The Crises of Marriage Breakdown and Processes for Dealing with Them

• Author: Julien D. Payne, Marilyn A. Payne
• Pages: 130-172

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e Crises of Marriage Breakdown

and Processes for Dealing with em

A. THE CRISES OF MAR RIAGE BREAKDOWN

For most families, mar riage breakdown provokes three cr ises: an emotional

crisis; an economic crisis; and a parenting crisis. Both of the spouses and

their child ren suer severe emotional upheaval when the un ity of the family

disintegrates. Failure in the most basic of life’s commitments is not lightly

shrugged o by its v ictims. Marriage breakdown, whether or not accompan-

ied by divorce, is a painful experience. Furthermore, relatively few families

encounter separation or divorce without encountering nancial setbacks.

e emotional and economic crises resulting from marriage breakdown are

compounded by the co-parenta l divorce when there are dependent children.

Bonding between children and their absent parent is inevitably threatened

by spousal sepa ration and divorce.

Paul Bohannan identied six “stations” in the highly complex human

process of marri age breakdown:

• the emotional divorce;

• the legal divorce;

• the economic divorce;

• the co-parenta l divorce;

• the community divorce; and

• the psychic divorce.

 Paul Bohann an, “e Six Statio ns of Divorce” in Divorce and Af ter (New York: Doubleday

& Co, ) c .

Chapter : The Cris es of Marriage Breakdown an d Processes for Dealing with Them

Each of these stations of divorce involves an evolutionary process and

there is substantial interaction among them. e dynamics of marriage

breakdown, whic h are multifaceted, cannot be addressed in i solation.

History demonstrates a pred isposition to seek the solution to the crises

of marriage breakdown in external systems. During the past  years, the

Church, law, and medicine have e ach been called upon to deal wit h the crises

of marriage breakdown. Understandably, each system has been found want-

ing 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 fam ily’s right to self-deter-

mination be light ly ignored.

B. THE EMOTIONAL DIVORCE

For many people, there are two criteria of self-fullment. One is satisfac-

tion on the job. e second, and more important one, is satisfaction with

one’s marriage or fami ly. When marriage breakdow n occurs, the spouses and

their children experience a grieving process. e devastating eect of mar-

riage breakdown is particularly evident with the displaced long-term home-

making spouse whose united family has crumbled and who is ill-equipped,

psychologically 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. Be cause the overwhelming majorit y of all divorces are

uncontested, it might be assumed th at the legal system works well in resolv-

ing the economic and parenting consequences of marriage breakdown. at

assumption cannot pass unchallenged.

In the typical legal divorce scenario, spouses negotiate a settlement at

a time when one or both are undergoing the emotional trauma of marriage

breakdown. Psychiatrists and psychologists agree that this “emotional di-

vorce” passes through a variety of states, including denial, hostility, and

depression, to the ultimate acceptance of the death of the marriage. Work-

ing through the spousal emotional divorce rarely takes less than two years.

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

regulate the economic and parenting consequences of the marriage break-

down. From a legal perspec tive, the economic and parenting consequences of

the marriage breakdown are interdependent. Decisions respecting any con-

tinued occupation of the matrimonial home, the amount of child support,

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and the amount of spousal support, if any, are conditioned on the arrange-

ments made for the future upbringing of the children. e perceived legal

interdependence of property r ights, support rights, and parental r ights after

divorce natural ly aords opportunities for abuse b y lawyers and their cl ients.

e lawyer who has bee n imbued with the “will to w in” 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 spous es

and on their children. Far too often, when settlements are negotiated, chil-

dren become pawns or weapons in the hands of game-playing or warring

adults and the battles do not cease w ith 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 follow ing examples. A needy spouse who insist s that

no claim for spousa l support should be pursued may be manifesting a hope

for reconciliation or a state of depression. A spouse who makes excessive de -

mands is often ma nifesting hostility. A spouse who proers an u nduly gener-

ous nancia l settlement may be expiating g uilt. Denial, depression, host ility,

and guilt are all typical manifestations of the emotional divorce that elicit

inappropriate responses to dealing with the practical economic and parent-

ing consequences of marr iage breakdown. Furt hermore, 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 unsuccessfu l as a means

of divorce avoidance, might have signicant advantages with respect to ne-

gotiated 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 ne-

gotiation process.

e legal divorce and the emotiona l divorce usually involve di erent time

frames. Furthermore, 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 adamant-

ly opposed to cutting the marital umbilical cord, embittered negotiations

or contested litigation over support, property division, or custody or access

often reect an unresolved e motional 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, custody, and

access. In such cases, t he judicial disposition often fa ils to terminate spousa l