The Dynamics of Divorce 55
The good news is that for those marriages that really aren’t going
to make it, the very act of initially separating will often provide
some much-needed relief from the extreme level of stress that led
to the breakup. In the California Children of Divorce Project’s sur-
vey, over half of the adults responded that they felt a significant
level of relief at the time of separation. Surprisingly, even some
of the spouses who had initially opposed the breakup indicated
that they too felt relieved.
The bad news for the separating parties is that things often get
worse before they get better. I’ve even noticed that some of my
divorcing clients are frequently functioning worse after the first
year than they did during the first few months. My own observa-
tions on this issue are in line with the findings of the California
Children of Divorce Project, which concluded that after separa-
tion most of the participants in the study underwent an extremely
turbulent period that continued for a couple of years. In addition
to documenting the fairly predictable elements of widespread
anger and depression, the researchers in the California study also
found substantial indications of guilt and low self-esteem on the
part of the “deceivers” (i.e., those who initiated the breakup by
commencing extramarital activities). Meanwhile, the “deniers”
(i.e., those who opposed the divorce) seemed to suffer still worse
psychic harm—even extending to high incidences of violence.
Separation... are we ready for this? Most of my clients (even the
ones who initiate the divorce) aren’t really ready, either psycho-
logically or emotionally, to break up when they first separate.
This lack of psychological preparedness seems to be the cause of
many of the major emotional problems that show up during the
separation. Studies support this view. In one study, only about 30
to 40 percent of the husbands and wives reported having truly
been prepared for the divorce—this despite the fact that approxi-
mately half of these folks had already undergone at least one trial
separation before their final breakup.
Perhaps the old quip that one of the first signs of impending
divorce is pretending to fall asleep before your spouse comes to
bed has some truth to it. Many people seem to prefer to ignore the
impending separation and instead sleepwalk (so to speak) right
up to the precipice of their impending divorce.