Adjustment to Divorce

Abstract

This article presents information related to divorcees who are not considering an immediate remarriage as a means of adjustment, but rather, plan their own life style as single persons. There is an influence of many variables on divorce adjustment and the society exerts a strong pressure on the divorcee to remarry. The relevant variables include income, number of children, duration of marriage, grounds of divorce, friends, counseling, family attitudes etc. The divorced mother faces a double problem of adjustment in restructuring her life style in simultaneously meeting role expectations of a single woman and a mother. Financial problems are usually pressing, due to the costs of resettling and reordering the home. The divorcee today is building her own life style, playing her own role outside marriage. The various hypotheses related to divorcees are that the divorcee's adjustment to single status is positively correlated with her adoption of a female-sex-equality ideology, a divorcee's adjustment is positively correlated with a high degree of social support, the longer the duration of the marriage, the lower the adjustment level etc.