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Show group of middle-age- d people who have been divorced or separated meets with divorce counselor Greta Lahr (left) and associate Haidi Stern- - A berg. Lahr believes a mid-lif- e breakup could affect the structure of the family for generations on the general premise that divorce breeds divorce. other prioritv in my life. Thirty-tw- o years and eight children later, my wife and still consider our marriage to be a good one." Most professionals would count Rue among a minority of those able to turn I by Rita Rooney St. Louis woman tells of having lunch with her mother a few years ago. Over a club sandwich, her mother announced, "You might as well know, your father and are getting a divorce." "When finally realized she wasn't Aria Patterson, "I went insavs inking," to shock. My mother must be crazy! knew my parents had problems, but never expected them to do anything about them not after 30 years." The courts are seeing a steadily growing number of couples, married 20 years or more, suddenly seeking divorce. to the Departments of Commerce and HEW, 164, CKX) divorces were granted to persons 45 and older in 1464 By 1974, the annual number had nearly doubled to 315,000. Sot lologists cite numerous causes lor the increase. Cuoent laws in most states make divorce easier and less expensive than in the past. A I I I I Today's emphasis on personal freedom is another reason. Twenty-fiv- e years ago, if a man and woman had a bad marriage, the were expected to stick with it. Many cid and are only now coming round to a modern concept of being able to correct their mistakes. Asked to pinpoint the cause of the breakup, most of these couples say the problems were always there, in the background. "We just put things off while the children were growing up" is the typical logic. Left alone together, trouble erupts and divorce follows. Can be devastating Adult offspring affected by these divorces claim to be no less shattered by the divorce than they would have been as children. Some insist the experience can be more devastating because they are more likely than children to be forced into taking sides. Children todav are conditioned by their environment to the possibility of divorce. Adults are not a't least, not with regard to their own mothers and fathers. Greta Lahr, an Arlington, Va., divorce counselor, believes the impact of midlife divorce could affect the family structure for generations. She notes it has long been known that divorce breeds divorce. The implication is that when the marriage of an older couple dissolves, the ramifications are often felt by grandchildren as well as children. Los Angeles-bae- d marriage counselor James Rue agrees that a pattern of divorce usually repeats itself in subsequent generations. Rue's own experience is an exception. "I was an adult when my parents broke up," he reports "I still remember the abrupt loss of stalrility, the feeling that I was an end product of their union and, if that union failed, was nothing determined to work hard at my own marriage and to put it above every I I the trauma of parental divorce into a positive barometer for living. Dr. Joseph Fischhoff, a Detroit psychiatrist, points out that these adult children of divorce have different problems than their younger counterparts. Among the most common is a special brand of guilt. "The fact that children are often the ieason people remain married can cause tremendous guilt to the adult who learns his parents are finally breaking up. He begins to speculate that, had it not been for him, Mom and Dad might have gone their separate ways years before and been happier because of it." He adds, "Then, too, responsibility and guilt often mix in the adult who worries about a parent left alone by a divorce." Research is lacking Mrs Judith Wallerstein of the School of Social Welfare, University of Cali- fornia at Berkeley, regrets that research has yet to catch up with the trend. In fact, she says, there are few studies available on the effect of divorce on children of any age. Berkeley, at the forefront of such research, conducted a recent study extending to college-ag- e people. "We found some college students deeply troubled by their parents' divorces." Wallerstein reports. "Sometimes the stress remained over a long |