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        My clinical research since 1979 strongly suggests that most troubled families and the tragic U.S. divorce epidemic are caused by an unseen, pervasive [wounds + unawareness] cycle passing down the generations. This cycle promotes five little-recognized family and marital hazards. The hazards are speci-ally common and impactful in typical divorcing, and step families. They are:

• denied psychological ("false self") wounds from childhood neglect; plus...

• unawareness of key relationship skills and key topics, plus...

• incomplete grief from major life losses (broken bonds). These combine with...

• neediness, denials, and ignorance of these hazards to promote couples making up to three unwise commitment choices - and later, unwise conception choices.

• these four stressors are amplified by public and professional denial of them, which causes little informed prevention or help in the church, media, and local communities.

        Once understood and accepted, each hazard can be prevented or reduced:

        My research also suggests that few committed mates or family-support professionals know these hazards, what they mean, and what to do about them. This article provides perspective on each hazard and links to more detail.

        This outline assumes you're familiar with...

the intro to this nonprofit Web site and the premises underlying it normal personality subselves (like yours) - slides or text Grown Wounded Children (GWCs), and what it means to be a GWC;. and... the unseen [wounds + unawareness] cycle stressing most families and our society.

  Five Marital and Family Hazards

        This five-hazard theory is not validated by any formal research that I know of. The most crucial part of it is validated. When I’ve proposed this five-factor theory to other human-service professionals and re-searchers, most say something like "That makes sense." See what you think.

1) Psychologically-wounded Partners in Protective Denial

        From the documented U.S. divorce epidemic and interviews of over 1,000 typical Midwestern women and men since 1981, I propose that well over half of modern American adults and their ancestors have survived significantly low-nurturance ("dysfunctional") childhoods. Such "Grown Wounded Children" (GWCs) are often unaware of developing a ''false self'' that helped them survive their unintended psycho-logical and spiritual neglect.

        GWCs enter adulthood with up to six psychological wounds which degrade the quality of their rela-tionships and personal health. The core wound is the dominance of a well-meaning false self, which dis-ables their wise true Self and causes excessive shame + guilts + fears + reality distortions + trust and bonding problems. For more detail on these rampant psychological wounds, see this. To assess some-one for significant false-self wounds, see this and this.

       Typical GWCs unconsciously pick each other over and over, perhaps because excessive shame automatically seeks its own level. Current self-help media call GWCs "Adult Children" of childhood trauma or toxic parents. Without self-awareness and personal recovery (healing), GWCs often uncon-sciously pass on inner wounds to dependent kids like their ancestors did, spreading the cycle of (low nurturance + unawareness > wounds).

        Kids who chronically "act out" or "fail" are often manifesting false-self dominance and related wounds + incomplete grief + personal overwhelm. Adults' unseen false-self wounds amplify the next three family hazards. Once acknowledged (vs. denied or minimized), these wounds can be substantially reduced (vs. cured) over time. Lesson 1 here proposes one way to do this.

Pause and notice your reaction to what you just read. If you accept this key "wounds" hazard, go ahead. If you doubt or disagree that psychological wounds could be a key reason for widespread family stress and divorce, a protective false self may control you.

HAZARD 2)  Unawareness + Ignorance

       Few family and human-service professionals I've met could talk knowledgeably about all these interrelated topics...

• human personalities and relationship-health factors;..

• effective communication basics and skills;

• healthy-grief basics, and how to build a pro-grief family and release blocked grief;

• effective parenting basics; and...

• basic facts about stepfamilies; how they differ from intact, healthy biofamilies; and what these difference mean.

Typical adults (like you?) aren't aware of themselves, each other, and of their ignorance (lack of know-ledge).

        I invite you to follow each of these links after you finish this article, and see how much you know about these five vital areas. Then you'll better understand why I propose that most troubled people and families "don't know what they don't know," and what this means to them and their descendents.

        The maxim "what you don't know can't hurt you" is tragically wrong when it comes to these ha-zards, marriage, child-conception, and healthy parenting! This nonprofit educational Website offers a comprehensive self-study course to help visitors convert lifelong unawareness into enlightenment.

       Premise - adults' psychological wounds + unawareness + ignorance often combine to promote...

HAZARD 3) Incomplete Grief

        All healthy kids and adults form bonds over time - emotional and spiritual attachments to valued ideas, living things, places, freedoms, dreams, and rituals. As we age, we choose - or are forced to - break these bonds, causing significant losses. Human nature provides a way for us to process and accept our losses -  grief, or mourning. Natural mourning takes it's own time, and can't be ignored or hur-ried.

