Chapter 15: Separation and Divorce

Summary:

This chapter of the book focuses on separation and divorce. The first section of the book focuses on the process and outcome of separation. The book begins with a discussion of the phases of separation, which are as follows:

· Preseparation:

o Partners fantasize of what it would be like to love alone.

o Though many of these fantasies rarely become reality, they can make separation and divorce appealing.

· Early Separation:

o Partners feel ambivalent about leaving the marriage, leaving them with a multitude of unanswered questions about both serious and trivial aspects of the changes that are occurring and will occur in both of the partner’s lives.

o Economic issues begin to come to light at this point as well, causing new stressors to come into being.

· Midseparation:

o The harsh realities of everyday life begin to set in, rather than being something that will have to be dealt with in the future.

o These problems may lead to “pseudo-reconciliation,” in which a combination of guild, disapproval from others, and a sense of loss lead the individuals to begin to live with one another again, however this reunion rarely lasts, as the problems that plagued the marriage in the first place have a tendency to surface again, leading to many of the same problems that occurred in the first place.

· Late Separation:

o The partners learn to live as a single individual again rather than with a partner.

The book then begins a discussion on some of the outcomes of marital separation. The outcomes are as follows:

· Separation and Reconciliation è Data on reconciliation is almost nonexistent, but some statistics estimate that approximately 10 percent of separations get back together, with black women being twice as likely to get back together with their partner as white women.

· Separation Without Divorce è Approximately 6 percent of separations never make the divorce official, which is frequently caused because of economic issues.

· Separation and Divorce è Divorce, which is the term for the legal and formal dissolution of a marriage, is the most frequent outcome when it comes to separation.

New/Interesting/Unusual Items Learned:

I thought the graph on divorce in the United States posed an interesting statistic about how even though the rate of divorce has been climbing, since 1995, it has been beginning to decline.

Discussion:

With regards to the graph I mentioned above, what factors do you think have led to the divorce rate to decrease since 1995?

Karl Wahlen