Summer series “divorced, issued” 6/6
“There may be a form of enjoyment in separation”
Joëlle Darwiche, professor and researcher in psychology at the University of Lausanne, specializes in couple and family relationships.
Joëlle Darwiche, professor and researcher in psychology at the University of Lausanne, specializes in couple and family relationships.
- The study by Professor Joëlle Darwiche assesses the daily life of separate families.
- The rupture of the attachment link in the couple causes deep suffering.
- Separation requires complex identity reconstruction for those concerned.
- The shared guard becomes the privileged model in contemporary divorces.
Joëlle Darwiche is currently leading, as part of a Project funded by the Swiss National Fund (FNS)a study that aims to assess how families whose parents are separated on a daily basis.
In Switzerland, almost one in two couple separates or divorces. It’s banal, and at the same time, always very painful for the people concerned. Why this paradox?
There are other things that are very frequent and very painful: death, illness, war. It is not because a phenomenon is frequent that it is more acceptable.
So why does divorce suffer as much?
Especially because an intimate relationship that ends is suffering. Even if there is no more attraction, even if there is no more love, a strong attachment link could have developed during the years spent together, and it is very painful to break it.
You talk about attachment. Can we make a parallel with the attachment of the child to the parent, which psychologists have been studying for a long time?
There is a whole literature on attachment to the couple. Romantic attachment is not similar to parent-child attachment, but the two share several characteristics. For example, when one of the partners is anxious, he seeks the attention of the other. If the other is avoiding, it will tend to flee intimacy, and they reinforce their behaviors mutually … The fact of separating while one is taken in this dynamic does not help; On the contrary, this increases the risk that separation is long and leads to suffering.
The people who testified say that by separating themselves, they also say goodbye to a share of itself.
Exactly. It is really the identity question that is central: we have to go from marital “we” to “I” after a separation, and this can represent an identity weakening. To this is added, if we have children, the construction of a common family identity. These couple and family identities are associated with many advantages, such as feeling more surrounded, secure, socially recognized. When there is a separation, these identities must reorganize. It takes time and internal energy.
Can a separation rekindle childhood injuries?
In the formation of certain types of couple, there is indeed a disproportionate expectation that the other fills certain childhood flaws and injuries, for example expecting from the other that it is proud of us or loves us unconditionally. While deep down, you don’t really believe that it is possible, because you haven’t received it from your parents. The separation confronts that the other could not or can never soften this reality. She reopens the scars. This goes hand in hand with many other files to manage when the couple has children, legal procedure, child care, etc.
Paradoxically, many people also talk about a form of release after their divorce …
Succeeding your couple relationship is perhaps one of the most difficult things. Also, some people savor – at least temporarily – a certain freedom found. In the interviews we conduct, some separate parents say they hadn’t had the opportunity to go out or go on vacation for years. In particular those who had a very conflictual couple relationship. When you free yourself from all the concessions linked to the couple, there can be a form of enjoyment.
How have divorces have evolved in recent decades?
Before, the couple was really the basic unit of the family. Today, the child is at the center, he constitutes the link between his parents since, in one in two family, the conjugal link does not resist. This is also why parents sometimes feel a certain pressure to succeed in their co -parent relationship, to get along as parents even after a separation.
This therefore involves more coordination between ex-spouses …
Exactly. Especially since the shared guard model is more and more frequent. It’s a chance for children, for fathers and for mothers! As long as the frequency of conflicts is not too high. There are always disagreements, but it compensates with the benefits for the child to keep a strong link with his two parents.
“Health & Well-being”
Advice, news and stories around health, nutrition, psychology, form and well-being.
Other newsletters
Did you find an error? Please report it to us.
