Breaking up
Breaking up When an intimate relationship ends, as in divorce, the effect can be traumatic—and so stressful that people who get divorced are later 23% more likely to die early from all causes of death. As part of a longitudinal study of adults in Germany, Richard Lucas zeroed in on 817 men and women who at some point were divorced. Every year for 18 years, the participants were interviewed and asked to rate how satisfied they were with life on a scale of 0 to 10. On average, the divorcees were more than a half point less satisfied than their married counterparts. But did time heal the wound? d Figure 9.16 shows three interesting patterns: (1) Participants had be- come less and less satisfied even before divorce, (2) satisfaction levels rebounded somewhat immediately after divorce, and (3) satisfaction levels never returned to original baseline levels. In short, people may adapt but often do not fully recover from the experience.
People’s ability to cope with divorce depends on the nature of the loss. One vital factor is the closeness of a relationship, or the extent to which the line between self and other becomes so blurred that mine and yours are one and the same. Another factor is interdependence, the social glue that binds us together. The more interdependent couples are and the more invested they are in the relationship, the longer it will likely last and the more devastated they will become when it ends
