Adult Children Of Divorced Parents Often Develop 11 Quietly Self-Destructive Habits
Leszek Glasner | Shutterstock Adult children of divorced parents have experienced a wide array of childhood challenges, no two being exactly the same. Every year, nearly 1 million children in the U.S. experience this change, with some parents coparenting amicably, while other kids suffer enormously.
Despite these differences, these children often develop a few quietly self-destructive habits as adults. Fortunately, once these patterns are named, we can start identifying them and addressing them, and adult children of divorced parents can have happy, healthy lives.
Adult children of divorced parents often develop 11 quietly self-destructive habits
1. Sabotaging healthy relationships
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There's a sense of discomfort that many adult children of divorce unknowingly carry into adulthood. Often, it shows up when when they experience real love, even if they aren't completely aware of the reasoning behind their discomfort. Because of this insecurity, many tend to self-sabotage healthy relationships in adulthood by exhibiting one or more destructive behaviors, as psychologist Dr. Cortney Warren suggests.
From refusing to remain emotionally available out of fear to threatening a break up at every conflict, these adult children may push people away people who care about them. What might have been a coping mechanism for them growing up often creeps up in ways they don't expect.
Sadly, they're often left wondering why so many people leave them, never realizing that it's because of their own subconscious choice to push them away.
2. Resisting emotional intimacy
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Adult children of divorced parents likely never saw healthy, connected emotional intimacy modeled in their home, thus they may be suspicious when they see it in their own lives. They may let it pass without acknowledgement or even push that type of intimacy away.
As author Leila Miller explains in her book Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak, the lifelong grief associated with adult children of divorce doesn't discriminate between households who experienced an amicable split versus a more tumultuous one. The relationship and dynamic between a child's parents, even when they're divorced or separated, impacts how they view love and intimacy in adulthood, for better or worse.
3. Overthinking other people's behaviors
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For children who lived with parents who fought often or who gave each other the silent treatment, the adult tendency towards anxiety and overthinking behaviors is nearly inevitable. They are aware of what's happening around them, and anxiously await an explosion or a freeze-out, even when things are going well.
This effects of this anxiety-driven habit carry over into every aspect of life, from success at work to making adult friends, it's hard to break the habit of overthinking every sigh, text or funny expression. Fortunately, once they connect the feeling with the cause, they can start dismantling this reaction.
4. Reflexively saying they don't want to be parents
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Children who experience parental divorce early in their lives will often grieve the loss of a traditional family structure for years afterward, even if they don't remember the divorce clearly. As a result, they may reflexively say they don't ever want to have kids, choosing to protect themselves from making the same mistakes their parents did.
When they start their own long-term relationships, consider having children, or try adopting similarly traditional family structures in adulthood, most are hesitant about their longevity. They may act like rogues or lone wolves, people who don't need that sort of commitment or family, but at their heart, they're likely just afraid.
5. Maladaptive spending and saving habits
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Many adult children of divorce overcompensate in adulthood for the financial hardship and instability their parents experienced during divorce. They may save compulsively, but they also may spend it erratically, saying things like "You can't take it with you!"
While some research suggests that adults who experienced financial hardship or insecurity in their household growing up tend to develop better financial security, it's not always cut-and-dried. It can be easy to overcompensate and turn financial caution into a self-soothing practice.
Adult children of divorced parents often experienced financial strain as a result, and sensed their parents' stress. Research from SSM - Population Health argues that financial hardship can also cultivate anxiety and depression in adult children, especially when they're hyper-focused on maintaining a level of financial security they weren't afforded growing up.
6. Hyper-independence
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For adult children of divorced parents, it's often unfathomable to imagine depending upon someone else. Maybe they watched as one parent lost everything financially or lost all their friends and close family members after the divorce. Even if the child remained in a stable environment, this has an effect. They likely don't want to depend on things from anyone, ever again.
This hyper-independence, according to psychologist Janice Webb, often develops in children who lived in households with busy or inattentive parents, which many single divorced parents are forced into to provide as a means to support and provide for themselves. In adulthood, this hyper-independence carries on, affecting their ability to lean on and accept support from friends, parents, and peers.
7. People-pleasing
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As the "peace-keepers" in their families, often bridging the gap between divorced parents growing up, many children of divorce become "people-pleasers" in adulthood. They might suppress their emotions or try to be perfect to appease romantic partners, portraying an incomplete picture of themselves in their relationships, which tends to lead to dissatisfaction and unfulfilling experiences.
For a person who compulsively people-pleases, it can be all too easy to slip into passivity in their relationships, including with cruel partners. They may fear divorce so much that they go along with anything just to keep their partner happy.
8. Seeking shallow self-esteem boosters
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One of the more subtle self-destructive habits of adult children of divorced parents is a struggle with self-esteem. For adult children from a diverse array of childhoods and family structures, self-esteem issues can be generational, at least according to a study from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, but it seems those who experienced parental divorce when they were young may be at a higher risk.
Considering children start developing self-esteem as early as five years old, a parent's role in cultivating a welcoming environment for self-expression and confidence can be incredibly important for their long-term comfort. And when they don't understand how to structure that environment for themselves, their children suffer.
As an adult, one of the best ways to counteract this is to be aware of the impact your parents' divorce may have had on your self-esteem and identity. Once you recognize that it may have played a role, you can start working on ways to rebuild what may have been lost.
9. Valuing stability over passion or fulfillment
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Some adult children of divorce will forgo their own interests and passions in the name of self-preservation and stability. This shouldn't be a surprise, as many people who had unpredictable or unstable childhoods want to create something that feels safe in adulthood.
This isn't necessarily a self-destructive habit, as long as the person doesn't create a mind-numbing existence for themselves. Stability without joy isn't the best alternative to insecurity and fear, after all.
While there's research to suggest the opposite is true, that some adult children of divorce develop "a type" in relationships that reflects the instability of a separated home, similar to their childhood, psychotherapist Katherine Cullen argues that the majority seek to fill the void of emotional and financial stability they lacked as a kid.
As long as an adult child of divorce is aware of this tendency, they can interrogate their first instincts and make sure they're neither dulling-down their joy or seeking chaos, as both extreme reactions are probably maladaptive.
10. Desperately trying to keep the peace
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Another quietly self-destructive habit of adults whose parents got divorced when they were young is a near-desperate need to "keep the peace," even at the expense of emotional well-being. They may have played the role of peace-keeper in their home as children, and continue the pattern without even realizing it's unhealthy. Or, they may not have been able to keep their homes peaceful and crave that stability more than anything else as adults.
They often continue to do this into adulthood with friends, roommates and romantic partners until they make the connection and start healing. Then, they can figure out what sort of peace-keeping behaviors are natural to them and what are done in a way that harms them. After all, some adults are natural peace-seekers and mediators, while others may find this behavior only arises when their childhood wounds are triggered.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a news and entertainment writer at YourTango who focuses on health and wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.
