The life cycle as a dynamic characteristic of the family. The main stages (stages) of the family life cycle and their psychological content. Young family as a special stage in the structure of the family cycle. Normative family crises and the natural nature of their occurrence. Psychological causes of family crises. Abnormal crises in the family.

The family is, first of all, a social system that is in constant interchange with the environment. The functioning of the family is subject to two main complementary laws - the law of homeostasis (focus on maintaining constancy and stability) and the law of development. The law of development means that the family, like any system, can be characterized in the historical aspect in terms of genesis, development and liquidation (cessation of existence). Therefore, we can talk about the life cycle of a family and a certain frequency and sequence of stages of its transformation from the emergence to the termination of life.

Family life cycle- this is the history of the family's life, its length in time, its own dynamics; family life, reflecting the recurrence, regularity of family events.

Family events - the most significant events for family life, significantly affecting the change in the family structure. Collections of family events form the main stages of the family cycle.

As you know, young people who have just got married, and spouses who have lived together for more than one decade, treat each other differently, face various problems and difficulties, which cannot but affect the family atmosphere.

The life cycle of family development is determined by objective events (birth, death) and is carried out in the context of age-related changes in all family members. Age-related psychological changes concerning the personality of each family member radically transform the life of the latter: the system of needs and motives of the individual, the ways of his behavior and activities, the social status of family members, and, consequently, the style of communication and the nature of the functioning of the family as a whole, change.

The recognition of the existence of these differences led to the need to determine the main stages of the family life cycle. The importance of such periodization is largely determined by the fact that each stage of the life cycle is characterized by typical developmental problems, the knowledge of which will help spouses, on the one hand, prepare for their appearance and resolution, and on the other hand, develop a system of recommendations of specialists for the provision of social and psychological assistance to the family. ...

The idea of ​​family cycles appeared in psychology in the 40s of the twentieth century, coming from sociology. The concept of "family development cycle" was first used in 1948 by E. Duvall and R. Hill at a nationwide American conference on family life, where they made a report on the dynamics of family interaction. Initially, 24 stages of the family cycle were identified.

In the 60s, when this idea began to be considered in psychotherapy, the family life cycle began to be reduced to 7-8 stages.

There are various classifications of the stages of the family life cycle. In this case, most often they proceed from the specifics of the tasks that the family must solve as a group at each stage for its further successful functioning. In most cases, this periodization is based on a change in the place of children in the family structure. This approach is typical for both domestic and foreign scientists.

In particular, E. Duval identified 8 stages in the life cycle on the basis of such a criterion as the reproductive and educational functions of the family (the presence or absence of children in the family and their age).

First stage. Forming family (0–5 years old), no children.

Second stage. A child-bearing family, the age of the oldest child is up to 3 years.

Third stage. Family with preschoolers, the eldest child is 3–6 years old.

Stage four. A family with schoolchildren, the oldest child is 6-13 years old.

Fifth stage. Family with teenage children, the eldest child is 13–21 years old.

Sixth stage. A family that "sends" children to life.

Seventh stage. Mature spouses.

Eighth stage. Aging family.

Naturally, not every family can be viewed through the prism of this classification; there are numerous family groups that “do not fit” into any classification. For example, families with children that are very different in age, who have married many times and have children from previous marriages, incomplete (with one of the parents) families living with the parents of one of the spouses, etc. However, whatever the structure family, no matter what specific tasks it solves, at a certain stage of the life cycle it encounters difficulties typical for this stage of development, the knowledge of which will help to cope with them much more successfully.

Very often in families, problems arise due to the fact that its members cannot smoothly move from one stage to another, or one stage “overlaps” the others (divorce, secondary marriage, children from the first marriage, etc.). It turns out that the family lives, as it were, in two stages at the same time: for example, where there is a small child and a teenager, problems arise that are characteristic of both one and the other phase of family development, which creates additional difficulties in the implementation of marital and parental functions.

At the same time, an approach to family development based on changes in the function of giving birth and raising children can hardly be considered the only correct one. Family relationships are not only the relationship between parents and children. Formally, the family exists from its registration to the dissolution or termination of a marriage, and its psychological essence arises when relations in a married couple become personally significant, influencing feelings, thinking and behavior, and remains so as long as these relations retain their significance. Therefore, it would be more reasonable to determine the periodization of the development of the family as a small group by the totality of various relations associated with the family and their significance in a particular period of its functioning.

With this in mind, it is possible to consider typical tasks and problems at different stages of the life cycle of a modern family. It should be borne in mind that the inability to resolve the family problems, characteristic of one stage, entails the need to move them to another stage of the life cycle. In turn, at the new stage, tasks of their own appear that require resolution, and in addition to this, unresolved problems of the previous period are added.

Thus, the family faces special difficulties, which are accompanied by the need to restructure the entire family system, redistribute family roles and responsibilities. However, it is almost impossible to do this instantly. Therefore, a natural crisis arises in the family, accompanying it during the transition from one stage of the life cycle to another. Such a crisis is characterized by the fact that the old intra-family relations are no longer acceptable, and the new ones have not yet been created.

Let's consider in detail the main stages of family life.

1. The period of premarital courtship. The main tasks of this stage are the achievement of partial psychological and material independence from the genetic (parental) family, the acquisition of experience of communication with the other sex, the choice of a marriage partner, the acquisition of experience of emotional and business interaction with him.

For some, this period is excessively prolonged. Young people may avoid getting married for reasons that lie within their parental family. But in the same way, they can strive for premature marriage, trying to free themselves from the constraining relationship with their parents. Many cannot marry a loved one due to financial and economic difficulties (lack of decently paid work, despite having professional education, the problem of their own housing, etc.).

2. The conclusion of marriage and the phase without children. At this stage, the married couple must establish what has changed in their social status, and determine the external and internal boundaries of the family: which of the acquaintances of the husband or wife will be “allowed” into the family and how often; to what extent spouses are allowed to stay outside the family without a partner; how permissible is interference in the marriage by the parents of the spouses (at this stage it is very important how the new family perceives the daughter-in-law or son-in-law).

