Family Law

Are Parents of Autistic Child More Likely to Divorce?

By guest-writer

It has already been established that a married couple with children are most likely to divorce when the children are young. The amount of time and stress involved in raising young children is believed to drain the spouses of both their time and emotion.

Once the children become older and more self-sufficient, the parents are less likely to divorce.

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune discusses the fact that parents of autistic children are frequently told that their risk for divorce is as high as 80 percent.

The disorder is officially known as autism spectrum disorder, and leaves the children needing a lot of attention, even as they become teenagers and young adults. Compounding this is the communication problems and the repetitive behaviors often displayed by these children and young adults. The combination can create an incredible amount of stress, even on a normally low-stress couple.

To determine the frequency of divorce among parents of children with autism, the Adolescents and Adults With Autism study examined 391 families of children with autism and compared the divorce data to other families with children developing normally.

The results were shocking. The overall divorce rate for families with autistic children was 23.5 percent, which was nearly double the 14 percent of the control families. The divorce rate among the families with an autistic children was even higher when there were other children in the family.

Another factor was the age of the mother of an autistic child. The younger the mother, the more likely the relationship would end in divorce.

Another interesting statistic that came out of the study was the point at which the rate of divorce let up. For the control families, the divorce risk began to decline when the child turned 8, and when the kids became 26 the odds of divorce dropped to ?virtually nonexistent? numbers.

For families with an autistic child, the rate of divorce didn?t begin to even out until the age of 30.

If you have an autistic child, you shouldn?t take this study as a death spell for your marriage. The vast majority of marriages with autistic children, over 3/4, remained married.

What is important to take away is the ability to appreciate the difficulties that you might be going through.

If you are married and raising an autistic child, you should understand that the stress of your situation can cause problems for your marriage. The key is to understand the warning signs, and to remember to make time for your relationship.

It?s easy to forget that your relationship needs work. Researches from the study noted that this study should be used to help in ?identifying strategies to enhance their marital relationship in an ongoing way, such as learning how to best communicate with and support their spouse and carving out ?couple time.??

Full post as published by The Divorce Blog on September 16, 2010 (boomark / email).