Plano Family Law Blog

Talking with your children about an impending divorce is difficult in even the best of circumstances. Children are likely to catastrophize news of a divorce. They often have strong emotional reactions ranging from anger to guilt. Kids may also worry about losing their relationship with one or both of their parents, or fear that they are the root cause of the divorce.

That fear may be especially pronounced and harder to communicate for children with special needs. After all, there is a pervasive myth that children with special needs can be a contributing factor toward divorce in families. Many kids have heard this myth and may have internalized it.

You have probably heard repeatedly that there is roughly a 50 percent divorce rate in the United States, meaning half of all marriages eventually end. This oft-cited statistic is debatable, and it gives you the idea that your odds of getting divorced are just that: numerical odds. It's a coin toss. You can't predict the outcome.

That's not actually how it works. If you put four people in a room, you can't just claim that two of them will get divorced. Not all relationships are equal. All four of these people could stay together or split up. It depends on a host of factors, such as:

• Your age. Did you know that people who get married younger also tend to get divorced more often? Twenty-five years old seems to be an important milestone, as those who wait until they are at least 25 get divorced less than those who marry before reaching 25.
• If your parents got divorced. Did you see your parents' relationship end while you were a child? If so, that makes it more likely that you will follow in their footsteps and get divorced yourself. If your parents stayed together, you and your partner are more likely to do the same.
• How long you stayed in school. Getting a college degree helps make your marriage more stable. For instance, the divorce rate for people who had a degree was around 14.2 for every 1,000 people in one study. For those who did not graduate from college, it was more like 23 out of 1,000.
• Your ethnicity. People with different racial backgrounds get divorced at very different rates. One study looked specifically at women and found that African-American women have the highest divorce rates. Women with an Asian heritage have the lowest divorce rates. In the middle are both Caucasian women and Hispanic women.
• Having kids. Did you and your partner already have children? If so, your divorce odds are lower now than they were before. Many parents, it seems, really do decide to stay together for the kids.

While you might focus on the parenting time schedule when you divorce your child's other parent, there is another consideration for you to think about - the child's medical care. All children will need at least preventative care during their lifetime.

For some parents, such as those who have medically fragile children or children with medically complex problems, the need to plan for such matters increases sharply. It is imperative that parents work together to come up with a plan for how the child will receive the necessary care.

Getting divorced in Texas can be difficult for even the simplest family structure. If your family includes one or more children with special needs, that can have a direct impact on the decisions you make regarding your marriage and its end.

Specifically, concerns about the needs of your child could impact everything from your living arrangement during and after the divorce to how the courts handle both custody and child support. You want to reduce the strain on your special needs child as much as possible.