A topic that isn’t often discussed as much as it should be is: how having a child with a disability affects the marriage. I remember the first time I heard someone say that the divorce rate is higher for those who have a child with a disability. It was stated by someone who was in the process of getting a divorce. Although I hadn’t done the research myself, the person telling me was very knowledgeable and I believed her. Besides, I could totally understand why.
Marriage is a plant, it needs to be watered and taken care of for it to grow. But when you throw in a child with a disability and all their medical needs, it’s easy to forget about caring for the plant. It’s not intentional, it’s just hard to do when your child’s in the hospital. Or needs testing. Or… fill in the blank with all the things a young child needs to thrive. It’s simple to see how marriage can easily get neglected. No big deal if it’s temporary, life happens and we need to be flexible. Not to mention, plants can survive a few days without being watered. It only becomes a problem if we forget to get back to watering.
That’s why I didn’t have any reservations about the statistic I was told, it made sense. Until about three years ago when I looked for the actual study – I wanted empirical data and a website to point people towards. I’m glad I researched because I discovered something a little different.
What the study showed
Yes, the study showed that the divorce rate is higher for couples who have a child with a disability. However, it’s not as high as it was touted to me. Out of the couples studied, 22% of those who had a child with a disability got a divorce. That percentage is very comparable to the 20% that ended in divorce and didn’t have a child with a disability (National Library of Medicine). This wasn’t the statistic I thought I’d find. Based on what I was told, I thought the gap would’ve been a lot wider than 2% but that’s not what the study showed. The divorce rates are relatively the same.
Our marriage
For us, the most challenging years of our marriage was when our son was little. Not only did we have to come to terms with our son’s disability, but we also had to learn to care for him. This meant being well-versed in his medical condition and learning how to communicate and work with doctors, therapists and other service providers to ensure our son received appropriate care. It was a physically, mentally and emotionally draining time.
Now add a fledgling marriage to the mix. My husband and I were married a little under two years when our son was born. We were still adjusting to married life when we were thrust into the disability journey. Having never experienced anything of this magnitude in our relationship before, we were learning how to navigate it together for the first time. And we didn’t have years of trust and companionship to fall back on. That’s a lot of change being torpedoed at a young marriage. But instead of all the obstacles pulling us apart, it drew us together. This was interesting since my husband and I statistically fell into the greater chance of divorce category: we were young, college-educated and hadn’t been married long. Against the odds, our marriage survived. Looking back, I discovered why.
In the next post, I’ll share the four anchors that grounded our marriage.