In general, during this period, a young married couple needs to conduct a huge amount of negotiations and establish many agreements on a variety of issues (from values ​​to habits). Social, emotional, sexual and other problems can arise.

First, it is necessary to accept changes in the intensity of feelings, establish psychological and spatial distances with genetic families, gain experience of interaction in solving issues of organizing the daily life of the family, accept and carry out the initial coordination of matrimonial (family) social roles.

Secondly, it is necessary to resolve the issue of material support and financial support for the family: who will earn money, what stratum of society the family will belong to.

Thirdly, it is necessary to create intimacy in the relationship, which may be accompanied by the appearance of sexual problems due to inexperience, differences in upbringing, level of desires, etc. how many children are planned in the family. It may turn out that one of the spouses is sterile, and then new questions will arise: whether or not to take an adopted child for upbringing, or it is worth divorcing and trying to create another family.

In the conditions of modern Russian reality, many newlyweds do not immediately decide to have their first child; more and more often there are cases when couples do not register, preferring so-called civil marriage to legal formalization of relations. This also creates its own relationship problems.

3. A young family with small children. This stage is characterized by the division of roles related to fatherhood and motherhood, their coordination, material support of the new living conditions of the family, adaptation to great physical and mental stress, limitation of the general activity of spouses outside the family, insufficient opportunity to be alone, etc.

Sometimes a married couple is not ready to have children, and having an unwanted child can complicate parenting problems. In addition, people who considered their marriage to be a trial run find that it will be much more difficult for them to part.

There are cases when the birth of a child is viewed by the mother as a way to make up for the lack of love for herself. During pregnancy, the mother may be happy with the fantasy of acquiring a creature that will love her. The collapse of dreams comes after childbirth due to the need to give a lot of herself. Postpartum depression is sometimes seen as a reaction to the irreversible loss of one's own childhood.

A fundamentally important feature of this stage of the family's life cycle is the transition of the spouses to the beginning of the implementation of the parental function. The formation of a parental position is a turning point in many respects, a crisis for both parents, largely predetermining the fate of the development of children in the family, the nature of parent-child relations and the development of the personality of the parent himself.

The parental role is fundamentally different from the conjugal role in that, when forming a marital union, both partners are free to terminate the marital relationship and dissolve the marriage, while the parent is a “lifelong” role performed by the individual and cannot be canceled. Even in the so-called "opt-out" cases, when parents give up their right and responsibility to raise a child, leaving him in a maternity hospital or an orphanage, the mother and father retain responsibility for their moral choice, remaining parents, even if only biological.

A number of important questions at this stage are related to who will care for the child. New roles of mother and father appear; their parents become grandparents (great-grandparents). A kind of age shift is taking place: aging parents have to see their children as adults. For many, this is a difficult transition. What was not worked out between the two spouses should be worked out in the presence of a third person: for example, one of the parents (most often the mother) is forced to stay at home and take care of the child, while the other (mainly the father) tries to maintain connections with the outside world.

There is a narrowing of the wife's communication zone. The material supply falls on the husband, so he "frees" himself from caring for the child. On this basis, conflicts may arise due to the wife's overload with household chores and the husband's desire to "rest" outside the family. A rather important problem of this period can be the problem of self-realization of the mother, whose activities are limited only by the family. She may develop feelings of dissatisfaction and envy towards her husband's active life. Marriage can begin to break down as the wife's demands for childcare increase and the husband feels that the wife and child are interfering with his work and career.

With regard to a young Russian family, in some of them there is a need to separate from the older generation (exchange or rent an apartment, etc.), in others, on the contrary, all worries are transferred to the grandparents (the newlyweds do not seem to become parents).

When the child is older, the mother can return to work. In this regard, a new problem appears: what to do with the child - to look for a nanny or to send him to a preschool institution.

Single mothers face special problems - children start asking questions about their father. In addition, in all families, the problem of the unity of requirements for the child and the control of his behavior may appear: the grandmother pampers, the mother indulges in everything, and the father sets too many rules and prohibitions; the child feels it and manipulates them. Along with this, the question of preparing a child for school arises in the family, and the choice of an appropriate educational institution can also lead to the emergence of disagreements between adult family members.

4. Family with schoolchildren (middle-aged family). The time a child enters school is often accompanied by a crisis in the family. The conflict between the parents becomes more obvious, since the product of their educational activity is the object of general observation. For the first time they experience the fact that the child will someday grow up and leave the house, and they will be left alone with each other.

Some problems associated with the child's school life are possible - the question of the intellectual usefulness of a son or daughter who is lagging behind in studies is being resolved (then you will have to transfer the child to a special school or organize individual education at home); there may be problems with behavioral deviations.

At this stage, parents decide the issue of the child's all-round development (simultaneous sports, music, a foreign language) or the choice of an activity according to interests and inclinations. Along with this, the child (adolescent) is accustomed to household duties, their distribution, combining with studies. Transfer to another school is possible (either in connection with the move, or for in-depth study of any academic subject). Even when children reach adolescence, parents still take care of them, not trusting them to make their own decisions and not paying attention to the fact that adolescents are looking for freedom and striving for self-realization.

During this period, parents still devote a lot of time and effort to their own careers, therefore, little attention is paid to the spiritual and mental world of the child. Sometimes for the sake of the child's interests, parents sacrifice their own (including professional ones). Then at a later age, parents can accuse the child that he interfered with their career. Elderly parents tend to shift their problems onto the child; their life pessimism can be transmitted to a teenager.

In some families, the problem of the loss of the parents' authority arises (parents all the time protected the child from the "truth of life", and when faced with reality, the teenager realized that he was taught the wrong thing). Another important problem is the discrepancy between the hopes and forecasts of the parents and the real, grown-up child. Teens get out of hand and take an active interest in activities outside of school and family. Against this background, spouses may have problems with their own parents, who, as they grow old, become increasingly unwell and require care. Thus, a lot of pressure falls on the middle generation both from above and below, which can significantly aggravate intra-family relations, which are acquiring the character of a protracted crisis.

