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Key points
- Parental conflict can cause adult children of gray divorce to distance from their parents, and the parent-adult child relationship may suffer.
- When parents are in conflict, adult children of gray divorce can experience loyalty issues that may destabilize their sense of well-being.
- Parents being amicable during and after their divorce can benefit adult children, other family members, and themselves.
"Gray divorce" refers to couples aged 50 and older who are splitting. In the United States and many other countries, the default divorce process is litigation — an adversarial process. It is a win-lose. Yet, like minor children, adult children almost unanimously proclaim that their uppermost wish is that their parents will be amicable during and after their divorce.
Avoid conflict and be amicable with your adult children’s other parent.
For decades, researchers have found that ongoing parental conflict increases children’s risk of psychological and social problems. Improving the relationships between parents and their children helps children cope better in the months and years following a divorce. In young adults aged 19-37, research indicates that interparental conflict is associated with feeling caught between parents and that these feelings are linked with weak parent-child relationships and fragile well-being, irrespective of adult children’s ages.
If you choose a family-focused, out-of-court divorce process like mediation or collaborative divorce, you could minimize the emotional and financial costs that so often accompany litigated divorces. Research finds that mediation can benefit emotional satisfaction, spousal relationships, and children’s needs.
How do you describe your co-parenting relationship?
You and your adult child’s other parent will always be co-parents, emphasizing “co-.” Is your co-parenting relationship a positive or negative one? Some adult children of gray divorce say their parents have no relationship, but it is not possible for parents to have no relationship because they are always the parents. What they mean is that their parents have a negative co-parenting relationship. How would it benefit these adult children if their co-parents could create win-win solutions for themselves that would also benefit their adult children and extended family members?
How can you create a win-win mindset with your adult children's other parent?
I read a story in Fisher and Shapiro’s book Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate that inspired me to write the below to illustrate to co-parents of children of all ages how important it is for them to have cooperative and friendly co-parenting relationships:
Ten pairs of divorcing parents were attending a co-parenting training class. The facilitator instructed each pair of co-parents to sit together facing each other, with their right elbows on the table. “Grasp your partner’s right hand with your right hand, and don’t let go. Each co-parent will get one point every time the back of your co-parent’s right hand touches the table. The goal for each co-parent is to get as many points for himself as possible during the exercise. Keep your eyes closed and be completely indifferent to how many points your other co-parent gets. You will have one minute for this exercise. Ready, set, go!”
For one minute, nine co-parent pairs struggled as each co-parent tried to physically force the back of the other’s right hand down to the table. The tenth co-parent pair was the lone exception. One co-parent immediately remembered that her goal was to get as many points for herself as possible. Following the facilitator’s directions, she kept her eyes closed and became indifferent to how many points her co-parent got. Instead of trying to push her co-parent’s hand down to the table, she surprised him by immediately pulling his hand down to the table and giving him an easy point as the back of her hand touched the table. She then quickly pushed his hand to the table, taking an easy point for herself. Her co-parent immediately caught on. Keeping their eyes closed and their right elbows on the table, they swung their clasped hands back and forth as many times as possible.
After the conclusion of the exercise, each pair of co-parents reported to the group how many points each had earned. No one had more than two points, except for the co-parent pair who had cooperated. They had each earned more than 10.
Despite the directions to the co-parents that they were partners and that they were to be indifferent to how many points their other co-parent got, the other nine pairs assumed that they were adversaries. This assumption prevented them from earning as many points as they could have.
Which co-parenting pair in the above story do you want to be for your adult children and extended family? What do you want to role model for them about how you resolve conflict? What legacy do you want to leave them about this time in their lives?
Even if your gray divorce was adversarial and concluded, when you create an amicable co-parenting relationship, you can give your adult children and other family members the gift of peace, kindness, and a continuing sense of family.
ⓒ Carol R. Hughes, Ph.D., LMFT, 2022
References
Kelly, J. “Developing Beneficial Parenting Plan Models for Children Following Separation and Divorce,” Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Law 19 (2005): 237-254; Catherine C. Ayoub, Robin M. Deutsch, and Andronicki Maraganore, “Emotional Distress in Children of High - Conflict Divorce: The Impact of Marital Conflict and Violence,” Family and Conciliation Courts Review 37 (1999): 297–331, doi:10.1111/j.174-1617.1999.tb01307.x; Robert Emery, Marriage, Divorce, and Children’s Adjustment, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1999).
Amato, P.R., and Afifi, T. D. “Feeling Caught Between Parents: Adult Children’s Relations With Parents and Subjective Well-Being,” Journal of Marriage and Family, 68, (2006): 232, doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2006.00243.x.
Shaw L.A. “Divorce Mediation Outcome Research: A Meta-Analysis,” Conflict Resolution Quarterly 27 (June 1, 2010): 447–67, doi:10.1002/crq.20006.
