Relationships With Former Spouses

Many contemporary relationships end in separation or divorce. Former partners must uncouple their lives, and individuals must deal with the major life transition of lost love and emotional suffering, including guilt associated with feeling relief that one’s relationship is ending. Ending a marriage also involves dividing property, separating finances, creating new households, arranging for custody and support of children, and negotiating new relationships with family and friends that were once shared by the couple. In that sense, same-sex partners are like heterosexual couples in having to adjust and build new lives as single persons again. Separation and divorce are major life transitions that are affected by many circumstances, some of which are common across all couples and some of which are unique to same-sex couples ...