Unbroken by Divorce: 5 Rules of Resilience
What's different about the people who are least likely to be undone by divorce
What happens to your health and well-being after you get divorced? Very different answers have been proposed.
Which of the following two do you think is correct?
"…most people are psychologically resilient and fare quite well following divorce."
Or
Getting divorced "is associated with long-term decreases in life satisfaction, heightened risk for a range of illnesses…and even early death."
The answer, they maintain, is that about 15 to 20 percent of people who divorce do quite poorly. When those people are averaged in with everyone else (all those people doing just fine after divorce), the averages get pulled down and it looks like getting divorced is a risk factor for all sorts of bad things happening.
1 . People who do poorly after divorcing may already have a history of psychological problems. For example, in one study, people who had a history of major depressive disorder were at risk for experiencing a depressive episode if they got divorced. But people with no such history were no more likely to get depressed if they got divorced.
2 . People who do poorly after divorcing may be those who were anxiously attached to their spouse. Anxiously attached people often try repeatedly to get back with their ex or they become obsessed with why the relationship ended. In one study, anxiously attached people who had recently split from their partner and "who spoke about their separation in a very personal, present-oriented, 'here and now' manner (presumably reflecting a high degree of attachment-related preoccupation with the loss)" showed the most blood pressure reactivity when they thought about their split.
3 . People who do poorly after divorcing may be those who are inclined to ruminate about the experience. Ruminators tend to be very negative and they have trouble creating any psychological distance from their most distressing experiences. In a study of people who had split from their partners, some were encouraged to write about their emotions and others were instructed "to write in a concrete, non-emotional way about how they had spent and would spend their time in the next few days." Eight months later, the emotion-expressers (ruminators) experienced more emotional distress relevant to their separation than did the people who wrote more dispassionately.
4 . People who do poorly after divorcing may be those who "recount their experiences in a blow-by-blow manner rather than reconstrue their experiences to find meaning." Getting lost in the specifics of all that is awful about what happened to you can be a surefire way of getting stuck. Even the most distressing experiences can have meaning. Find it.
5 . People who do poorly after divorcing may be those who come out of the experience without any greater clarity about who they are. Some people emerge from a divorce with a better sense of who they really are, and that, in turn, seems to result in a greater sense of well-being going forward.
Reference: Sbarra, D. A., Hasselmo, K., & Bourassa, K. J. (2015). Divorce and health: Beyond individual differences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24, 109-113.
What happens to your health and well-being after you get divorced? Very different answers have been proposed.
Which of the following two do you think is correct?
"…most people are psychologically resilient and fare quite well following divorce."
Or
Getting divorced "is associated with long-term decreases in life satisfaction, heightened risk for a range of illnesses…and even early death."
The answer, they maintain, is that about 15 to 20 percent of people who divorce do quite poorly. When those people are averaged in with everyone else (all those people doing just fine after divorce), the averages get pulled down and it looks like getting divorced is a risk factor for all sorts of bad things happening.
1 . People who do poorly after divorcing may already have a history of psychological problems. For example, in one study, people who had a history of major depressive disorder were at risk for experiencing a depressive episode if they got divorced. But people with no such history were no more likely to get depressed if they got divorced.
2 . People who do poorly after divorcing may be those who were anxiously attached to their spouse. Anxiously attached people often try repeatedly to get back with their ex or they become obsessed with why the relationship ended. In one study, anxiously attached people who had recently split from their partner and "who spoke about their separation in a very personal, present-oriented, 'here and now' manner (presumably reflecting a high degree of attachment-related preoccupation with the loss)" showed the most blood pressure reactivity when they thought about their split.
3 . People who do poorly after divorcing may be those who are inclined to ruminate about the experience. Ruminators tend to be very negative and they have trouble creating any psychological distance from their most distressing experiences. In a study of people who had split from their partners, some were encouraged to write about their emotions and others were instructed "to write in a concrete, non-emotional way about how they had spent and would spend their time in the next few days." Eight months later, the emotion-expressers (ruminators) experienced more emotional distress relevant to their separation than did the people who wrote more dispassionately.
4 . People who do poorly after divorcing may be those who "recount their experiences in a blow-by-blow manner rather than reconstrue their experiences to find meaning." Getting lost in the specifics of all that is awful about what happened to you can be a surefire way of getting stuck. Even the most distressing experiences can have meaning. Find it.
5 . People who do poorly after divorcing may be those who come out of the experience without any greater clarity about who they are. Some people emerge from a divorce with a better sense of who they really are, and that, in turn, seems to result in a greater sense of well-being going forward.
Reference: Sbarra, D. A., Hasselmo, K., & Bourassa, K. J. (2015). Divorce and health: Beyond individual differences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24, 109-113.
