ABSTRACT
The father’s diminishing contact and progressive emotional disengagement from his children is a frequent outcome of divorce which has been amply documented. Wallerstein and Kelly (1980) report that most fathers lose at least some contact with their children in the five years following a decisive marital separation and that 90 percent of the children ultimately find themselves in sole maternal custody. Wallerstein (1991) also reported that, in spite of regular visitation over the 10 years following divorce, the intensity of the father’s relationship with his children diminished in most cases, and that the richness of their emotional relationship also decreased. Furstenberg and Nord (1985) reported even more dramatic findings: 23 percent of the divorced fathers had had no contact with their sons or daughters in the previous five years, and 20 percent had not seen their children during the entire preceding year. These researchers concluded that, in the majority of families, marital disruption effectively destroys the ongoing relationship between children and their biological parent living outside the home.
