Conflict in Divorcing and Continuously Married Families: A Study of Marital, Parent–Child and Sibling Relationships

Abstract

Family members in both separated or divorcing and married families completed a range of questionnaires about the conflict in 3 relationships-couple, parent-child, and sibling-across 2 phases of the study approximately 12 months apart. In addition, the adolescents completed measures of adjustment: self esteem, depression, and anxiety. Adolescents in a subset of the divorcing families were interviewed about the conflict in their families across the 2 phases (107 at Phase 1 and 35 at Phase 2). Analyses showed that conflict was higher in the separated or divorcing families across all 3 relationships, and that the highest levels of conflict occurred for the high-conflict divorcing families. Qualitative data from interviews illustrated the nature of the conflict that was occurring.