This paper examines how divorce affects family communication through the author's personal experiences and a literature review. The author's parents divorced when she was young, which negatively impacted her relationship and communication with both of her parents. Her mother's remarriage made communication much more superficial. The author's husband also experienced parental divorce and remarriage, feeling abandoned by his mother who dedicated more time to new partners than him. Research cited found divorce hinders parent-child communication, especially with non-custodial parents, and can lower children's self-esteem by creating a sense of loss. The conclusion is divorce damages stability and family communication, as shown through the author's personal experiences.

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FAMILY COMMUNICATION AND DIVORCE
Personal Experience Paper 4
Date of Submission: 6/11/13
Title: Family Communication and Divorce
Author: Coral Frau

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FAMILY COMMUNICATION AND DIVORCE
Statement of Problem: My personal experience paper is based
on how divorce affects family
communication and the members of the family. I can personally
relate to this because I
experienced it myself. My mom and Dad got divorced when I
was 3 years old because my dad
was going to move out of the country. I have no recollection of
what it means to live in a regular
family, in which both mom and dad are present. When I was 8
years old my mom got married
again and I had to adapt to our new life. Growing up I had many
problems with my step dad
because I did not want to follow his rules and I felt like I did
not need to pay attention to him
since he was not my father. This situation also got me in trouble
with my mom because she
wanted me to accept her new husband as my new father. My
mother and I have always had very
good communication until she got married again. I felt that she
betrayed me, since she kept

3. everything hidden from me until the last minute. After that our
communication started to
deteriorate little by little. According to a study published in the
Journal of Social Issues, divorce
affects primary bonds with parents, presents challenges to
conceptions of social reality, and
creates stress which interferes with normal development. In
other words, children are extremely
affected by divorce and it can affect their communication with
both or one of their parents. The
goal of my personal experience paper is to analyze how divorce
affects family communication
and also how it relates to problems among the family members.
Literature Review: According to Coleman (2000), transitioning
to a stepfamily is a common
challenge given that approximately half of the marriages in the
United States and Canada involve
a remarriage for one or both partners. While most people enter
into stepfamilies with the best
intentions for a new start, not all stepfamily members
experience the transition equally. Studies
have found that children in stepfamilies have more frequent
behavioral problems, turbulent
relationships and lower self-esteem than children in first

4. marriage families (Golish, 2003).
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FAMILY COMMUNICATION AND DIVORCE
According to the Journal of Social Issues, children are more
prompt to communicating with their
parents when both parents are home. If the parents’ divorce, the
child will stop communicating
because he or she will find him or herself in a transitional state
in where he or she does not know
what to do. Another major finding is that when there is a
divorce, the father that does not usually
have custody of the child will mainly communicate with him by
phone and this makes the
communication much more difficult and limited (Hess, 1979).
My research goal is to prove that
there is indeed a strong relationship between divorce and family
communication.
Methodology: To conduct my research I used my personal
experience and also my husband’s
personal experience. As I stated it before, my mom and dad got
divorced when I was 3 years old.
Due to political reasons and the economic crisis that was going
on in Cuba, my dad decided to

5. immigrate to Mexico. In the first years of my life, I cannot
remember how my personal
relationship with my dad was. The earliest memory I have is
when I was 7 years old. Most of the
communication that I had with my father was by phone and the
minutes were limited since he
was calling long distance and it was really expensive. Also, I
did not have any privacy when I
was talking to him because my grandmother would be next to
me waiting for her turn to talk with
him. Due to these circumstances, the communication that I had
with my dad was limited and
reduced. On the other hand, as I stated before the
communication that I had with my mother was
excellent until she remarried. I felt really betrayed because the
way she decided to do it and keep
it a secret until the last minute. After that, we started having a
very superficial relationship and I
did not feel comfortable sharing my private information with
her. In the case of my husband’s
situation, his parents also got divorced when he was very
young, approximately 1 year old. After
the divorce, his dad left and he did not see him again until he
was 8 years old and he decided to

6. look him up in the yellow pages. This means that he did not
have any communication with his
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FAMILY COMMUNICATION AND DIVORCE
dad when he was growing up. On the other hand, his mother got
married again, but the new
marriage did not work. After that she got married three more
times but all of the relationships
failed. For this reason, my husband had a very limited
communication with his mom, since she
had to divide her time between him and her personal life. My
husband told me that when he was
growing up he felt abandoned by his mom because she was
spending too much time with her
romantic partner instead of with him. In addition, his mom
worked at night time in a bank and on
the weekends they had to do what his stepfather wanted instead
of what he wanted. He did not
have free time with his mom.
Findings: After concluding my research, I found that indeed
there is a huge relationship between
family communication and divorce. When parents’ divorce the

7. children are the ones that suffer
the consequences. I found that family communication is
seriously affected with divorce
especially with the parent that does not have custody of the
child. For example, in my personal
experience I had a very good and open communication with my
mother, but after she remarried
everything changed. Also in my husband’s case, the relationship
he had with his mom changed
after she remarried because he felt that she was dedicating more
time to her romantic partner
rather than with him. On the other hand, I did not have a good
communication with my dad
because he left the country after he and my mother got
divorced. In addition to this, I found that
children that experience divorce are more prompt to have lows
elf-esteem because they feel a
sense of lost and abandonment.
Conclusion: As mentioned before, transitioning to a stepfamily
is a challenge for everybody
involved, especially for the children. They are always the most
affected because they lose all the
stability they had with their both parents. Communication is
another key feature that is damaged

8. when there is a divorce, especially the communication between
the child and its parents. In my
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FAMILY COMMUNICATION AND DIVORCE
personal experience, my mother and I lost a very good
relationship and communication that we
had because of her separation from my dad. In the case of my
husband, he felt rejected by his
mom and also lost all the communication that they had. Divorce
can be inevitable sometimes, but
parents have to be careful not to damage the relation that they
have with their children because of
it. We all need to learn how to handle a situation like this, so
our children never get negatively
affected by their parent’s decisions.

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FAMILY COMMUNICATION AND DIVORCE
References
McCornack, S. (2013). Reflect & relate: An introduction to
interpersonal communication (3er
ed.). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Hess, R., Camara, K. (1979). Post-divorce family relationships
as mediating factors in the
consequences of divorce for children. Journal of Social Issues,
35(4), 79-96.
doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1979.tb00814.x