The main psychological characteristic of the family at this stage of the life cycle is the coincidence or significant intersection of the crisis age stages of each generation of the family system. The older generation of grandparents is faced with the need to stop active production and social activities (retirement) and reorganize their lifestyle in connection with the emergence of problems of loss of physical strength and capabilities.

The middle generation of spouses-parents is entering a mid-life crisis, requiring a rethinking of the path of life and summing up the results. Finally, the younger generation - adolescents - claims the right to recognize their new status - that of an adult, which inevitably leads to a restructuring of the system of parent-child relations. The intersection of three age crises - old age (for grandparents), midlife (for parents) and adolescence (for children) - experienced by three generations of the extended family creates a particular vulnerability of the family system at this stage of the life cycle. It is at this stage that the maximum anxiety of family members, the experience of a feeling of loss of security, insecurity is observed.

5. Family of mature age, which children leave. Usually this phase of family development corresponds to the midlife crisis of the spouses. Often during this period of life, the husband realizes that he can no longer rise up the career ladder, and in his youth he dreamed of something completely different. This frustration can spill over into the whole family and especially on the wife.

One common conflict is that when a man reaches middle age and acquires a high social status, he becomes more attractive to young women, while his wife, for whom physical attractiveness is much more important, feels that she has become less interesting to young women. men. Children are less and less at home, and it turns out that they played a particularly important role in the family. Perhaps it was through the children that the parents communicated with each other, or caring for them and love for them brought the spouses together. Parents may suddenly find that they have nothing to talk about with each other. Or, old disagreements and problems suddenly escalate, the solution of which was delayed due to the birth of children.

In families where there is only one parent, the child may experience the departure of a child as the beginning of a lonely old age. In complete families, the number of divorces increases during this period. If the conflict is very deep, there are attempts at murder and suicide. It is much more difficult to resolve the problem that arises in the mature stages of marriage than in the early years, when the young couple is not yet stable and is in the process of creating new stereotypes of interaction. More often the stereotypes developed by the family by this time, both solving problems and avoiding them, become inadequate. Sometimes this leads to an intensification of problematic behavior - such as drunkenness or abuse of a spouse - and gradually this reaches intolerable levels.

This stage of the family life cycle, as already mentioned, is characterized by a high degree of anxiety. Experiences of loss of love, disappointment, “devaluation” of the partner, and a decrease in the feeling of subjective satisfaction with the marriage become specific for marital relations. Adultery, which is not uncommon at this stage, reflect the desire of the spouses to revise the results of their life path and find new opportunities for self-realization through the search for another partner, with whom new life goals and new opportunities for personal growth are associated, the establishment of emotionally close relationships, free from the previous burden of mistakes, feelings guilt and bitterness of experience.

As a rule, the search for another partner reflects not so much disappointment in the old as a negative rethinking of life outcomes and an attempt to “start life from scratch”. The inadequacy of such a solution to the midlife crisis is due to personal immaturity and an inability to constructively resolve age-related developmental problems on the basis of mobilizing the resources of the former family system.

Of course, quite often this crisis, dictating the need for a person to define new life goals, priorities and values, only exposes and exacerbates the long-overdue contradictions of the family system, revealing its disharmonious and destructive nature, leads to the natural completion of the functioning of the family, its elimination in terms of termination of marital relations ... However, even in this case, parent-child relations persist and the broken-up family continues to carry out the function of raising children.

Children should feel like adults (that is, they are approaching the first stage): they have long-term relationships, marriage is possible (marriage), new members are included in the family group. At this stage, new problems arise: does the choice of the children meet the expectations of the parents; where do young people spend their time? The question arises of the exchange of an apartment in order to allocate their own housing to the newlyweds. A fairly common option is when the grandmother (grandfather) moves in with the parents of one of the newlyweds, and they move to her (his) apartment (the situation of "waiting for the death of a grandmother or grandfather").

Another problem is the forced living of young people with their parents. Grandchildren appear, and the question arises that the grandmother should leave her job. However, this is difficult to do, since modern grandmothers often have a long way to retire by age.

6. Aging family. At this stage, older family members retire or work part-time. A financial shift is taking place: old people receive less money than young people, so they often become financially dependent on children. It is possible to move to a new place of residence in another locality or to a more modest apartment (in Russia, it is sometimes possible to leave for a village, a dacha, etc.).

At this stage, marital relations are resumed, a new content is given to family functions (for example, the educational function is expressed by participation in the upbringing of grandchildren). Retirement can make the problem of being alone with each other even more acute. In addition, a lack of self-realization can lead to symptoms. However, the symptoms of one spouse help the other adjust to retirement. For example, after leaving work, a husband may feel that if he used to live an active life, helped others, now he is of no use to anyone and does not know how to fill his free time. When his wife falls ill, he again has a useful function: he must now help her recover. His wife's illness protects him from depression, which he will fall into when she gets better. If the wife has a relapse, he comes back to life and can take active action.

7. The last phase of the family life cycle. In contrast to the previous stages of the family's life cycle, the need to change its role structure is determined by the unevenness of the aging process of the spouses and the loss of their previous opportunities. The factor of termination of professional activity is also of great importance, affecting the distribution of the roles of “breadwinner” and “mistress (owner) of the house” between spouses.

Women are much more successful and quicker to adapt to the position of a pensioner. They usually retain their previous status in the family as the mistress of the house, housekeeper, responsible for the family's budget, organizer of its leisure time. The role of the husband in the family is often limited to the role of the “breadwinner”. In the event of termination of employment, he loses this role and often even feels that he is not in demand in the family, since in connection with retirement, the contribution of each spouse to the family budget is equalized.

In most cases, a "quiet velvet revolution" takes place in the family, the result of which is the transfer of all power to the wife. Unfortunately, such a scenario impoverishes and schematizes marital relations, closing them within the routine of everyday life values ​​of everyday everyday functioning, disturbed only by watching TV series, the experiences and feelings of the heroes of which compensate for the elderly spouses for the mediocrity of their own lives, take them away from the world of reality into the world of dreams and illusions.

The opposite way of development of the family system is associated with the search for new significant and accessible areas of self-realization, with respect for the goals chosen by the partner, help and support of the partner in achieving them.