        Unawareness and ignorance of grieving basics (Lesson 3 here) can impede or block healthy mour-ning. Because our feel-good, warp-speed culture minimizes the primal value of mourning, much ''depres-sion'' is probably normal grief.

        Grown Wounded Children (GWCs) often didn't see their (wounded) parents grieve well, so they ...

• can't mourn well themselves, 

• can't model and teach their kids to grieve well, and...

• aren't aware of this or what it means. Incomplete grief appears to promote a wide range of emotional, physical, and secondary relationship problems, including addictions, obesity, mood disorders, and (some) depression.

        Unfinished grief has clear symptoms. Once recognized, frozen grief can be patiently thawed over time if the griever is usually guided by their wise true Self (Lesson 1), and lives in a pro-grief environment (Lesson 3).

  See this brief research summary for perspective on this widespread personal and family stressor. Then take this quiz to see what you (don't) know about healthy mourning, and fill in the gaps with Lessons 1 thru 3.

       Adults' false-self wounds + unawareness + incomplete grief + public indifference cause another common marital and family stressor...

 HAZARD 4) Unwise Courtship Choices

        Many people agree with veteran pastoral counselor Dr. Harville Hendrix. After 20+ years’ experience with couples, he feels that despite maturity, life experience, and "common sense," most commitment vows are largely emotional and unconscious, vs. "rational." Despite this insight, he doesn't propose that the reason for this is the first three hazards above.

       Wounded survivors of low childhood nurturance (GWCs) are at special risk of choosing wounded, unaware people to commit to, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. Too often, partners commit to al-luring illusions of who "you (and we) are going to be: a perfect mate, a wonderful couple, and a happy family."

        Typical love-struck couples rarely exchange vows knowing clearly who they are now - often two needy people denying major false-self wounds and unawarenesses (above), heading blithely into an ama-zingly complex relationship challenge they know little about. This is specially true of couples joining or forming a new stepfamily.

        For more perspective on this widespread hazard, review these Lesson 8 resources, including the unique guidebook Stepfamily Courtship, (Xlibris.com, 2002). Most of the book pertains to all courting couples.

        The current U.S. divorce epidemic suggests that over half of contemporary American couples even-tually encounter serious relationship problems because of the four stressors above. When they seek help with these problems, many find...

 HAZARD 5) Little Informed Support

        Local and national media and (I suspect) most communities offer little or no informed, effective sup-port for troubled (low-nurturance) families. By informed, I mean thorough knowledge of, and experience with identifying and reducing, the four hazards above. Reality Check - have you ever seen any articles, books, advertisements, CDs, or programs, that acknowledge these hazards together and offer resources to reduce them? 

        In 30 years' research, I have never found a single marriage-preparation or "enrichment" class, book, seminar, Web site, or program that proposes these four stressors and what to do about them. The wealth of popular materials about courtship and marriage are uniformly focused on surface issues and advice, like this example. This is true also of well-researched and tested programs like PREPARE-ENRICH, FOCCUS, PAIRS, and RELATE.

        Finding informed support is even harder for average stepfamily adults. Few clergy; teachers; thera-pists; family mediators, lawyers and judges; and medical professionals - or their funders, administrators, and program directors - know how different, complex, and stressful average multi-home stepfamilies are. They can't name or describe these five hazards in any detail or what to do about them.

        In my experience, most marital and family counselors usually provide well-meant, misguided (super-ficial) advice. At best, this doesn't hurt. At worst, it unintentionally increases marital and family stress, and raises clients' distrust of professional help.

This nonprofit Website exists to inform lay and professional people about these five epidemic hazards and help them break the [wounds + unawareness] cycle that causes them. To see if the cycle is affecting your family now, see this.

Recap

        After 30 years' professional study and clinical experience with over 1,000 typical Midwestern adults, I propose that the epidemic of troubled (low-nurturance) families > divorce > re/divorce that causes mil-lions of typical U.S. adults and kids to live in misery comes from the combination of...

Mates' denied psychological wounds + unawareness of key topics and life skills + incomplete grief in one or more family members + courtship neediness and unwise choices + little informed help +. public ignorance and denial

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Here's more detail on three levels of typical personal and family problems that these combined hazards cause. Self-study Lesson 8 proposes how you can break the ancestral [wounds + unawareness] cycle that fosters these five widespread hazards.

+ + +

        Pause, breathe, and reflect - Why did you read this? Did you get what you needed? If not - what do you need? Who's answering these questions - your wise true Self, or ''someone else''?

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Updated  January 07, 2010