Eventually a stage is met in a relationship when a couple decides that marriage is the next step. When a relationship reaches this stage it can be a wonderful event that serves as a statement of your love and the wish to spend your lives together forever. Marriages have been taking place since the earliest recorded history. There is evidence that shows elaborate ceremonies joining couples together all over the world.(Shreeve, 1984) People enter a legal contract, which is basically what a marriage boils down to, for a number of reasons beyond that of love; religious, arraigned marriages, kinship bonds, pool resources (both financially and manpower), and because of children. When a break down of communication occurs, common goals or trust erodes, many times this results in a divorce. A divorce can be an extremely painful process, even more so when children are involved. Children often are affected by divorce and it can be a very hard time for them, especially since they are not yet of the age to understand the magnitude of varying factors involved in such a large decision. To understand the effect of such a decision on children one must look at short term reactions, divided by age groups, as well as long term reactions or possibilities. Today 48% of marriages will end up in divorce (Tyber, 1992) because of this fact we must also look at ways that parents can help their children avoid long term effects as well as things that children should understand to help them cope.
             Short term reactions are mostly predictable and typical reactions that children experience because of an erosion of marriage. Short term reactions are uniform, while the opposite is the case in long term reactions, depending on the relationship of the parents both current and past. Short term reactions are experienced by all and often later in life a child will describe his parents divorce on the same level
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