Marital Instability and Divorce Outcomes

Clinicians and educators in the marriage and family field will gain valuable insight into the relationship dynamics that cause marital stress and the interactional factors that may result in divorce from this excellent book. The perceptive theoretical, empirical, and clinical chapters included in Marital Instability and Divorce Outcome examine why certain elements in relationships result in divorce while others do not and assist professionals in evaluating these elements. Specifically, this provocative volume enables professionals to examine how a marriage has weathered developmental periods of stability and instability, whether or not it has the necessary resources to survive, and, in the event a divorce occurs, what will be the most likely post-divorce adjustment for the marriage partners. This informative volume aids professionals in their work with marital relationships, by covering a wide range of topics involved in assessing marital instability and divorce outcomes. The relationship circumstances that can lead to divorce are examined in an investigation of personality types which are prone to divorce and a comparison of patterns of relationships which are stable and those which are likely to result in divorce. The conditions that exist after a divorce are explored in a discussion on how to predict post-divorce adjustment and physical well-being of the marriage partners after divorce. Educators teaching marriage and family courses at all levels from high school to college and clinicians who work with marital, family, and child cases will find this helpful volume to be an invaluable resource for evaluating factors influencing marital instability and divorce outcome.

Everett, Craig

Contents Introduction - I. Issues of Marital Instability - Divorce and the Wheel Theory of Love - Symmetricality/Complimentarity and Their Relationship to Marital Instability - Demographic Subgroup Contributions to Divorce Cause Constellations - Profiles of the Divorce Prone: The Self Involved Narcissist - Divorce Likelihood Among Anglos and Mexican Americans - II. Divorce Outcome Patterns - Traumas Versus Sterns: A Paradigm of Positive Versus Negative Divorce Outcomes - An Exploratory Analysis of the Construct of Leavers Versus Left as It Relates to Levinger's Social Exchange Theory of Attractions, Barriers, and Alternative Attractions - Initiator Status and Separation Adjustment - A Preliminary Investigation of Family Systems' Influences on Individual Divorce Adjustment - After the Divorce: Familial Factors That Predict Well-Being for Older and Younger Persons - A Comparison of Physical and Emotional Health After Divorce in a Canadian and United States' Sample