Three years after the failure of their marriages, divorced women experience greater adversity and suffer from more bouts of depression than their married peers. They also showed comparatively less affection to their children, communicated less with them, punished them more, and were more inconsistent in their use of discipline. 6 Women have been sold a bill of goods-easy divorce is not the ticket to a better life. The image of the successful professional man who leaves his faithful wife and children and runs off with his pretty young secretary is well ingrained in our national mind. The devastated wife and children are left to pick up the pieces.
Divorced men experience early health problems to a much greater extent than married men.
Premature death rates for divorced men are double that of married men from such causes as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and strokes. The premature death rate from pneumonia is seven times greater for divorced men than for married men. The suicide rate for divorced white men is four times higher than for their married counterparts. 8 Divorced or separated men undergo inpatient or outpatient psychiatric care at a rate 10 times that of married men. According to one study, only half of divorced mothers valued the absent father's continued contact with his children.