Any honest person will admit that marriage can be difficult; having a child with special needs can often increase the number of challenges a marriage will face. But does having a family that includes a child with a disability automatically mean a marriage will face hard times? Let’s explore that question.
Can having a son or daughter with a disability increase a marriage’s risk of divorce?
Both having a special needs child and being married are by themselves two challenging things. Together they can make life stressful, pure and simple. In fact, parents who have a child with ADHD are “twice as likely to divorce by the time the child is eight years old.” Why?
The above statistic was compiled by researchers at the University of Buffalo, State University of New York. The researchers concluded that there were two reasons for the marital stress of parents with children who have ADHD; those reasons include:
1. A family is already in strife
2. A child with a disability displays “disruptive behaviour”
According to research, it is these two factors combined that can put a marriage at risk for divorce. But what is the flip side to having a child with a disability? Can it bring parents closer together?
In a recent Canadian study, 18 percent of parents with a child having a disability claimed “the child’s condition made them closer.”
What if a child’s disability could bring a couple closer? For 18 percent of Canadian parents with a disabled child (from a 2006 survey), this is true. In particular, it has been reported that parents of autistic children have a stronger marriage as a result of the struggles they face.
Having a special needs child doesn’t have to equal disaster for a marriage.
The first few years of the onset of a child’s disability is hard, both on the child and the parents. But its fascinating to discover that after a child has his or her eighth birthday, “There was no difference in divorce rates” (this was determined by the University of Buffalo researchers). Could it be that the first several years of a disabled child’s life are the most difficult on a marriage?
Do you have a special needs child? How has it affected your marriage?
Leave a comment on this post telling us how having a special needs child has affected your marriage in both positive and negative ways.
Sources:
http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2008/11/25/does-having-a-special-needs-child-strain-marriage/
Image made available by eivinwd on Flickr through Creative Commons License.
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Let’s Talk About It
The research from the University of Buffalo suggests that the first several years of a disabled child’s can be quite tough on a marriage. Do you agree?
How specifically has having a child with special needs strained your marriage? How has it strengthened it?
my son bipolar i dont no why. where still together it hard way to live.
i have two boys with adhd….and my husband and i are still together but we live in seperate places….its very hard…
my nine year old son has adhd. and i have bipolar and adult adhd that they suspect ive had it all my life was not medicated until one year ago… my son was 4 and a half when he was diagnosed and i was about a year into a serious relationship when he got diagnosed adhd… we were pregnant with my second son at the time and we struggled to stay on the same page in dealing with his outburst of bad behavior… we began fighting about discipline and then i had the baby fell into post-partum depression that lasted for a year in that year. we started fighting more about me and my mental health that was not getting better…. with my own research i found that my symptoms seemed more like bipolar then depression…. so i was diagnosed and put on meds…. i started to get better,,,, but it was too late for us … fighting and struggling to find a common ground to stand on when raising our adhd child and a new baby we had fallen apart…. we still remain friends to this day and we do alot better in doing what is best for the kids… but in the time that i took to get myself better i found my best friend and the man that stands on common ground… since he has been around i have gain back control of my very intelligent, kinda hyper little dude! I dont know how many people told me or how many times i was told but i finally got it… CONSISTENCY IS KEY!!!! stick to what you say the first time because in the end… as impatient as child with adhd can be…they can be just as patient enough to get you to change your mind!!!!!! it is ok if a marriage falls apart while raising a special child… because that marriage was never strong enough to make it thought the tough parts… its who stands beside you in the end saying WE DID IT TOGETHER!!!!