In my home, the worst four-letter word isn’t what you’d expect—it’s “hate.”

My five-year-old will occasionally try to sneak it into conversation, usually about vegetables. “I hate carrots,” he’ll say, carefully clarifying that he’s not directing the word at anyone. But I remind him: hate isn’t just harmful to others—it’s corrosive to carry. It poisons us from the inside out.

Adults have their own version: Our political and public discourse is saturated with conflict.

Blame, finger-pointing, and contempt have become the language of leadership across the ideological spectrum. Too often, debate devolves into hostility, and disagreement into dehumanization. Many former news junkies now find solace in silence—because tuning in means absorbing yet another barrage of vitriol.

The cost of this normalized conflict is not just cultural—it’s deeply personal. As a professional who has studied both the emotional and financial toll of prolonged discord, I see its impact most clearly through the lens of divorce.

Divorce Itself Doesn’t Destroy Families—Unchecked Conflict Does

A 2022 meta-analysis in the Journal of Family Psychology found that children exposed to high-conflict divorces experience significantly higher rates of anxiety, depression, and behavioral issues than children whose parents separate amicably. The lesson: it’s not separation that wounds, but the way we separate.

The financial toll is staggering.

According to the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts, the average litigated divorce in the U.S. costs $15,000–$30,000 per person. In the D.C. metro area, the number is much higher. In high-conflict cases, that number easily surpasses $100,000 per side. And that’s just the surface.

According to J. W. Woodside Wiegmann, M.B.A., senior investment advisor from Potomac Investment Strategies—these costs ripple outward—lost productivity, increased healthcare needs, destabilized futures, and wealth that could have compounded for generations, gone.

Perhaps the most insidious damage is neurological. When we live in prolonged states of conflict, our bodies stay locked in fight-or-flight mode. Cortisol floods our system. Over time, as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports, this chronic stress erodes neural pathways, compromises our immune systems, and accelerates cellular aging. Telomere shortening—once associated primarily with smoking or obesity—now shows up in people exposed to sustained interpersonal conflict.

It doesn’t stop with the couple. Families fracture. Friends take sides. New relationships collapse under the weight of unresolved trauma. A 25-year longitudinal study out of the University of Washington found that children from high-conflict homes are 40% more likely to repeat those patterns in adulthood.

To Be Clear: Disagreement Isn’t The Enemy

We need robust debate, diverse viewpoints, and intellectual challenge. But how we engage—whether with curiosity or contempt—makes all the difference. Civility isn’t weakness; it’s a strategy for survival.

Even divorce is not the enemy. Healthy coparenting is a far better family structure than unhealthy, dysfunctional yet “intact” marriage. Not every divorce has to be a scorched-earth battle or a zero-sum game. There are alternative options including negotiated settlement, mediation, even binding arbitration that enable lower-conflict, cost-effective “uncoupling.”

In our high-conflict society, we’ve been asking the wrong questions. Instead of demanding who’s right, we should ask: at what cost? If public discourse mirrors a high-conflict custody battle, then what does that make us—the American people? Children trapped between warring parents, inheriting their trauma?

Conflict, when left unchecked, erodes our empathy, narrows our imagination, and leaves us exhausted. The stakes are no longer just emotional—they are societal, neurological, economic, generational.

It’s time to name what we’re all feeling: weary. And in that shared exhaustion lies a sliver of hope. Because if we can agree on nothing else, let us agree on this—there is a better way to disagree.

Morgan Foster represents clients in all aspects of divorce, including division of assets, spousal and child support, custody, and visitation in Maryland and the District of Columbia. You can reach her at 301-841-0193 or by email at mefoster@lerchearly.com