By MARILYN WARBURTON
Recently I read in a local publication: "In 78 percent of families where a child dies, a marital separation or divorce occurs within one year of the death."
I first heard the seventy-something statistic in 1989 when a friend's daughter died. I have heard and read that statistic frequently since then -- and when our son died of suicide in 1997, it caused me some concern. But I hoped that because other people we knew who had suffered a child's death had managed to keep their marriages intact, we would also.
When I read the book, "When the Bough Breaks: Forever After the Death of a Son or Daughter," by Judith Bernstein, Ph.D, practicing psychologist and bereaved mother, my mind was eased. "When The Bough Breaks" is based on interviews with 55 bereaved parents, with a range of five to 37 years after the death of their child.
Judith Bernstein had also heard the "70 percent" statistic. When her completed study showed a low level of divorce or separation, she began asking herself why this group so differed from the "norm." She then investigated divorce among bereaved parents and -- ¦ found that the 70 percent statistics were from a few studies of small groups of parents quite a number of years ago. Those studies were biased and as full of holes as a chunk of Swiss cheese. Yet, somehow, they captured the imagination and became folklore."
Three recent studies strongly contradict those earlier studies.
The Compassionate Friends (a nonprofit, self-help, support organization offering friendship and understanding to families grieving the death of a child) commissioned two nationwide studies, in 1999 and 2006. Both surveys investigated parental grief and divorce. (Full results are available under Media at www.thecompassionatefriends.org.)
The 1999 survey showed: "Overall, 72 percent of parents who were married at the time of their child's death are still married to the same person. The remaining 28 percent of marriages include 16 percent in which one spouse had died, and only 12 percent of marriages that ended in divorce."
The 2006 survey revealed: "57 (18.6 percent) responded that they were no longer married to the same person. Of that 57, eight were widowed, yielding a divorce rate of 16 percent, far below the national divorce rate of approximately 50 percent."
These results have been supported by a University of Montana study reported in Bereavement Magazine, Sept./Oct., 1999.
The death of a child is devastating, affecting every area of one's life, including the marriage. At a time when it might be expected that couples would lean on each other, each partner's grief is so personal, unique and challenging, that there is little, if anything, left over to support one's mate.
But, of the many bereaved parents I've known, none have divorced -- and that, most fortunately, is the norm. As Judith Bernstein put it, "For most, marriages heave and quake and endure. Numerous spouses expressed the sentiment that, having endured the worst that life can impose, this marriage would survive."
About the author: Marilyn Warburton is the mother of three sons, the youngest of whom died of suicide at age 21 in 1997. She has a master's degree in Pastoral Ministry and is editor of the newsletter for the Grand Traverse Area Chapter of The Compassionate Friends.
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