ABSTRACT
Rupturing the bonds of biology as well as social custom, divorce at childbirth has profound effects on parents, children, and society. In this chapter, we will focus on how parents emotionally traverse this event. Examining both short-term and long-term effects, we will attempt to answer the question, How do parents psychologically recover-or not-from divorce under such extreme conditions? Because research on the effects of divorce, particularly those at childbirth, has not caught up in scale to the social reality, we will also review older data on how people mourn and heal from a partner’s death. This synopsis will not only inform our understanding of recovery from divorce but also provide a contrast, for although death and divorce have similarities, they also have differences-differences in their processes of mourning.