Another variant of restructuring the role structure of the family is associated with a sharp deterioration in the health of one of the spouses and the concentration of family efforts towards solving the main task - preserving life, health and creating a satisfactory quality of life for the sick spouse.

A particularly important role at this stage in the family's life cycle begins to play its middle generation, on which emotional support and care for sick and needy elderly parents depend. The researchers found that daughters are significantly more likely to help their elderly parents than sons. Help includes grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, caring for sick grandparents. Quite often, daughters are forced to change jobs in order to resolve the problems of caring for seriously ill relatives.

Just as it happened after the birth of children, a woman, responding to social expectations, allows a value choice in favor of caring for disabled members of the extended family, the implementation of which, however, depends on her participation in the labor force, the presence of children and their age, the woman's own age and her health. An interesting fact is that women with children turn out to be more tolerant of role tension and overloads that accompany their performance of diverse family roles.

V. A. Alperovich identifies three types of relationships between elderly spouses: "coexists", "partners", "friends in love." These types of relationships differ in emotional closeness and mutual understanding of partners, distribution of rights and responsibilities, community of activities, interests and values, emotional involvement in family relationships.

Another problem specific to this stage is widowhood and the formation of a new model of life after the loss of a spouse. There are several most typical models, the choice and implementation of each of which are regulated by a large number of factors, and the most important among them are the age of a single spouse, the measure of his involvement in various types of social activity, a circle of interests and communication, the nature of the experience of the loss of a spouse and emotional status, state of health , personality traits, specific types of coping (coping behavior).

The following typical models of a new way of life can be named:

"Life in the past", withdrawal into memories and idealization of the past, loss of the meaning of life and rejection of the future, conscious loneliness;

"Life is like waiting for death", preparation for "reunification" with a spouse, waiting for the completion of the life path, going into religion or searching for a philosophical justification for the completion of the life cycle;

dominant egocentrism, full concentration on their own health, well-being, satisfaction of their own needs and interests; the leading type of activity is self-care and self-care;

integration as strengthening ties with the family of children, searching for new family roles, realizing oneself as a grandmother (grandfather); the leading type of activity is caring for members of the extended family;

self-realization in professional or social activities;

remarriage, creation of a new family system.

As you can see, only the last three are constructive models. Remarriage is a rather rare occurrence in our society, especially for women, who are much more often than men find themselves in the position of widows. The most typical option for them is integration with the family of children.

One of the spouses may die, and then the survivor needs to adapt to life alone. He is often forced to seek new connections with his family. In this case, a single spouse is forced to change his lifestyle and unwittingly accept the lifestyle that is offered to him by his children. Sometimes he is forced to move from one child's family to another. Naturally, this is far from the best effect on his physical and mental state.

Being in the family of their own children, the widowed spouse painfully experiences his psychological isolation from others. Children who are busy with their problems are of little or no interest in either his opinion on certain issues, or their well-being, which everyone already knows about. Therefore, the grandmother (grandfather), whom her own adult children do not indulge in attention, seeks and finds solace in her grandchildren, compensating for the lack of emotional warmth to her in the family with this attachment.

Sometimes, as a way out of this situation, in order to get rid of loneliness and be able to satisfy the need for communication with people of his generation, the widowed spouse, despite his advanced age, enters into a new marriage. In such a case, his emotional and physical distance from his own children increases, up to a complete rupture of relations.

Recently, a new approach to identifying the stages of the family life cycle has appeared in Russian family studies. Its authors A.I. Antonov and V.M. Medkov believe that the family cycle is determined by the stages of parenting, that is, the family's performance of its main function - the birth, upbringing and socialization of children. There are four main stages:

1. Stage of prenatal - from marriage to the birth of the first child.

2. Stage of reproductive parenting - the period between the birth of the first and the last child. It can partially overlap (and in the case of the birth of an only child, it completely disappears) with the next period.

3. Stage of socialized parenting - the period from the birth of the first child to the separation of the last child from the family.

4. The stage of ancestry - the period from the birth of the first grandson to the death of one of the grandparents.

On the stages of prenatal spouses are preparing to become parents and form a family in the strict sense of the word, because only the birth of children turns a married couple into a family, a husband and wife into a father and mother.

On the stages of reproductive parenting the first child appears and the birth of the second and subsequent children is possible - depending on the family's need for children. This stage can be shorter or longer, depending on the number of births. And only in one case it has no duration, when there is only an only child in the family.

The second stage gives rise to the third - stages of socialized parenting, during which the upbringing of children is carried out. For many parents, this stage never ends, but it should be limited either by reaching the age of majority, or by the moment of separation of the last of the adult children. The delay in this separation for many reasons (for example, due to lack of housing) prolongs the stage of socialization of adult children for an indefinite period. The phenomenon of "protracted socialization", when an adult remains a bachelor, continuing to live with his parents, will be one of the characteristics of the third stage. It is necessary to distinguish "protracted socialization" from "continued", when due to study or other circumstances, marriage and the beginning of an independent life are postponed.

The appearance of the first grandchild turns the founding parents into grandparents, into grandparents, although this does not mean the end of the stage of "socialized parenting", since there may still be minor children in the family. The last stage is ancestry- lasts until the death of the spouses.

All of the above makes it possible to distinguish at least five family events (marriage, the birth of the first child, the birth of the last child, separation from the parents of adult children, or, more precisely, the birth of the first grandchild, the death of one or the other spouse) that form four stages of the family cycle. This type of family cycle can be considered an ideal, complete family cycle.

Unfortunately, not every family, for many reasons of an objective and subjective nature, can go through these stages in its development. Voluntary and forced separation of spouses, parents and children, divorces and deaths create a variety of fragmented forms at different stages of a family's life, which leads to an incompleteness of the family cycle. In this regard, the following difficulties arise:

On the the first the stages of the relationship may be complicated by the fact that one of the spouses has already been married;

On the second stage, a divorce is possible, the result of which will be single parents with children; or the death of children throws spouses back into the pre-parental phase, returning again to reproductive behavior or leaving them childless and encouraging adoption;

On the third stages - socialized parenting - children for the same reasons become orphans or are deprived of intense contact with one of the parents or, dying, stop the stage of socialization and make the subsequent events of the family cycle impossible, or encourage spouses to new births, as well as to divorce;

On the fourth stage, the widowhood of one of the spouses and the death of the remaining spouse are expected, although divorces and the death of adult children are possible.

