This occurs when Mom and Dad are not loving each other very much, so they direct all their love triangularly toward their children. That may sound like a good deal for the kids, but it does not work. The children want to know that the love they came from is still going strong. Children are meant to get the overflow of Mom and Dad loving each other. In flesh and spirit they are his.
Healthy kids are the by-product of healthy marriages.
In a broken family, there is a love-deficit at this point. Acknowledging that, a child can still feel very loved. It is important that one parent not encourage a child to divorce the other parent, or for either parent to divorce the child. It is devastating to lose your parents' marriage, and it's more devastating to lose your parent, too. On the other side, single-parent love has to guard against possessiveness or indulgent love.