Divorce Balance

Negotiation > Recovery > Enhancement

Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Divorce Is Not the "Death of a Marriage"

Years ago, I worked with a pastor who taught the so-called "five stages of dying" as a roadmap to divorce recovery.

His second wife was the widow of a prior marriage, and her own grieving advocated this theory, à la Elisabeth Kübler-Ross circa 1969. The divorce minister's new wife has my deepest sympathies.

But there's no comparison between divorce and the death of a spouse.

In For Better or For Worse, Dr. E. Mavis Hetherington lays out numerous differences. "Widows get more support from families, friends, and in-laws; to some extent there is a 'well, you brought it on yourself' attitude to the divorced."

And there's no sense of closure.

Ms. Kübler-Ross died this year. Among other things, the current issue of Psychology Today marks this with a strong rebuttal to her never-tested theory. It's not even a good model for death and dying — let alone for our divorce recoveries.

—posted by Dell Deaton @12:08 AM EST 12/28/2004 [150]

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