Professors at the University of Grenada have discovered that 25 percent of children of divorced parents experience Parental Alienation Syndrome, also known as PAS.

PAS refers to "manipulation of children by the custodial parent, who incessantly tries to turn them against the other parent by arousing in them feelings of hatred and contempt for the target parent". The authors state that the target parent is usually men, since women typically have more custodial control and therefore more time to influence their children. It is estimated that approximately one in four children are affected PAS.

Children exposed to PAS will often not only reject their parent, generally their father, but his friends and family as well. The child may also take the hatred they have been taught to feel towards the target parent and apply it to grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and anyone else associated with the target parent, causing the child to "expel (these people) from their lives."

Symptoms of children experiencing this syndrome often include denigrating the target parent, having no trouble expressing negative feelings toward that parent, refusing to admit that they have been influenced by anyone, lack of guilt towards their opinions of the target parent, and recounting events that they could not have witnessed but have heard from other people. Typically, children between the ages of 9 and 12 are most likely to be affected. It is less likely to occur in divorces that are mutual.

Here at First Wives World, we've seen many women struggling with the fact that their ex-husband is not more involved with the kids. Trying to balance work life and home life with children is never easy, and it is very tempting to wish there was another person involved to help relieve the pressure. But have we really stopped to think about what that means?

In this article on Mom Logic, one woman talks about the issues with her custodial plan. I assume that she and her ex live in the same city and therefore her children are able to attend the same school from either parent's house, but here's what the court set up: Mondays through Wednesdays with one parent, Wednesday evening through Saturday morning with the other parent, with weekends alternating between parents. As the author says, "Essentially, the children are being shuttled back and forth every two to three days." Because she's afraid of how the stress of constantly relocating is affecting her kids, she says she lets them get away with more than she used to.

She and her ex don't get along well, and there's a huge communication gap between the two of them. With her children spending so much time there, she feels she is missing out. "No stories about new milestones that I'm missing or life's lessons that the children are learning, no tales of how these beautiful little people are growing or changing when I'm not with them. He has no interest in sharing any of it."

How to raise their children has also become a problem. She doesn't know what he's teaching them when they're with him. She doesn't know if he's respecting the boundaries and controls that she uses with her kids, and she has no control over who the children come into contact with. If he has a new girlfriend, she can only hope that this person is loving and will respect her kids.

Sometimes it amazes me how often we need to prove scientifically that which we already know through plain common sense. An article on the ScienceDaily Web site is a good case in point.

The article pointed out that children of divorce often become emotionally distant from their fathers, more so that their counterpart whose parents are still together. Compared to their pre-teen years, 56 percent of teens with divorced parents felt they were more withdrawn from their fathers, whereas the number was only 28 percent for teens whose parents were still together.

If we think about it, this makes sense for a variety of reasons. In most divorces, mothers are granted custody of the children and fathers are given only part-time access. Therefore it is the mother who is now taking care of the teen and it seems normal that the teen would gravitate away from their father. Additionally, many divorces are filed by women, which means it was usually the father who did something that led the mother to file for divorce in the first place. As society gradually loses it's stigma over divorce, it's more likely that the teen won't blame their mother for filing, but instead blame their father for making her file.

It looks like the best thing a father can do is to begin as you mean to continue. Don't wait to develop a strong bond with your child after you get divorced — create a relationship that is strong enough to handle a divorce. That means taking an interest in your child from the get-go rather than leaving it all up to the mother. Fortunately for fathers, it seems like they're finally beginning to listen.

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There was big news in the divorce blogging world a few weeks ago when a study was released saying that divorce was bad for the environment. When a couple splits up, there becomes a need for two apartments or houses, two beds, two cars, even two toasters. We salute the people who are able to divorce but voluntarily stay together. But imagine being forced to stay together even after the split.

This is the situation currently going on in Cuba. The tiny island is facing a severe housing shortage, estimated to be about 500,000 homes short of demand. People who divorce in Cuba — and there are a lot of them, with a divorce rate of 64 percent — are often forced to live together for years, or sometimes even their entire lives, simply because there is nowhere for them to go.

Mirta, a 45-year-old Cuban national, divorced her husband in 1997. Now, more than 10 years later, she and her ex are still living in the same two-bedroom apartment with their adult children. While many Cubans do not want to be on record as openly criticizing their government for the housing shortage, it's not difficult to imagine how many people must be affected by this issue.

The result has been a type of black market for housing, where people meet strangers on the beach, looking to swap their two-bedroom apartment for two one-bedroom units. This is a black market because under the communist rule, all housing changes and moves must be first approved by the government.

The article I read referred to this as a testament to "Cubans' ability to stay friendly — or at least civil — under the most awkward of circumstances." I guess, but I'm glad I don't have to do it.

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Imagine that you and your spouse have divorced and are sharing custody of your son. You've gone through the divorce process and all that entails — the usual custody battles and fights over the division of assets — and the bitterness and hurt feelings that accompanies the court proceedings. At the end of that process, you'll ask yourself "How did my spouse become this person? How did I end up hating him so much?"

Well, imagine at the end of this process you realized one incontrovertible truth — you still love your spouse. How do you handle this?

Peter Ehrlich wrote an article for the Toronto Star outlining this exact issue. His ex-wife and he share joint custody of their son, and she works at the same school his son attends. One day, while picking up his son from school, he was informed that his ex-wife hadn't shown up for work. Knowing it was extremely unlike her not to call if she couldn't come in, he went to her apartment only to find she wasn't there.

After frantically calling her friends, he finally tracked her down at the local hospital were she'd been rushed by ambulance because of a gall bladder attack. After finally locating her and realizing she was alright, he broke down in tears.

Divorce is always difficult, but it's especially so when two people may not be in love, but still love each other. It's easy to get caught up in the acrimonious nature of divorce proceedings, and to act like you hate the person you're divorcing. After all, the fact that you can't stand each other must be the reason you're divorcing in the first place, right? It's almost expected of you by your friends and family, and sometimes it's easier to act like you no longer love someone than to explain to everyone why you're divorcing someone you still love.