There are approximate age ranges for each phase of the family life cycle that are specific to each culture.

At the same time, the question arises: what is the duration of each stage of the family cycle and does the duration of matrimony affect the nature of the tasks and problems that the family will have to solve in one or another period of its functioning? In this regard, V. A. Sysenko's approach to identifying the stages of family life is interesting. In his opinion, all marriages can be grouped as follows: very young - up to 4 years old; young - 5–9 years old; middle - 10-19 years; elderly - 20 years and more.

Such a division of the stages of family life cannot be recognized as strict due to the very conditional allocation of time periods based on the standards of socio-demographic research. So, for example, the transition from very young to just young marriages often occurs earlier than five years in connection with the "anticipatory" birth of the first child. Nevertheless, the period of the “young family” is singled out by all researchers without exception precisely from the standpoint of many problems of a psychological and everyday nature, which often destroy the family at the initial stage of its formation. A considerable part of young families break up at the very beginning of their married life. The main reasons for the collapse of such marriages are unpreparedness for married life, unsatisfactory living conditions, lack of their own housing, interference of relatives in the relationship of young spouses.

Numerous problems that young spouses face during the formation of a family have led to the separation of a young family from other types of family unions into a separate group. In addition, a young family is distinguished by a number of psychological characteristics that do not occur at subsequent stages (stages) of family life. Therefore, it makes sense to dwell on the characteristics of a young family in more detail.

In the dictionary of family education, a young family is a married couple with or without children with a family life of up to five years and the age of the spouses not older than 30 years.

Newly married couples face many challenges. They need to establish the optimal balance of proximity / distance, solve the problem of family hierarchy and areas of responsibility. They may suddenly realize that they are very different and become frightened of these differences. For the first time, the question may arise before them: "If we are so different, then what are we doing together?" They may start to struggle with differences, or they may simply try to ignore them.

Very often, at the beginning of their life together, newlyweds avoid contradictions and criticism of each other, because they want to maintain a friendly atmosphere in the family and not hurt the feelings of the other. But if these contradictions do exist, the desire of the spouses to hide them or not notice them after some time leads to the fact that the contradictions grow, and the spouses begin to become more and more easily and strongly irritated.

Another way to overcome differences is through power struggle. Spouses may try to openly dominate their partner or manipulate him through weakness and illness.

Another important problem during this period is family boundaries... The young couple must establish a territory relatively independent of parental influence, and the parents, in turn, need to change the way they interact with their children after they have started their own family.

In the event of a conflict with parental families, the spouses may develop symptomatic behavior. For example, a wife whose husband is unable to prevent her mother from interfering with the affairs of a young family may develop symptoms as a way to adapt to the situation. Some couples try to defend their independence by completely cutting themselves off from interactions with their parents. Usually, such attempts do not end in success and work to destroy the marriage, since the art of living in marriage involves achieving independence, combined with maintaining emotional ties with relatives.

Very young marriages are characterized not only by the initial entry into the social roles of husband and wife, etc. This period of marriage life is the most difficult and dangerous from the point of view of family stability. Young couples may experience parenting and parenting tensions family budget, a sharp reduction in time and limitation of opportunities for organizing rest and leisure, an increase in physical and nervous fatigue. The problems of professional advancement and achievement of social status are becoming more acute. All this affects the love and friendship of the spouses.

In the process of development of family and marriage relations, psychologists distinguish periods of "decline in relationships", which are characterized by an increase in feelings of dissatisfaction with each other, the spouses show differences in views, more frequent quarrels, there is a tacit protest, a feeling of disappointed hopes and reproaches. Such periods are called crisis situations in marriage.

The family crisis is based on certain patterns of development of intrafamily relations... Therefore, one should not look for the cause of this situation only in the behavior of one of the family members or marriage partners. These patterns must be known and taken into account, adjusting their behavior in accordance with them. In a crisis situation, first of all, it is necessary to be patient, to avoid rash decisions and actions.

There are several such periods, or recessions, in relationships that not all families successfully overcome. They can come:

In the first days after the wedding;

After 2-3 months of married life;

In 6 months;

In a year;

After the birth of the first child;

In the 3-5th year of marriage;

At the 7-8th year;

After 12 years of family life;

In 20-25 years.

The above periods of family crises are considered conditionally, because they are not experienced by all families. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the transition of a family from one stage of married life to another is often accompanied by the emergence of crisis situations. Any normal, natural event in the life of a family (marriage, birth of a child, admission of a child to school, someone's illness, etc.), changes in the family or in its structure caused by these events, invariably give rise to certain problematic situations require the adoption of appropriate decisions, the mobilization of the necessary resources for this.

To characterize such problematic situations caused by the transition from one stage of the life cycle to another, the American researcher Rona Rapoport in 1963 introduced the concept "Normative stress", or "normal crisis". She noted that in the normal development of the family, there are certain moments, called "points of irreversibility", which are the boundaries between the stages of the life cycle and which are critical for the development of the family. They lead either to the resolution of the crisis and the further development of the family, or to the complication of the situation, family maladjustment and the subsequent disintegration of the family.

Under family crisis means the value conflict of the individual and society regarding the birth and socialization of children, resulting in the failure to fulfill the reproductive and socialization functions of the family, accompanied by the weakening of the family as a union of relatives, the union of parents and children, the union of spouses, the weakening of the trinity of kinship - parenthood - matrimony due to the disappearance of family production, joint activities of parents and children.

The change in the stages of the family's life cycle represents problems in the development of the family system, that is, crises experienced by each family, the content of which is in resolving the contradictions between the new tasks facing the family and the nature of interaction and communication between family members.

