58 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
into a stifling, suffocating, and generally impossible situation. A
second incentive that sometimes emerges a little further along
down the line is a strong desire to change the very way one lives
their life—to get started on recreating or redefining an entirely
new personal identity or existence.
The first two or three years after divorce are generally the most
stressful, but they can also be stimulating and full of growth. I
have heard it said that getting divorced is almost the exact oppo-
site mirror image of falling in love. It tends to bring out the most
intense human emotions—ranging from anger to passion and love
to hate. With all these emotions literally shifting actively back and
forth, there can be a fair amount of opportunity that does indeed
open up to change one’s life.
Just whose brilliant idea was this divorce anyway? The issue of
who initiates the breakup will often provide important clues to
future psychological trouble in the period just after the breakup.
The one who starts the divorce (often referred to as the “divorce
initiator”) will have been better prepared and may fare O.K. On
the other hand, the spouse who gets left behind (often referred to
as the “divorce resister”) is usually taken by surprise. This is often
followed by a lingering disbelief that it’s not really going to hap-
pen. The divorce resister will be more prone to denial and hence
more vulnerable to being “outfoxed” in the settlement process, or
to violence or other forms of disturbed behavior.
It appears that the divorcing parties themselves feel varying
degrees of either relief and liberation, or conversely, distress. This
is more or less in proportion to their respective roles either in
having initiated the separation or having been the one who feels
dumped.
The divorce initiators seem to consciously, or at least subcon-
sciously, welcome the arrival of the actual physical separation.
Their initial reaction seems to be one of relief that the chains of
marital misery and dishonesty have finally been broken. One
key difference is in the timing itself. Divorce initiators often
have been struggling with the notion of divorce for a long time
before they finally get up the courage or energy to actually do
something about it. For them, their greatest period of stress
may have already passed during this interval. In a University