Some go, some stay, some separate themselves, and some simply vanish. According to the study, when women divorce, they lose around 40% of their friendships.
What causes this to happen?
Some of the reasons differ from what I’ve heard from many women over the years, but they all have one thing in common: fear, terror, and more fear. Lack of hope, fear of sensations, and uncertainty are all common fears.
At The Time Of Divorce, What Happens to Our Friends?
People, particularly our closest friends, don’t want to mourn, and as a result, they don’t manage it well. We try to escape it by running away from it, ignoring it, and ignoring it at any cost. Divorce causes anguish not only for the couple but also for others close to them. As a result, when people we care about are in pain, we are also in pain. Empathy is the term for it. However, we have a poor tolerance for discomfort, dislike it, and would want it to go away.
We expect our companions to express themselves, to be open, honest, and vulnerable about their sentiments. A solid connection is built on this foundation. And, as women, we listen to one another share, cry, lament, and share a little more. However, negative emotions such as annoyance, perplexity, anger, impatience, and grief ultimately become overwhelming, so we choose pleasant emotions such as life stories, giant grins, and laughing. We establish space and shrink away if this isn’t there. It’s not always intended, yet it still affects the recipient.
You can be seen as a danger now that you’re single because of your new “eligibility.” When you got married, you were a part of a pair, which was off limitations and non-threatening. With a divorce, however, that perception can shift, and your newly acquired eligibility sometimes can be interpreted as a threat to other people’s relationships. The concern of “partner poaching” led to the notion, “Just because she doesn’t have her own partner doesn’t mean I’ll let her take mine.”
This may appear not very mature, and one might accept, yet it occurs more commonly than you imagine. “Remind me to explain to you how strangely your married buddies will treat you because you’re the single lady in the group,” a coworker told me after hearing about my divorce.
Divorce may be Infectious for certain People
You may be surprised to find that if a friend’s marriage is fragile or tough, she may feel obligated to separate herself from you out of fear of her marriage failing similarly to yours. Paradoxically, a friend who scorns you with her mistaken attempt to save her problematic marriage isn’t a friend. It could be preferable to realize the sooner, especially if the bond was shaky, to begin with. Even so, understanding this doesn’t always make the hurt go away.
McDermott and her team investigated that if a friend is divorced, participants are 75 percent and 33 percent more likely to result in their marriage if close friends are likely to get divorced or to file for divorce. “Divorce may spread like a rumor across a social network, influencing friends roughly two points away.” This phenomenon is termed as “social contagion” by sociologists. Knowledge, opinions, and behaviors are disseminated through friends, families, and some other social networking sites.
However, because the study was done in the tiny town of Farmington, where many citizens knew one another, were connected to each other, or were both, the findings are restricted. They were all employed white people from the middle class. The report does not accurately reflect the country, let alone the world. However, it begs the question of how such mind-boggling figures are created. Is it possible that the termination of one’s marriage will give people “permission” to look through their own marital and its flaws? (was thinking similar). Is it possible because we have a mentality that “the grass is greener on the other side”? Yet, the concept of divorce is creeping like an infection, and it may be terrifying if you let it.
Friendships might be Pushed away by Divorce
Besides “social contagion,” the shame connected with separation often can push individuals away. Divorce is perceived as a marriage breakdown, a reason to a shattered clan, and it’s something to be humiliated of, resulting in a large Scarlet letter being slapped across your breast. Divorce is still seen as leaving, giving up, and not being strong enough to survive, despite the fact that it was more prevalent historically than it is now. During a divorce, all of these perceptions cast doubt on a person’s worth and value, stigmatizing them. It is usually common to believe that you don’t want to be the “type of person that gets divorced,” as it is a bad omen.
“At least even among the educated and rich, divorce has become a source of embarrassment, a mark of defeat, an indicator that you aren’t working as hard as you should, or even worse, that you are so incredibly selfish that you don’t care about the children’s needs,” says sociologist Laurie Essig. It is important to copy that about 50% of educated Americans want and believes divorce should be made more difficult.
Many people will consider married people to be “mainstream” and respectable, while divorced persons are seen as belonging to a distinct society with looser norms and morals. Females divorced multiple times now perceive as “immoral” or “deviant” in one survey of young people. C. D. Hoffman and M. D. Willers (1996). Multiple divorces have an impact on a person’s viewpoint. 87-93 in Journal of Divorce and Remarriage.
Even if there isn’t a “divorce stigma,” it’s crucial to remember that friends do choose sides, perhaps not immediately, but eventually. Although this may cause polarization, it is not unusual in divorce cases. As humans, we are at ease with the status quo, the known, and the dependable. Divorce alters all of this, literally dividing relationships in half. At soccer games, school functions, and other activities, in-tact families could have been the norm. Divorce disrupts that structure and ushers in a new normal. Divorced spouses frequently sit on opposing sides of the park, benches, and each other, leaving many friends stranded in the center and wondering what else to do. In some of the most peaceful divorces, two competing viewpoints exist, and friends may choose to support one side over the other.
Whatever the cause, being abandoned by a close friend in your hour of need hurts more than a bit. But it’s also critical to identify and treasure the friends we have who share our beliefs, who can relate, sympathize, and support us, particularly during difficult times. “Everyone wants to ride in the limo with you, but you want someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down,” Oprah Winfrey famously observed.
Learn more about marriage reconciliation.
