Psychologists named the years of the crisis of family life
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Numerous psychological and sociological studies show that family crises are inevitable. Each family passes through several stages of development as the years go by, and the end of each of them is the crisis.
The crisis of family life does not arise from scratch, many factors provoke it. The heaviest are usually associated with the most serious and traumatic stressors-illness, death, war, loss of work, the birth of inferior children. Although most often the relations of the spouses experience the strength of household difficulties, problems in relationships with relatives, change in financial situation (both in the direction of its deterioration, and in the direction of improvement).
Another factor that can cause problems in family life is the moment when one of the spouses is experiencing its own psychological crisis, for example, a crisis of middle age. Reconsidering his life, feeling dissatisfaction with himself, a person often decides to change everything, including his own family life. Such important milestones as the admission of the child to school, the transitional age of the child and the withdrawal from the parental family, too, as psychologists note, can also cause a crisis for the spouses. But how does one understand that the family has entered such a crisis phase of its relationship?
8 symptoms of the family crisis:
- The desire of the couple to intimacy is decreasing.
- The spouses no longer strive to please each other.
- All issues related to the upbringing of children provoke quarrels and mutual reproaches.
- The couple do not have the same opinion about the most significant issues: relationships with relatives and friends, plans for the future, family income distribution and so on.
- The husband and wife do not understand (or do not understand at all) the feelings of each other.
- Almost all actions and words of a partner cause irritation.
- Each of the spouses believes that he is forced to give in to the wishes and opinions of the other all the time.
- There is no need to share with your spouse your problems and joyful experiences ..
[Years of the crisis of family relations
Psychologists conditionally distinguish several dangerous periods of marriage. About half of all family unions, they say, break up after the first year of the wedding. Problems in family life arise from the fact that young spouses can not cope with life and peacefully agree on the distribution of responsibilities - mainly because of the reluctance of partners to change their habits.
The next critical age for the family is the first 3-5 years of marriage. There are children, it is necessary to solve housing and professional problems - all these are very serious factors of physical and nervous tension. There is a risk of alienation. In addition, during this period, the sensual relations of the spouses are degenerated into family friendships, which can exacerbate the arising chill in communication.
After 7-9 years of joint life, another crisis may occur, connected with such a phenomenon as addiction. This is the period when life has stabilized more or less and everyday problems have ceased to be acute, there has appeared time for reflection. Spouses can begin to compare reality with what it seemed a few years ago in dreams. Often they are disappointed and begin to want something new.
If the husband and wife are still together, in 16-20 years of marriage another family crisis is possible. It is aggravated by the crisis of the middle age of one of the spouses. Also during this period, the family leaves the adult children and the couple are left without their main "leading" activity - the upbringing of children. Spouses have to learn to live together again, and not everyone succeeds.
Psychologists emphasize that the family crisis is first of all a crisis of communication. It is important for spouses to be able to ask for forgiveness and accept an apology. It is wrong to "sulk" on a partner for days and make him feel guilty - in the end it will get bored. If the partner is not ready for a truce, he should speak about it directly: "I need time to cool down, calm down." If spouses love and respect each other, then any conflict is just a part of their mutual desire for mutual understanding.