Perhaps nowhere is this difference more evident than in the debate over which partner—the ex-wife or the ex-husband—is the primary victim of divorce. Both are affected by the divorce, but often in different ways.
The first year after divorce is especially stressful for both ex-spouses. Divorce wields a blow to each one’s self-esteem. Both feel they have failed as spouses and, if there are children, as parents (Demo and Fine 2010). They may question their ability to get along well in a remarriage. Yet each has particular difficulties that are related to the sometimes different circumstances of men and women. In this discussion, we are primarily speaking of divorced men and women who are parents.
Her Divorce
Women who were married longer, particularly those oriented to traditional gender roles, lose the identity associated with their husband’s status. Getting back on their feet may be particularly difficult for older women, who usually have few opportunities for meaningful career development and limited opportunities to remarry (Yin 2008). Women of the baby boom generation and later have usually had significant work experience, so they may find it easier to reenter the work world, if they are not already there.
Divorced mothers who retain sole custody of their children often experience severe overload as they attempt to provide not only for financial self-support but also for the day-to-day care of their children. Monitoring and supervising children as a single parent is especially difficult (Braver, Shapiro, and Goodman 2006). Mothers’ difficulties are aggravated by lingering gender discrimination in employment, promotion, and salaries and by the high cost of child care. They may have less education and work experience than their ex-husbands. All in all, custodial mothers frequently feel alone as they struggle with money, scheduling, and discipline problems. Objective difficulties are reflected in decreased psychological well-being (Doherty, Su, and Needle 1989; Ross 1995). An encouraging note, though, is that the poverty rate of single custodial mothers dropped significantly between 1993 and 2007, although at 27 percent, it remains higher than that of custodial fathers.
“Her” divorce often involves financial worries and task and emotional overload as she tries to be the complete parent for the children.
Although those experiencing marital dissolution are less happy than those who are married, another comparison gives us a picture of “her” divorce that is a bit brighter. A majority of women respondents to the National Survey of Families and Households (1992–1993) who compared their lives before and after marital separation perceived improvement in overall happiness, home life, social life, and parenting, although not in finances or job opportunities (Furstenberg 2003, p. 172, Figure 1). Women, compared to men, are more likely to have built social support networks, and they do show greater emotional adjustment and recovery than men (Braver, Shapiro, and Goodman 2006).
His Divorce
Divorced men miss having daily contact with their children and are concerned about possible qualitative changes in their parent-child relationships as well (Braver, Shapiro, and Goodman 2006). In some ways, divorced noncustodial fathers have more radical readjustments to make in their lifestyles than do custodial mothers. In return for the responsibilities and loss of freedom associated with single parenthood, custodial mothers escape much of the loneliness that divorce might otherwise cause and are rewarded by social approval for raising their children (Demo and Fine 2010; Wallerstein and Lewis 2008). Many children of divorce, especially daughters, developed closer relationships with their mothers after the divorce (Wallerstein and Lewis 2007).
Custodial fathers, like custodial mothers, are under financial stress. Noncustodial fathers often retain the financial obligations of fatherhood while experiencing few of its joys. Whether it takes place in the children’s home, the father’s residence, or at some neutral spot, visitation is typically awkward and superficial. The man may worry that if his ex-wife remarries, he will lose even more influence over his children’s upbringing. For many individuals, parenthood plays an important role in adult development: “Removed from regular contact with their children after divorce, many men stagnate” (Wallerstein and Blakeslee 1989, p. 143; Swiss and Le Bourdais 2009).
Ex-husbands’ anger, grief, and loneliness may be aggravated by the traditional male gender role, which discourages them from sharing their pain with other men. Sociologist Catherine Ross (1995) compared levels of psychological distress for men and women in four different categories: marrieds, cohabitors, those who were dating, and those with no partner. Ross found that divorced men had the lowest levels of emotional support of any group, whereas emotional support among divorced women was “not that much lower than married women’s” (p. 138). In situations of isolation and depression, men are more likely than women to be vulnerable to substance abuse and alcoholism (Braver, Shapiro, and Goodman 2006). Yet in most cases, men still hold the keys to economic security, and ex-wives suffer financially more than do ex-husbands.
The fact is that both men’s and women’s postdivorce situations would be somewhat alleviated by eliminating the economic discrimination faced by women, especially women reentering the labor force, by strong child support enforcement, and by constructing co-parenting relationships that give fathers the sense of continuing involvement as parents that most would like.
“His” divorce involves loss of time with children, as well as a more general loneliness. Being the “visiting parent” is often difficult, but maintaining the father-child bond is significant in a child’s adjustment to divorce.
Some Positive Outcomes?
First came CreativeDivorce. As divorce rates rose steeply in the 1960s and into the 1970s, many were heartened by Mel Krantzler’s 1973 book, which offered the hope that some good would come of this painful experience.
The eighties and nineties saw an accounting of the all-too-real problems of divorce for children and adults. “Creative divorce” seemed not only ironic but almost maliciously misleading to those making the difficult decision of whether to divorce.
Another swing of the pendulum seems to be taking place. Researchers have begun to explore positive outcomes of divorce. Scholars and clinicians have begun to talk about stress-related growth (for children as well as adults). There is now more emphasis on the diversity of outcomes of divorce.
