A Door to a Happier Life?

Divorce, in most cases, has not proved itself to be a door to happiness.a “Divorce is deceptive,” says mental-health researcher Judith Wallerstein after a 15-year survey of 60 divorced couples. “Legally it is a single event, but psychologically it is a chain​—sometimes a never-ending chain—​of events, relocations and radically shifting relationships strung through time.” Her studies show that a quarter of the women and a fifth of the men had not got their lives back on track a decade after divorce.

This is not to imply that all victims of divorce will never find happiness, since some do. For these, a reshaped personality arises, usually from the ashes of the old. For example, once the shock of a divorce and its accompanying grief and doubts about self-worth are over, an innocent mate may emerge from the ordeal a stronger, more vital, whole person.

One wife whose husband left her for another woman explains that after the hurt and anger start to subside, “you find that you are different inside. Your feelings have changed. You can never be the person you were before.” She advises: “Take time to get to know yourself as an individual again. In marriage the mates generally subdue their likes and desires in deference to the other person, but after a divorce, time should be taken to find out what your likes and dislikes are now. If you bury your feelings, you bury them alive. One day they will come back, and you will have to face them. So you might as well face your feelings and work through them.”