Chapter 6: The Crises of Marriage Breakdown and Processes for Dealing with Them

• Date: 14 April 2025

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The Crises of Marriage Breakdown and

Processes for Dealing with Them

A. THE CRISES OF MARRIAGE BREAKDOWN

For most families, marriage breakdown provokes three crises: an emotional crisis ; an eco-

nomic crisis; and a parenting crisis. Both of the spouse s and their children suer severe emo-

tional upheaval when the unity of the family disintegrates. Failure in the most basic of life’s

commitments is not lightly shrugged o by its victims. Marriage breakdown, whether or not

accompanied by divorce, is a painful experience. Furthermore, relatively few families encoun-

ter separation or divorce without encountering the accompanying nancial setbacks. e

emotional and economic crises resulting from marriage breakdown are compounded by the

co-parental divorce when there are dependent children. Bonding between children and their

absent parent is inevitably threatened by spousal separation and divorce.1

Paul Bohannan identied six “stations” in the highly complex human process of marriage

breakdown:

• the emotional divorce;

• the legal divorce;

• the economic divorce;

• the co-parental divorce;

 See Julien D Payne, “Family Conict Resolution: Dealing with the Consequences of Marriage Breakdown

rough Counselling, Negotiation, Mediation and Arbitration” ResearchGate (February ) online:

www.researchgate.net/publication/_Family_Conict_Resolution_Dealing_with_the_

Consequences_of_Marriage_Breakdown_through_Counselling_Negotiation_Mediation_and_Arbitration;

Julien D Payne, “Various Articles on the Management of Family Conict and Alternative Dispute Resolu-

tion Processes” ResearchGate (February ), online: www.researchgate.net/publication/_

Various_Articles_on_the_Management_of_Family_Conict_and_Alternative_Dispute_Resolution_

Processes. See also Joanne J Paetsch, Lorne B ertrand & John-Paul Boyd, “An Evaluation of the Cost of

Family Law Disputes: Measuring the Cost Implication of Various Dispute Resolution Methods” Canadian

Research Institute for Law and the Family (December ).

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The Crises of Marriage Bre akdown and Processes for Dealing with Them 101

• the community divorce; and

• the psychic divorce.2

Each of these stations of divorce involves an evolutionary process, and there is substan-

tial interaction among them. e dynamics of marriage breakdown, which are multi-faceted,

cannot be addressed in isolation.

History demonstrates a predisposition to seek the solution to the crises of marriage

breakdown in external systems. During the past 150 years, the church, law, and medicine

have each been called upon to deal with the crises of marriage breakdown. Understandably,

each system has been found wanting in its search for solutions. People are averse to losing

control over their own lives. Decrees and “expert” rulings that exclude aected parties from

the decision-making process do not pass unchallenged. Omniscience is not the prerogative

of any profession. Nor should the family’s right to self-determination be lightly ignored.

B. THE EMOTIONAL DIVORCE

For many people, there are two criteria of self-fulllment. One is satisfaction on the job.

e second, and more important one, is satisfaction with one’s marriage or family. When

marriage breakdown occurs, the spouses and their children experience a grieving pro cess.

e devastating eect of marriage breakdown is particularly e vident with the displaced long-

term homemaking spouse whose united family has crumbled and who is ill equipp ed, psych-

ologically and otherwise, to convert homemaking skills into gainful employment.

Most legal divorces in Canada are uncontested. Issues relating to the economic and

parenting consequences of marriage breakdown are usually resolved by negotiation between

the spouses, who are often represented by independent lawyers. B ecause the overwhelming

majority of all divorces are uncontested, it might be assumed that the legal system works

well in resolving the economic and parenting consequences of marriage breakdown. at

assumption cannot pass unchallenged. In the typical divorce scenario, spouses negotiate a

settlement, often with the aid of lawyers, at a time when one or both are still experiencing

the emotional trauma of marriage breakdown. Spouses who have not come to terms with

the death of their marriage or who feel guilty, depressed, or angry in consequence of the

marriage breakdown are ill-equipped to form decisions of a permanent and legally binding

nature.3 Psychiatrists and psychologists agree that this “emotional divorce” passes through

a variety of states, including denial, hostility, and depression, to the ultimate acceptance of

the death of the marriage. Working through the spousal emotional divorce is a slow process.

