Marital separation and divorce

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Marital separation and divorce

• Is marriage 1. a voluntary contract that can be
  ended by either partner 2. a lifetime commitment
  til death do us part?
• (How did the women in Promises I Can Keep see
  it?)
• Gallup poll Do you believe that an unhappy
  marriage should be maintained for the sake of the
  children?

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Divorce Trends and Comparisons

• U.S. Rates (why measure divorce this way?)
• 1960 9 per 1000 married women
• 1970 15
• 1980 23
• 1990 21
• 2000 19
• 2005 16

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Why the rapid increase?

• Legal changes no fault marriage
• Changing expectations best friend
• Cultural emphasis self-fulfillment
  (Functionalism and institutionsdoes happiness
  matter to society?)
• Womens employment trends
• Mens employment trends

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Correlates of Divorce

• Family income
• Education
• Race/ethnicity
• Age at first marriage!
• Who initiates divorce? 2/3-3/4 initiated by the
  wife? Ideas about why?

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Our class divorce/split
6
Our class/parents remarry?
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Should the laws be changed to make divorce more
difficult?

• The General Social Survey
• Divkids, divnow, divifkid,
• divlaw

8
How serious are the issues that usually
precipitate a divorce?

• Arlene Skolnick Grounds for Marriage, from
  Family in Transition, 2005. Longitudinal study of
  couples over a 24 year period.
• Each spouse was interviewed in 1958(age 30 or 37)
  and again in 1970 and 1982
• most striking impression from following these
  marriages through long periods of time is the
  great potential for change in human
  relationships.
• Almost 1/3 divorced but many unhappy couples
  remained married long enough to outgrow their
  earlier difficulties.

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Robert Weis Marital Separation, 1977

• Research basis Seminar for the separated at
  Harvard
• Common Themes wrong from the start, wanting
  different things, serious failings in spouse
  (including mental illness), sexual infidelity
• Impact on self (symbolic interaction)
• Betrayal and duplicity
• Direct attacks on self
• Obsessive review
• Accounts

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Diane Vaughn, Uncoupling, 1986

• Research basis Interviews with 103 divorced or
  separated men or women
• Her own divorce Rather than an abrupt ending,
  ours appeared in retrospect to have been a
  gradual transition. Long before we physically
  separated, we had been separating
  sociallydeveloping separate friends,
  experiences, and futures

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Vaughn common patterns

• 1. Harboring secret unhappiness
• 2. Making the initial disclosure
• 3. Pursuing outside involvements
• 4. Accentuating the negative
• 5. Deciding to separate
• 6. Going public

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Wallerstein and Blakeslee Second Chances

• Began in 1971, with 60 families, including 131
  children, aged 2-18
• Recruited by advertisements in newspapers
• More educated, more affluent, more white than
  population as a whole
• In early stages of divorce
• Common wisdom at the time healthy people would
  work through this crisis in six months or a year
  and get on with their lives

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Second Chances for Adults

• Few adults anticipate accurately how arduous and
  depleting divorce will be
• At five year point, half of men and 2/3 of women
  content with quality of their lives but half of
  men and 1/3 of women felt stalled or even more
  unhappy than during failed marriage
• At ten-year point, half of women and 1/3 of men
  still intensely angry with ex-spouse

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Parents and kids

• Unlike most crises, many of these parents were
  unable to protect their kids first in this
  crisis.
• By ten-year point, 60 of the children over 18
  seemed to be on a downward trajectory (in terms
  of education and social class) compared with
  their fathers

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Kids at the ten-year point

• By 10-year point, many kids defining divorce as
  formative experience
• 35 reporting bad relationships with both their
  parents
• Sleeper effect kids (especially girls) who
  seemed to be doing well at first but had a very
  hard time later often beset with anxieties
  about relationships

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Video Children of Divorce