Adult Children of Divorce: Confused Love Seekers - Hardcover

Geraldine K. Piorkowski

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0313346003 ISBN 13: 9780313346002

Publisher: Praeger, 2008

Synopsis

Romantic love is often an elusive, fragile, and tenuous state, difficult to maintain across time. The rates of divorce, re-divorce, relationship violence, and abuse today attest to the face we are failing at romantic love. And for teen-aged and adult children of divorce, romantic love can be especially elusive. Because they have no roadmap for a satisfying, stable romatic relationship derived from their own parents, they are confused by what love is and tend to make poor partner choices. Borrowing heavily from popular culture for unrealistic standards regarding love, they become disillusioned when their all-too-ordinary lovers don't measure up. Especially vulnerable to the problems their parents had, they tend to overreact in a similar negative fashion and are all too ready to consider divorce when unhappiness strikes. In attempting to halt intergenerational transmission of divorce, Psychologist Piorkowski points to how we can recognize that American popular culture presents an overly-sexualized, explosive, and superficial version of love that can't last. With this book, adult children of divorce can begin to see how they have been affected by familial experiences, and develop a new, realistic map to find more fulfilling and enduring romantic relastionships. Piorkowski, in an extensive review of literature, also looks at cultural factors and how they impact romantic love and marriage. In contrast to American popular culture's shallow rendition of romantic love, many cultures elsewhere in the world emphasize compatibility, religion, and family allegiance. As a result, says the author, such marriages appear more stable than American unions built upon the shifting sands of emotion.

About this title

Review

"Carefully researched, factually supported, this book is academic in content yet easy to read. It provides an additional context for psychoanalysts treating adult children of divorce and for dynamically oriented couple-therapists." - Psychoanalytic Review

"With this book, adult children of divorce can begin to see how they have been affected by familial experiences and develop a new, realistic map to provide directions for more fulfilling and enduring romantic relationships." - Family Therapy

Synopsis

This title explains the often distorted expectations that adult children of divorce bring to romantic love.Romantic love is often an elusive, fragile, and tenuous state, difficult to maintain across years without regular nurturing and attention. The rates of divorce, re-divorce, relationship violence, and abuse today attest to the fact we are, to put it mildly, failing at romantic love. And love can be especially elusive and baffling for teen-aged and adult children of divorce. Because they have no template of a satisfying, firm romantic relationship derived from experience with and observations of their own parents, children of divorce are left to create their own template, or avoid romantic relationships altogether. In this work, psychologist Geraldine Piorkowski explains how being a child of divorce affects us, and how we can change our thinking, to break the cycle of poor choices and broken relationships. She also explains how our cultural models, from movies and books to television shows, give us no better models on which to base a loving, romantic relationship.Making wise partner choices - finding and keeping romantic love - is not magic.

Nor is storybook love the stuff of real life, the author explains. Adult children of divorce who pursue romantic love often create an idealized image that serves as the standard for their own relationships, an image that may be drawn from idyllic scenes of unwaivering bliss and passionate sex presented in movies, soap operas, and novels. The expectation for 'true love' to be every moment, never fluctuating, becomes a source for disillusionment and despair. The meaning of love is confused. But with this book, adult children of divorce can start recognising how they have been affected by their experiences, and develop new thinking.

About this edition

• Publisher: Praeger
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0313346003
• ISBN 13: 9780313346002
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208