Each transition from one stage of the life cycle to another sets new goals and objectives for the family and requires structural and functional restructuring, including a change in the hierarchy of family functions, resolving the issue of leadership and leadership, and the distribution of roles. Successful resolution of transition crises ensures the effective functioning of the family and its harmonious development.

Usually, in the development of marital relations, two natural ( regulatory) critical period... It is during these periods that the most frequent are divorces, remarriage, which, as it later turns out, also “was a mistake”. As a rule, it is impossible to avoid such crises, but it is possible and necessary to consciously manage them and their course in the interests of further strengthening the family.

First critical period occurs between the 3rd and 7th year of the family's existence and continues, in a favorable case, for about one year. The leading role in this case is played by the disappearance of romantic moods, active opposition to the contrast in the partner's behavior during the period of falling in love and in everyday family life, the growth of disagreements in views on things, the increase in the manifestation of negative emotions, the growth of tension in relationships, feelings of dissatisfaction, the emergence of silent protest, feelings deceit and reproaches. A crisis situation can arise without the influence of any external factors that determine the everyday and economic situation of a married couple, without parental intervention, betrayal or some pathological personality traits in one of the spouses.

In such cases, it is recommended to limit conversations related to the marital relationship, temporarily avoid manifestations of romantic love, and jointly discussing practical issues (for example, parenting). It is better to focus the conversation on the professional interests of the partner, to lead an open life, when each of the spouses does not give up his interests and connections, than to demand sociability from the partner. In this crisis period, spouses must independently look for a way out of this situation, because the intervention of third parties can only aggravate the situation. Relationships between spouses, despite several years of marriage, are very fragile, and any careless outside interference can aggravate family destruction and lead to the rupture of family ties.

Second critical period occurs approximately between the 13th and 23rd year of marriage. This crisis is less profound, but longer in time than the first (it can last for several years). It coincides with the "midlife crisis" known in developmental psychology. Closer to forty years, a person begins to clearly feel the discrepancy between his dreams, life plans and the course of their implementation. Not everyone manages to move along the path of life in strict accordance with the original plans. As a rule, reality turns out to be the cruel editor of ideal plans. In addition, the heavy pressure of time begins to be felt, and the person is no longer sure that he will have time to do everything he wants.

The attitude of others is also changing: the time for the distribution of advances is coming to an end, the period is passing when it is flattering to be considered “promising”, “promising”, “capable and even talented”. The social environment awaits the fulfillment of "promises" and evaluates a mature person by what he has achieved in life. The result of the crisis of middle years is the development of a new image of the I, rethinking of life goals, making adjustments to all areas of habitual existence, bringing the personality in line with the changed conditions of life.

The midlife crisis is also a difficult test for the family. Many mature individuals (especially men) try to motivate their personal inconsistency by the fact that family concerns and problems did not allow them to fully realize themselves, because they had to devote a lot of time and effort to children. In such cases, the withdrawal of children into independent life upsets the family balance. Much of what was hidden behind the vanity of everyday life is revealed in the form of naked problems. Often, spouses who have lived together for two decades, have raised children, examining their home, are surprised to find that they have become strangers, and they part.

The onset of the second crisis in marital relations often coincides with the approach of the period of involution, with an increase in emotional instability, fears, the appearance of various somatic complaints, the emergence of a feeling of loneliness associated with the departure of children, the increasing emotional dependence of the wife, her worries about aging, as well as the possible desire of the husband sexually express yourself on the side, "before it's too late."

In this crisis situation, it is necessary to deliberately distract the spouses from the problems of aging and involve them in various group entertainment, which will require some kind of external intervention, since they themselves, as a rule, can no longer take the initiative. The events of betrayal should not be overly dramatized either. It is best to wait until the partner's increased interest in extramarital affairs has passed (which most often ends).

According to the American family therapist V. Satir, the family, as each of its members grows, must go through ten main crisis stages, which are accompanied by increased anxiety, require a preparatory period and subsequent redistribution of mental and physical strength.

1. Conception, pregnancy and the birth of the first child. Marriage as an egoistic relationship to a certain extent develops into a family as an altruistic relationship. The role structure of the family is changing.

2. The beginning of the child's mastering of human speech, which requires serious parenting work.

3. Improving the relationship of the child with the external environment, most often at school. The need for children and parents to adapt to a situation where elements of the school, “street” world penetrate into the family.

4. The entry of the child into adolescence, age difficulties, possible conflicts with parents.

5. Growing up of a child, leaving home in search of independence, independence. Feeling the parents and this period as a loss (syndrome of "empty nest").

6. Marriage of adult children, entry into the family of new members (daughter-in-law, son-in-law, grandchildren), problems in relationships with them.

7. The onset of menopause in the life of a woman-wife.

8. Decreased sexual activity in men.

9. Formation of parents as grandparents.

10. Sunset period: the death of the spouses.

We offer you another classification of family life cycles in terms of normative family crises ( tab. one).

Along with the objective conditions that can lead to the emergence of a crisis in the family, there are also subjective factors associated with personal characteristics of spouses and changes in the feeling of love, which can also cause crisis relationships in marriage. Why does it happen that after a while love turns into indifference, and maybe even into hatred?

It has already become a trivial truth that marriage is a complex thing and the requirements for a partner are constantly growing. Today it is not enough for a happy marriage that a man brings as much money into the house as is needed for a comfortable life, and the wife is good at housekeeping. It is no secret that over time, problems grow, which become an insurmountable obstacle for spouses and lead to a family crisis. Here are some of them.

1. A frivolous attitude to the worries and problems of a life partner. Husband and wife still cannot get out of the state of children's perception of each other and for any reason are offended that the other could not (did not want) to fulfill their "cherished desire".

2. Forgetfulness and neglect in the relationship between spouses... At the same time, women suffer from the fact that over time, husbands often forget important dates of life together, the birthdays of loved ones. Because her husband devotes a lot of time to work, and she has to limit her business life. The wife wants her husband to let her know that he remembers his wife and considers her a faithful helper in all his endeavors.

Husbands, for their part, also don't like being forgotten. A man is sometimes even more touchy than a woman. He thinks like this: she always has time to do her hair and makeup, but not for me ...

