ability to maintain their relationships forever, as a result of their parents' divorce.
  
  

Used As Intermediaries

• It is of utmost importance that the adult children not be asked to choose sides in a parental divorce. They should not be the used as intermediaries or messengers between the parents. Counseling is often suggested as a means to coping with divorce in order to help the adult child deal with issues of forgiveness and learn ways of interacting with potential new partners of the divorcing parents. It is important for adult children of divorce to forget about the end of their parents' marriage and live their lives.