In Divorce, Revenge Damages Everyone

Jumping to Conclusions to Prove We Are Correct

Confirmation Bias is a concept in psychological science. It refers to people's tendency to research for information that supports their beliefs and ignore or distort data contradicting their beliefs.(Uwe Peters, What is The Function of Confirmation Bias? Erkenn 87; Nickerson 1998)

It is used to prevent people from jumping to a conclusion and then seeking evidence to prove that they are correct, even though they may be wrong.

I am not a psychologist so I will not go deep into the types of personalities that -according to studies- tend to fall into this syndrome or behavior, like narcissistic, antisocial, borderline or others, but from personal experience, I can tell you there are many cases in which people -normal human beings- entering the divorce process will practice Confirmation Bias, causing widespread damage to those they care about most, ironically.

When Revenge Meets Confirmation Bias

Pain, confusion, and other deep emotions are often associated with divorce. A deep sense of disappointment, a sense of betrayal, and other similar emotions often result in pain. A common passenger of divorce is revenge, a word that does not escape this ugly process. As revenge is combined with Confirmation Bias, much damage is caused, not just the damage a knife would do to a chest, but rather the kind of damage a bomb would do to a house and all of its contents with its inhabitants.

Why is this combination so damaging?

Let's create a story, based on real-life.

The One who Is Always Right

Jill is a narcissist, with a very controlling personality, she is always right, even when she is dead-wrong, she always wins arguments because she can twist facts, lie and be in total denial of reality even if it hits her on the face at 80 miles an hour.

She suspects that Ted, her husband is cheating on her, and she decides to prepare to file for divorce. Ted is not really cheating on her, but Ted is seeing a therapist behind Jill's back because Jill believes that anyone who goes to therapy is weak and completely crazy – among other things. Therapy is not for men.

As she is already convinced that Ted is unfaithful, she plans her divorce soaked in revenge.

Making Someone's Life Hell

She creates hell for Ted trough the entire divorce process, but most importantly, she works on the children's minds. She does two things quite diabolically:

ONE, play the victim of the divorce in front of society and primarily for the children,

TWO, play the children's savior. A savior from an unworthy father who doesn't really care about the children because he has destroyed the family without any remorse.

Planting the Long-Term Poison

She pretends that she is not trashing the children's father, but with high strategy, she makes sure that the indirect messages get to the kids, also those messages spoken by others in her immediate circle.

The two children quickly take the side of their mother. The 15 year old daughter stops talking with the father, and refuses to have any contact with him.

The younger boy, age 8 doesn't understand what exactly happened, he still sees his father every weekend and when he wants to stay an extra day with dad, mom exercises love blackmail. Mommy will miss you, mommy will be sad if you don't come back today.

The Estranged Parent

The father is estranged and Jill feels victorious. In fact she is victorious. There's no doubt that in this war she has chopped her enemy to pieces.

The teenage daughter starts doing drugs, her grades at school turn really bad, she secretly cries at night, she hates her father and at the same time she misses him beyond description. Two years later at 17 she is pregnant and heavenly into drugs.

The boy starts to feel very insecure about himself at school, holds inside this forces that pull him in two different directions, he can't reconcile the love for his father with the concept that he abandoned him and destroyed the home. He is a bad man, how can he love a bad man?

The Children as Victims of the Poison

Ten years later, the children are 25 and 18, the tension has softened some, they get to spend more time with their father.

Both children go through their adult lives with multiple mental health issues, from depression to very low self-esteem. They don't go to college and they have fairly low-quality lives.

In their adulthood both children get to learn the real story of their parents divorce and even tough major healing is accomplished in the relationship with their father, Nevertheless, the damage done to their core is hardly reparable, and now they may have to face a new set of conflicting feelings and emotions towards their mother.

Reckless Actions Today can Change Life Forever

Some scientists point in studies (Wason, 1960) that humans do not try at all to test their hypothesis but rather confirm them. Others challenge this position (Klayman &Ha, 1987) with a position of “Positive test Strategy”, but while psychology scientist spend time trying to figure us -humans- out, we can even completely give Jill the benefit of the doubt and assume that in our imaginary story, Ted did cheat on his wife Jill, but the revengeful approach to the separation still was the bomb that caused immense damage to the children's lives and very likely to their ability to create relationships.

We can even make one more concession to Jill in our story: She did love her children with all her heart, yet she was reckless in her blind revenge and ended up planting poison in their children's hearts, that not only destroyed their relationship with their father, but also caused destruction on them.

Legal Note: The author's intention is not to provide legal advice, as he is not an attorney.

Author: German E Velasco

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