Divorce? ...YOU ARE FUCKED
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trauma of a split can leave long-lasting effects on mental and
physical health that remarriage might not repair, according to
research released this week.
Research shows health differences between people who are married and
those who have gone through a divorce.
Research shows health differences between people who are married and
those who have gone through a divorce.
"People who lose a marriage take such damage to their health," said
Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois.
Waite and co-author Mary Elizabeth Hughes, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health, found that divorced or widowed people have 20
percent more chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes
or cancer than married people. They also have 23 percent more mobility
limitations, such as trouble climbing stairs or walking a block.
Their article, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior,
examined the marital history and health indicators for 8,652 middle-
aged people in research funded by the National Institute on Aging. The
authors found differences between the overall health of those who
remain married and those who divorce.
Almost half of all U.S. marriages end in divorce, according to the
National Institutes of Health.
"Losing a marriage or becoming widowed or divorced is extremely
stressful," Waite said. "It's financially, sometimes, ruinous. It's
socially extremely difficult. What's interesting is if people have
done this and remarried, we still see, in their health, the scars or
marks -- the damage that was done by this event.
Divorced people "have more chronic conditions, more mobility
limitations, rate their health as poorer than people like them in age,
race, gender, education who've been married once and are still
married," Waite said.
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The authors assessed health by taking data in four categories: chronic
conditions, mobility, depressive symptoms and their self-assessment.
Previous research has suggested that marriage has protective health
benefits by providing financial, social and emotional stability.
Married women have more financial security, which means better access
to health care and reduced stress, Waite said.
"Married men have better health habits," she said in comparison to
single males. "They lead a cleaner, healthier life, and less times in
bars and eat better. Women tend to manage men's interactions with the
medical system, get him in for colonoscopy and make sure they get flu
shot."
Mark Hayward, director of the Population Research Center and a
professor of sociology Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin,
said spouses check up on each other's needs. They remind each other
about when to go see a doctor, a dentist or when to get a medical
issue checked out.
"You're making decisions together about your lifestyle and investing
in a future together," said Hayward, who was not involved in the
latest research. But in a similar study, he found that divorce has a
lasting impact on cardiovascular diseases, even after remarriage. His
2006 study, funded by the National Institute on Aging, found that
divorced middle-aged women were 60 percent more likely to have
cardiovascular disease than middle-aged women who remain married.
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"There's no erasure of the effects of divorce," Hayward said. "There
is intense stress leading up to divorce, stresses during divorce
proceedings. Think of divorce as one of the most intense stressors. It
leads to what we call dysregulation [impairment] in key cardiovascular
process that may be permanently altered. You're not going back to your
original set point."
Both genders suffer irreversible, detrimental effects on their health
after losing marriage through a divorce or death of a spouse,
according to the findings.
Those who did not remarry after a divorce or a spouse's death showed
deficits in mental and physical health. Waite called this the "double
whammy" because they don't get the protective effects of marriage and
have gone through a "damaging, health-destroying experience."
They had worse health indicators than people who never married and
therefore "didn't get the goods and didn't get the bads," Waite said.
People who remarried had better health than those who did not.
"If you loved and lost, did you find love again?" Waite said. "The
people who did are doing better." But this group overall showed health
deficits compared to those who remained married.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/28/divorce.marriage.health/index.html
grumpy
Divorce is simply an admision of failior.
AirRaid
>
> Divorceis simply an admision of failior.
No, divorce is much more than that. Divorce signals the total
destruction of the family. It usually causes pain that does not go
away.