A study released on Thursday by University of Notre Dame and the University of Rochester revealed that parents' marital problems can leave a lasting impact on their young children.
Researchers found that when kindergarten-age children witnessed conflict between their parents, this eventually lead to issues in their teenage years, including depression and anxiety. "The results further highlight the possibility that there will be persistent negative effects of children's early experiences when there is conflict between their parents, at least when their emotional insecurity increases as a result of the conflict," according to Mark Cummings, Notre Dame Endowed Chair in Psychology, who led the research.
These findings made us wonder: Could things be so bad at home that you'd actually prefer your parents split up?
While that certainly wasn't my experience -- my parents are divorced, but I didn't see them fight as a kid -- I had a friend growing up whose parents fought constantly (I often heard them screaming at each other in the background when I'd call her house) and she frequently wished they'd call it quits.
After her parents divorced, her personality shifted from constantly acting out to get attention to simply being happier and more outgoing. I'm no psychologist, but I would bet that having less tension at home was a key factor in this change.
We wondered if HuffPost Divorce readers had similar experiences in their childhoods, so we put the question to the Twitterverse, asking our followers if they ever wished that their parents had divorced.
One Tweeter revealed that she asked her parents to divorce for her birthday one year, while another said she regretted wishing that her parents would split when they finally did. Click through the responses below to see what others had to say, then add your own two cents in the comments section.