Both the partners are expected to provide emotional support and nourishment as well as a feeling of security to each other, stick together in thick and thin and face all the challenges that life may throw at them. A marriage is really complete when the partners have children who are provided a healthy atmosphere in the home to grow up in.

Many marriages, though, are not happy and break up after some years as the partners can no longer bear to live with each other. When such a thing happens, it presents quite a sad spectacle as the separation of partners is the collapse of a dream and dashing of all hopes that they had with the relationship.

Why would somebody voluntarily decide to call it quits and cut the marriage short? Many factors may be responsible for this. Physical and emotional abuses top the list. These may involve a range of behaviour ? beating, pushing around, taunts and constant criticism, denial of finances, not allowing the partner to do a job ? meant to subjugate or terrorise the other partner and totally bend him or her to the aggressor's wishes. Besides, extramarital affairs, poverty and plain boredom with each other are other leading causes of divorce among couples.

Partners to a marriage are grown-up adults. They have matured over the years and are emotionally quite secure. They can handle a lot of stress and know how to fend for themselves. The real victims of a divorce are the children. Their life is totally devastated. The biggest reason for this is that children are vulnerable. They instinctively realise that if the parents abandon them, they will not be able to take care of themselves in this big bad word and will surely die.

The family is their lifeline, and when they see it unravelling before their eyes as the parents head for divorce, they are gripped with very strong feelings of panic and insecurity. Many children cannot comprehend why their parents are separating. They think this is because they do not love them enough and develop a guilt complex. It is common for children to slip into chronic depression. Some even take to crime.

Divorce does not happen all of a sudden. It is the culmination of years of events and behaviour patterns. Before a divorce actually occurs, the atmosphere of the house would have turned caustic long back. If there is physical abuse involved in the relationship, the children would be witnessing loud quarrels between the parents, often lasting for hours. There is nothing worse for children than seeing their mother being beaten by their father in front of their eyes.

A parent may emotionally abuse the family and dominate the other partner and children, controlling their every move and asking them to take permission for every little thing in their lives. The terrified children are left cowering. For their healthy psychological growth, children need an affectionate atmosphere full of love where they feel reassured of their future. By the time the divorce actually comes about between the parents, a lot of damage would already have been done to the tender minds of the children.

The cost that divorce extracts from the family is not over for a long time. After divorce, the children most often stay with their mother. If she moves to another location, children are uprooted from their familiar neighbourhood and lose all their friends. The single-mother parenting has its own challenges. The mother is not able to give enough attention to the children as she gets busy doing a job. Worse, the children are deprived of the comfort of a protective male presence in their lives.

With divorce, the income of the family abruptly reduces by half and it is common for single mothers to slip below the poverty line if she was not earning anything during marriage. Once the mother remarries, again the children's future becomes uncertain because they are unsure what kind of chemistry their step-father would have with them.

The trauma of seeing their parents divorce and their family torn asunder leaves a deep negative impression on the children. Most of them find themselves unable to concentrate on studies and lag behind in school. Many take to drugs, petty crime or other deviant behaviour. Some become loners or introverts. It is the duty of the responsible parent to compensate for the ill effects of divorce by giving the children extra attention and affection and keep reassuring them that whatever happens, he or she will stick with them till the end.