56 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
Divorcing Couples
Often the difference between a successful marriage and a mediocre one consists
of leaving about three or four things a day unsaid.
—Harlan Miller
Try as I may to be a “sensitive guy,” I fully recognize the fact that
I am an attorney and not a psychologist. Successful divorce law-
yering requires an in-depth understanding of human behavior,
however, so I began early in my career to read every psychologi-
cal study of the divorce process I could get my hands on. Over
the years I have tried to synthesize and distill out some of the key
observations and analyses of the psychology of divorce. I will
attempt to summarize them here.
Some of the most astute insights have been propounded by
America’s prominent marriage and family counseling profes-
sionals. Preeminent among them are Dr. Judith Wallerstein and
Dr. Constance Ahrons.
Divorce’s good news/bad news dichotomy. Based on the innumerable
studies I have read, there appear to be two rather dramatically dif-
ferent schools of thought as to just how hard a psychological and
emotional hit the respective parties, and their kids and family, take
in a divorce. The more upbeat and positive divorce-can-be-a-plus
view, as espoused by Mel Krantzler in his 1970s best seller Creative
Divorce, is that the divorce process represents an incredible oppor-
tunity for personal growth. Krantzler’s basic focus is on how much
each of the spouses can grow, mature, find increased self-awareness,
and perhaps even “find themselves” through a divorce.
A corollary to this upbeat analysis, best expressed by Constance
Ahrons in her book The Good Divorce, is that the kids (as well as
their divorcing parents) can use the experience of their parents’
divorce as a springboard from which to leap into some exciting,
new, and diverse approaches to living. The idea here is that for the
children of divorce, the experiential base (and hence the opportu-
nity for their own personal growth) essentially multiplies as an
outgrowth of the fact that they will now have contact with broader
extended families. These will in turn be comprised of many more
numerous, varied, and unique parental and other role models to
draw upon (i.e., new and different stepparents, step grandparents,
half siblings, etc., from whom to learn and to grow).