3. Excessive requirements for a spouse(they expect from a life partner what he cannot give). Now, among a large number of women, the prevailing point of view is: "Now I am a husband's wife, and the husband is obliged to make me happy, no matter what it costs him." Requirements are put forward: the spouse's salary should be high, and he himself should be gentle and caring.

Husbands, in turn, are also not averse to raising the bar for their half. A wife should be an excellent housewife and mother, feed her husband on time, always look good, correspond to a man's sexual aspirations. If a woman does not meet this set of "standard" qualities, the man believes that he has a moral right to divorce or have a mistress.

4. Mismatch of sexual desires of partners. Sometimes a woman doesn't like it if a man demands from her what she doesn't want. The other, on the contrary, strives for what the spouse is not ready for. Marriage can be saved only by the complete frankness of the spouses about their claims in sex and the refusal of exaggerated demands or too violent fantasies. However, whether this marriage will remain happy is a big question.

5. Feelings of envy for your partner's success. In our time, it can appear for both partners - about a successful career, a large salary, etc. If the husband is successful, the wife sometimes begins to feel fear that the successful spouse does not need her, is pushed into the background, which is now more interesting for him with others women. Along with envy, there is a feeling of jealousy. The same emotions are characteristic of men. As a result, life together begins to go wrong.

6. The partner makes it clear to the other that he is no longer attracted to him... Indeed, one has only to tell a man or woman that he (she) has lost all interest for you, that there are others, much more attractive, intelligent, sexy, as the chasm begins to widen so rapidly that there is no hope of recovery.

Psychologists say that love has its own biorhythms: it arises, grows, and then can fade away. The most "peak" moments of cooling feelings in the family fall on the first, third, seventh and fourteenth years of marriage ( tab. 2).

It should be noted that such crises, as a rule, cannot be avoided, but it is possible to consciously manage their course in the interests of further strengthening the family. To do this, spouses need to know that t The main mistakes of spouses(see below).

1. Couples don't want to admit there is a problem which means that they do nothing to overcome it, either at the time of occurrence or later. They pretend the problem doesn't exist.

For example, a husband gets angry because his mother-in-law constantly advises his wife on how to live with her husband. However, he doesn't say anything to his wife. And if he timidly hints at the relatively unpleasant position of his mother-in-law for him, then his wife simply replies: "This is my mother." And when the children appear, the mother-in-law takes all the reins of government into her own hands and begins to command not only her daughter, but the whole family. The husband and wife quarrel over the excessive interference of the wife's mother in their family life. Now they have a big problem, which should have been solved at the very beginning of family life.

2. The spouses do not discuss financial matters with each other. The wife is inferior to her husband, or, conversely, she herself is in charge of all the financial affairs of the family. But a situation may arise in which the family urgently needs money, but they do not. Accusations are leveled at each other, and suddenly a serious crisis arises that could have been avoided if they had discussed the financial situation of their family together. Finance should be a common enterprise, regardless of who brings the money into the house.

3. Husband and wife do not listen, and therefore do not hear each other. The spouses do not pay attention to each other's needs, and when a crisis arises, everyone tries to find a solution that meets exclusively his own interests and needs. They start to quarrel instead of solving the problem together.

Simple psychological techniques can be used to resolve emerging financial, sexual and social crises.

1. Be ready to give 60% and expect only 40 to be returned. When a couple tries to build their relationship on an equal footing, everyone expects to be the first to get their 50%. But if everyone is ready to give 60%, then over time they will learn to do something pleasant to each other.

2. Preface the start of a serious conversation with a soothing and reassuring phrase, "I love you." This helps to control impulsive temperament. You remind your half that, despite the problems, in your soul you care about her peace and well-being.

3. Negotiate with open cards. Say: "I would like this and that" or "This is what I think ...". This will make it easier for you to find a compromise solution.

The success of resolving a family crisis largely depends on the degree of its severity. Psychologists distinguish between several degrees of marital crisis. Light crisis usually starts suddenly and stops abruptly as well. As a rule, there are no repeated serious conflicts: having burned themselves in the flames of a quarrel, the parties begin to behave more cautiously and prudently. Moderate crisis lasts at least three months. Outsiders may not notice him: outwardly, peace reigns in the family. But this is the calm before the storm, full of hostile and hostile silence. Severe family crisis does not pass within six months. Here, not only can love disappear, but mutual hatred often arises. The family ceases to exist.

To avoid family crises due to mutual cooling or lack of understanding, spouses should not turn their marriage into a habit, into a joint vegetation. You must always show your partner how dear he is to you, how important he is to you, that he is your particle, without which you will be very bad. To do this, you need to work on yourself, because happiness does not come by itself, but is created by two loving people.

Along with the so-called normative crises associated with important family events that each family experiences throughout its life cycle, there are also non-normative crises inherent only in some families. Abnormal family crises are most often associated with events such as divorce, adultery, changes in family composition not related to the birth of a child, adoption of adopted children, the impossibility of spouses living together for various reasons, teenage pregnancy, financial difficulties, etc. Stressors that cause abnormal family crises are divided into super-strong and chronic.

TO super strong stressors include: the death of one of the spouses, parent or child; adultery; a sharp and radical change in the social situation of the development of the family (change in the social status, financial situation of the family); severe chronic illness of one of its members.

Chronic stressors(long-term) act on the principle of "a drop wears away the stone" and include factors such as unfavorable housing and material conditions; high emotional tension and significant chronic stress in professional activities; excessive household loads; violation of interpersonal communication and long-standing conflict in both the marital and child-parent subsystems.

Factors of a sharp change in the stereotype of family life and the summation of difficulties (the "last drop" effect) are also characterized by significant stress factors.

A family's ability to withstand stressful factors is determined by its cohesion and the availability of internal and external resources to resist stress. The emergence of an unexpected crisis event leads to an imbalance in the family system and requires adaptation to a new reality. The psychological mechanism of such adaptation, according to J. Sandler, is the refusal to achieve the previous ideal image of the family and its replacement with a new ideal, close to reality. The process of family individuation acts as a condition for its normal development, directed towards the future and preventing "getting stuck" and regression to pre-existing ideal states.

