Roles in the Divorce Process and Identity Strength

Abstract

Building on Vaughn's (1986) descriptions of the separation process, Vannoy (1995) posited a paradigm of roles in the divorce process. This paper uses a sample of 411 Catholic divorced women to empirically identify subjects playing these respective roles in ending their marriages. The paper has both methodological and theoretical implications. Methodologically, this paper helps refine measures for how individuals perceive their role in their divorces. Theoretically, the paper explores questions about whether men or women are more or less likely to initiate separations as well as the relationship between divorce role and ego strength. Findings indicate that in this sample from the perception of wives, the wives were more likely than their husbands to be the first to wish to end their marriages and more nurturing women were more likely to do so than less nurturing women. Secondly, a significant proportion of the sample of women initiated the legal proceedings for their divorces even though they were not the partners who wished to end their marriages. Finally, exploratory findings regarding ego strength and divorce role suggest that those who preferred to save their marriages score higher on the components of identity strength than those who wished to leave their marriages. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document

Roles in the Divorce Process

“…However, it is worthy of note that this divorce role is the only one significantly associated with less marital quality. This finding is congruent with the findings reported last month (Vannoy, 2000) indicating many partners are the first to initiate the physical separation or legal proceedings although they are not the partner wishing the divorce.…”

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This research note is a postscript to ''Roles in the Divorce Process and Identity Strength'' (Vannoy, 2000). A sample of 411 divorced Catholic women is analyzed to investigate whether marital quality experienced and perceived relationship intimacy is associated with roles in the divorce process.

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“…Additionally, women scoring lower on various components of ego strength were more likely to have been the initiators or ''leavers'' in their marriages. Please see Vannoy, 2000, for details about the purposes and methodology of the study. In this postscript I report associations between the roles these women played in their divorces and their perceptions of marital quality and relationship intimacy in their former marriages.…”

Divorce Transition Differences of Midlife Women

“…An alternative consideration is that the partners truly reached a similar point of view and shared in the decision to end their marriage. If so, the description provided during the interview may be a recall of a dominant past relating pattern of who made decisions of physical separation and/or emotional separation (Vannoy, 2000). In this study, a unique profile did not emerge for the mutual decider group.…”

Personas Divorciadas: Análisis de las Características del Proceso de Ruptura

“…Diversos estudios han analizado previamente el papel que juegan distintas variables presentes en el proceso de ruptura como el conflicto matrimonial (Fischer, De Graaf y Kalmijn, 2005), el rol del iniciador (Baum, 2003;Vannoy, 2000) o el tiempo transcurrido desde la separación (Muldrow, 2004). No obstante, son escasos los autores que han analizado un amplio conjunto de estas variables en una misma muestra.…”