Divorce: Crisis, Challenge, Or Relief?

5 Passage through Divorce: A Transitions Perspective

5 PASSAGE THROUGH DIVORCE: A TRANSITIONS PERSPECTIVE Linda S. Catron and David A. Chiriboga Jim sits at the small kitchen table, staring intently at the interviewer. A tall and lanky 35-year-old white male, he has been separated for less than two months and is in the middle of his first interview with us. Spread before him lies a sheet of paper on which the interviewer has asked Jim to draw a life graph. "You know/' he says, "I really don't think I can tell you what I think next year will be like. Or the year after that. Right now my life ends right here (he taps emphatically at a point representing the present year). Right now I can't project into the future—in fact, I really don't know what is happening to me right now." In his uncertainty about the present, the future and life in general, Jim is not alone. The participants in our study were much more likely than people in our companion study of normative transitions to experience a complete inability to say anything about what their future lives might be like. As we studied these participants, we found one of the reasons underlying their inability was that they were going through a period of major and all-encompassing change. Torn from their predictable, if not comfortable, routine and day-to-day world, they suddenly were faced with decisions and issues that seemed mysterious and frightening and tedious, all at once. Every aspect of life, from what time to get up to what time to sleep, from what to eat to what kind of clothes to wear, had to be reexamined from a new perspective: the probably single adult. Many of them refused to accept this new role, or were experiencing major frustrations in terms of learning what was expected of 97 9 8 P E R S P E C T I V E S O N T R A N S I T I O N S them. An added frustration was that many were not even sure if they would go through with the divorce! The situation these individuals faced has often been called a transition. The word transition is frequently used as a synonym for role change, but actually refers to a much broader condition of personal and social disruption that presents a challenge not only to the individual but to counselors faced with the task of providing help and guidance to those undergoing a transition (Golan 1986; Schlossberg 1984). In the next few pages we will take a closer look at transitions, attempting in the process to demonstrate why it makes sense to apply the concept to divorce. We also will present findings that deal with two issues. The first is how to predict transitionalstatus, and the second is whether transitional status makes a difference in terms of the mental and social health of divorcing persons. THE TRANSITION AS A REFLECTION OF CHANGE Transitions have been defined both as major, lasting and relatively rapid forms of change (Parkes 1971, 1975), and as gradual developmental shifts (Chiriboga 1986; Levinson et al. 1978) that occur at predictable points in life. Since this book deals with divorce, we will be concerned primarily with those types of transitions that arise, often with little or no warning, at any point along the life course. Transitions: Challenges to Our Assumptions A recurrent theme in theories of transitions is that individuals experiencing major changes in their life must, for their continued well-being, relinquish one "assumptive world" in order to embrace another. An assumptive world is simply a certain perception of the way the world is, especially the part you yourself occupy. An entrenched socialist, for example, might see and interpret her country as either reflecting a socialistic and therefore good situation, or a capitalistic and therefore bad situation. Similarly, a very committed father may be totally wrapped up in his experience of being a parent and refuse to acknowledge the fact that his children are growing up and leaving home. But assumptive worlds are not restricted to the fanatic: we all develop basic assumptions about ourselves and the world we live in. A number of scholars have indicated that relinquishing these assumptions (Parkes 1971; Gould P A S S A G E T H R O U G H D I V O R C E 9 9 1978), illusions...