Processes of Divorce

The processes of divorce measure was developed to capture each partner's account of the events leading to their marriage's dissolution. According to Robert Weiss, author of Marital Separation, an account:

"focuses on a few significant events that dramatize what went wrong, on a few themes that ran through the marriage; it allocates blame. . . it settles the moral issues of the separation. . . it is of major psychological importance because it settles who is responsible for what and imposes a structure and order on confusing events; events can now be dealt with as outcomes of identifiable causes and can be seen in the past and external to the individual's sense of self. . ."⁽¹⁾

Unfortunately, ex-partners will generally not focus upon the same set of significant events or themes; neither will they always agree upon the moral issues or the proper source of blame for their breakup. In addition, one set of events can be molded in several ways according to its audience, the amount of control the narrator had in the breakup, the time frame in which the account is presented, and the motivation of the teller.

For example, shortly after deciding to separate from his wife, a man may relate the events to his sister. Perhaps the breakup was due to his wife's affair, and he had little control over the decision to separate. He will likely feel shocked and upset over his wife's defection; he may also want his sister's sympathy, and an assurance that she is on "his side." His account to her will probably concentrate the blame upon his wife, painting a picture of an innocent, suffering husband betrayed by the whims of woman.

After recovering from the sting of rejection and putting some thought into the past, the husband may realize that he had spent the last several years of his marriage in a cocoon of work, emotionally unavailable to his family. A few years later, the husband may be trying to explain events to his inquiring son. His portrayal of the separation would probably be much more generous, focusing upon the basic incompatibilities in the relationship which resulted in his withdrawal and the wife's subsequent affair.

With our "account" measure, we hoped to achieve some uniformity across the varieties of experiences of our respondents. We attempted to address the issue of differing individual recitations of events and reasons by offering the respondents a structured framework for the account.

We began by creating a comprehensive list of events that might have occurred during a relationship's dissolution. Each event was printed on a card; each card was labelled with an identifying letter. Please see Divorce Events for a complete listing of the possible events.

During the telephone interview, respondents sorted through the deck of possible events and discarded any event that did not occur; they sorted the remaining events into the order that they occurred. Respondents then read aloud the identifying letter of the events in order of occurrence, which the interviewer recorded. The interviewer then began with the first event, asking for the date of the event and what was happening around that time, as well as any thoughts or feelings the respondents had about the event. When the respondent had no more to say about the event, the interviewer moved on to the next event. After all events were discussed, the interviewer asked two additional questions: who filed the divorce petition, and how many times the respondent changed his/her mind about getting a divorce. The interviews were recorded, and interviewers were also encouraged to take notes.

Table 9 in your divorced packet lists the order of the events and the month in which they occurred. The respondent's explanation of the events can be found under either "Notes on the Divorce Process," or in the interview transcript.

On your copy of the transcript, you may wish to print the events above the corresponding letters. Once you have absorbed the two accounts, compare them. Where do they differ? What might be the reasons for their divergence? Who initiated the divorce? Was the other partner caught off guard? How might that color each partner's version of the story? Remember to consider the audience and the teller's possible motivations. Also note how long ago the divorce occurred.

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