t of support awarded by the courts (Lamb and Sternberg, 1997). Wage garnishment and stronger support enforcement laws are possible solutions to this problem. Joint custody is allowed in some states. While the idea sounds positive, children of joint-custody agreements often feel that they are constantly leaving one house to go to the other. The child does not feel a stable home exists. When the parents do not have a good post-divorce relationship, often the children will play one parent against another. This can result in unhappy relationships between the child and both parents.Stages of DivorcePaul Bohannon (1970), in (Doob, 1997, p. 142), wrote that a divorce is especially difficult because it encompasses six different dimensions simultaneously and because American society does not yet possess effective means of helping people cope with these experiences. These six stations of divorce include:1.The emotional divorce. The spouses withhold emotion from each other--they grow apart--because their trust in and attraction for each other has ended.2.The economic divorce. When the household is broken up, and economic settlement is necessary, separating the shared assets into two portions.3.The legal divorce. In the courts the formal termination of the marriage takes place, along with bestowal of the right to remarry.4.The coparental divorce. Decisions are made about such issues as the custody of the children, visitation rights, each parents financial and childbearing responsibilities, and so forth.5.The community divorce. Changes occur in the way friends and acquaintances react to the former couple when they learn about the divorce. Like property, friends, too, are often divided, becoming her friends or his friends.6.The psychic divorce. When marriage partners break up, an uncoupling occurs, and the sense of self alters. Each spouse must fully realize that he or she is no longer part of a couple. Once again the person is single,...