In the meantime, permanent and legally binding decisions are often made to regulate the

economic and parenting consequences of the marriage breakdown. From a legal perspective,

the economic and parenting consequences of the marriage breakdown are interdepend-

ent. Decisions respecting any continued occupation of the matrimonial home, the amount

of child support, and the amount of spousal support, if any, are often conditioned on the

arrangements made for the future upbringing of the children. e perceived legal inter-

dependence of property rights, support rights , and parental rights after divorce naturally

 Paul Bohannan, “e Six Stations of Divorce” in Divorce and After (New York: Doubleday & Co, ) c .

 Bamford v Bamford,  NBCA  at para , citing Miglin v Miglin, []  SCR .

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102   

aords opportunities for abuse by lawyers and their clients. e lawyer who has been imbued

with the “will to win” from the outset of his or her career, coupled with the client who negoti-

ates a settlement when his or her emotional divorce is unresolved, can wreak future havoc on

the spouses and on their children. Far too often, when settlements are negotiated, children

become pawns or weapons in the hands of game-playing or warring adults, and the battles

do not cease with the judicial divorce.

e interplay between the emotional dynamics of marriage breakdown and regulation of

the economic consequences of marriage breakdown may be demonstrated by the following

examples. A needy spouse who insists that no claim for spousal support should be pursue d

may be manifesting a hope for reconciliation or a state of depression. A spouse who makes

excessive demands is often manifesting hostility. A spouse who proers an unduly generous

nancial settlement may be expiating guilt. Denial, depression, hostility, and guilt are all

typical manifestations of the emotional divorce that elicit inappropriate responses to dealing

with the practical economic and parenting consequences of marriage breakdown. Further-

more, like most emotional states, they change with the passage of time. Separated spouses ,

lawyers, and mediators should be aware of the dangers of premature settlements when one

or both of the spouses are still going through emotional turmoil. Indeed, the notion of a

“cooling-o” period, though unsuccessful as a means of divorce avoidance, might have signi-

cant advantages with respect to negotiated spousal settlements upon marriage breakdown.

Certainly, spouses and their lawyers should more frequently assess the strategic potential of

interim agreements as a stage in a longer-term divorce adjustment and negotiation process.

e legal divorce and the emotional divorce usually involve dierent time frames. Further-

more, the emotional divorce is rarely contemporaneous for both spouses. Lawyers frequently

encounter situations where one spouse regards the marriage as over but the other spouse is

unable or unwilling to accept that reality. In circumstances where one of the spouses is ada-

mantly opposed to cutting the marital umbilical cord, embittered negotiations or contested

litigation over support, property division, or parenting often reect an unresolved emotional

divorce. Spouses who have not worked their way through the emotional divorce displace

what is essentially a non-litigable issue relating to the preservation or dissolution of the

marriage by ghting over the litigable issues of support, property sharing, and parenting . In

such cases, the judicial disposition often fails to terminate spousal hostilities . Even when the

legal battles over support and property have been nally adjudicated by the courts, spou sal

conict can continue to rage over the children.

e multi-faceted aspects of marriage breakdown require more than the typical adver-

sarial legal response. In the words of Paul Bohannan,

A “successful” divorce begins with the realization by two people that they do not have any

constructive future together. at decision itself is a recognition of the emotional divorce.

It proceeds through the legal channels of undoing the wedding, through the economic div-

ision of property and arrangements for alimony and support. e successful divorce involves

determining ways in which children can be informed, educated in their new roles, loved

and provided for. It involves nding a new community. Finally, it involves nding your own

autonomy as a person and as a personality.4

 Bohannan, above note .

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