Breaking up may be hard to do, but getting over it is even
harder for many people, new research shows.
A divorce can alter a person's sense of happiness over
the long-term, beginning in the period leading up to the split
and stretching well beyond that, the German study claims.
"Divorce does seem to cause a permanent decline in levels
of happiness," said study author Richard E. Lucas, an assistant
professor in the department of psychology at Michigan State
University in Lansing, and a research affiliate with the German
Institute of Economic Research in Berlin. "People are less
happy following a divorce than they were at the beginning of
their marriage, or before they even got married."
To explore the emotional resonance of divorce, Lucas
analyzed 18 years of data collected during once-yearly
interviews involving more than 30,000 German men and women who
were asked to rate their life satisfaction on a scale of one to
10.
Lucas honed in on 817 individuals, all of whom had
already been married before the study launch in 1984. All the
men and women remained married for at least one year into the
interview process before ultimately divorcing.
He also focused on a separate pool of 2,388 men and women
who were single when first interviewed, but got married at some
point during the study period.
When possible, Lucas assessed the changes in annual
satisfaction responses by comparing three time frames: the
period of marriage occurring at least three years before a
divorce defined as the gold standard of happiness; the
"reaction period," the two years before the divorce as well as
the year of the divorce itself; and the "adaptation period,"
beginning at least two years after the divorce.
In the December issue of
Psychological Science, Lucas reports that as might be
expected the average participant had a steep drop in his or her
sense of happiness during the reaction period surrounding
divorce. The drop was twice as evident in men compared to
women.
Lucas also found that during the post-split phase,
divorcees were still significantly less happy than they had
been during the prime of their marriage.
A sense of happiness returned about five years after the
divorce but never rose back to pre-divorce levels, he said.
Lucas next tried to determine whether the divorce itself
caused the unhappiness or whether people who get divorced are
somehow predisposed to become unhappy during the break-up
process.
What he found was a complex emotional landscape, in which
people who eventually get divorced appeared to have been less
happy during their happiest years than those who got married
and stayed married.
He also noted that those who stayed married were, on
average, happier before getting married than those who ended up
in divorce court.
And those who got divorced appeared to have had
below-average happiness levels before their marriage.
Age, however, seems to trump marital status, with older
people reporting less satisfaction overall than younger people,
regardless of whether they ultimately divorce.
Lucas concluded that while the experience of divorce does
trigger a sustained happiness decline in many people, the drop
can sometimes be due as much to pre-existing happiness
differences among individuals as it is to the act of separation
itself.
In either case, Lucas emphasized that divorce has a
complicated emotional impact. And he encouraged friends, family
and health-care professionals to assess the emotional health of
those going through divorce.
"This is about the average person, but it turns out
there's quite a bit of variability," said Lucas. "Some people
are actually happier after divorce than they were before. And
so therapists, clinicians and psychological researchers need to
explore the factors that allow some people to adapt to life
events, whereas others do not."
Dr. David Yamins, a psychiatrist at Maimonides Medical
Center in New York City, viewed the findings with a jaundiced
eye.
"It really depends on how you define satisfaction, but I
find it hard to believe that a divorce confers a special
disadvantage above and beyond any other significant life
event," he said. "In my experience, people who have gone
through a divorce and continue on in life don't seem to be any
worse off."
"But I do think people's approach to relationships will
stay the same from partner to partner," he added. "So within
the sphere of relationships, there may not be any greater
happiness after a divorce. We're bound to repeat history."
Another divorce study conducted in Canada and published
in the current issue of the
Journal of Marriage and Family found that the demise of
a marriage is most harmful to a child's mental health
before a parental split, rather than after.
By analyzing four years of data on almost 17,000 children
younger than 11, researchers at the University of Alberta found
that before the divorce, children whose parents ultimately
break up are more depressed, anxious and anti-social than kids
from stable marriages.
The researchers concluded that the common notion that
parents should stay together for the sake of their kids is a
fallacy that can do more harm to children than good.
More information
For more on marriage and mental health, check out the
American
Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
Copyright 2007 Modern Mom, LLC. All rights reserved.
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