The most common and dangerous forms of abnormal crises are jealousy and adultery. A distinctive feature of such crises is that they concern only a married couple, but they have a destructive effect on the entire family as a whole and, first of all, on the children brought up in it. Unfortunately, a fairly common option for resolving such crises is the disintegration of the family system (divorce), which entails the emergence of new social and psychological problems for each member of the broken family.

1. Define the concept of "family life cycle" and name the main approaches to identifying the stages of the family cycle.

2. Describe the main patterns of family development throughout its life cycle. Determine the conditions for the emergence of crisis situations in marriage.

3. What is meant by normative crises in family development? What is their psychological content? What are the characteristics of abnormal family crises? What is their main difference from the normative ones?

4. What impact does the “midlife crisis” have on family relationships?

5. What are the risk factors for the destruction and disintegration of the family at each stage of its life cycle? Factors of her resilience?

6. Reconstruct the history of dating and starting a family with a known family group. Try to determine the stage of her life cycle and the possibility of a normative (non-normative) crisis in marital relations. What do you think is a risk factor and what is the key to the sustainability of future relationships in this family? Why?

Analyze the following situations and answer the questions

Situation 1. " My husband and I have been married for eighteen years and now look much more like two good friends than a couple of passionate lovers. We rarely have sex. Our relationship can be simply called “comfortable”. Part of me longs for a return to the old passion, but my friends believe that in reality, after many years of married life, all couples come to the same. Maybe they are right in saying that I want too much? "

Situation 2.“My husband and I need help. We lived together in perfect harmony for eighteen years, raised four children, and now it turned out that not a trace of our passion for each other remained. We have an even, calm relationship, but less and less often we want to have sex, and in all other respects, we have a dull boredom. I don't want to believe that this is the natural end of any marriage. Can we bring passion back into our relationship? "

1. Which of the normative crises in marital relations are we talking about? How is this crisis characterized?

2. What should spouses know about the specifics of this crisis?

3. Should a woman (situation 1) blindly rely on the “authoritative” opinion of her friends? Where are they right and where are they wrong? Justify your answer.

Situation 3.“From time to time I am tormented by doubts whether my wife and I are suitable for each other, because we still have problems and conflicts. We have been together for eight years and love each other very much. During this time, we have learned a lot, but we still continue to sort things out on trifles. We have to think all the time about how not to offend each other, learn to pay more attention to the partner and at the same time try not to cross certain boundaries. Do you think it is possible to overcome these difficulties? "

1. What kind of family crisis does the marriage partner not know about? Is everything that happens to them an accident or a pattern?

2. How correct is the tactics of their relationship?

3. Can you overcome what worries your husband so much? What needs to be done for this? Justify your answer.

Situation 4.“Our marriage is twenty-eight years old, and the last ten of them my husband and I are completely indifferent to each other. Some time ago, we seriously thought about divorce, but came to the conclusion that none of us wants to rebuild our lives. Can we revive love, or is it better to come to terms with the fact that our feelings for each other have died out? "

1. What is the wife's concern? How justified is her concern?

2. Should the spouses come to terms with the current situation or should something change in their relationship? How to do it? Which of them should take the initiative?

3. What can you suggest to this married couple to cope with a crisis in their marriage?

Situation 5.“Whenever I try to talk to my husband that our relationship is not without problems, and I convince him of the need for serious work on them, he replies that“ he prefers to accept things as they are and is quite happy with his life. ” It doesn't suit me, but no matter what I do, he ignores all my attempts. He just doesn't want to change. How can I make him work on myself? "

Situation 6.“Getting something from my husband is like banging your head against a stone wall. He refuses to discuss our relationship, claiming that only I have problems, and when I offer him to read books on family relationships or go to a psychologist, he says that I can go anywhere, but he should be left alone. So the years pass. Our marriage is about to collapse, and he doesn't want to understand it; I feel as if saving my family is just my own business. What do you think of it? Is there a way to 'wake up' my husband? "

1. How justified are women's fears about their husbands' indifference to the situation in the family?

2. Is it possible to force another person to change without his own desire, especially if he does not see problems in his life?

3. What should a woman do to “stir up” her husband and prove to him that their life together can be different, more interesting?

4. What are the prospects for such marriages? What can happen to families if husbands do not want to change something in their relationship with their wives?

Situation 7.“I don’t understand what is happening to me. For a while, I literally cannot live without my husband, I need to see him constantly, talk to him, be around him. But then something “breaks” in me - it makes me absolutely indifferent whether he is there or not. That which used to please, only brings grief, annoys. At first I liked everything about him, and he was constantly interesting to me, but now ... It seems to me that every year something leaves our relationship. Is love really going away and we will have to part with time? "

1. In your opinion, what stage of family life and which of the normative crises in marital relations are we talking about? What are the features of its course?

2. How justified are the woman's fears about the possible separation from her husband?

Situation 8.“All his life, Harry has worked hard, persistently moved forward. He prepared for retirement, bought a car with a trailer to go wherever he wanted, and decided to sell the house. Now he felt free. His wife Helen was against the sale of the house, but he assured her that everything would be great. In the end, she believed him and agreed to the proposal.

The day after leaving Harry to retire, having sold the house, they hit the road to meet his dream. After two months, they stopped talking to each other. Six months later, Harry became seriously ill; a year later he was gone.

I must say that Harry loved to impose his own rules and requirements on everyone, he strove for everything to be done exactly as he saw fit. He did not know how to communicate with people, was impatient and categorical. By virtue of his character, he went through very important changes separating his past life from what was ahead. The consequences were dire. During his illness, Helen refused to look after him, and even after his death, the dislike for him was so strong that she did not come to the funeral. "

1. What are the features of the retirement crisis? How is the experience of this crisis different for men? Among women?

2. What could not or did not want to foresee when Harry sold the family home and went on a road trip with his wife?

3. Who is to blame for what happened to this couple? What is the fault of each of the spouses? Justify your answer.

4. Was it possible to avoid the tragedy that happened to this family? What had to be done for this?

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