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Divorce Ideation

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy

  • 11 Accesses

Name of Concept

Divorce Ideation.

Synonyms

Divorce decision-making; Divorce thinking

Introduction

Demographers estimate that 40–50% of first marriages and 60% of second marriages end in divorce (Kennedy and Ruggles 2014; Kreider and Ellis 2011). But there is a curious research gap on divorce ideation and decision-making. What are people thinking when they are thinking about divorce? How many people are thinking about divorce? How frequent and serious are their thoughts? How static or stable is their thinking? What do they do to try to repair the relationship?

Until recently, there was little research on these questions. But some answers to these questions are available from a recent study with a nationally representative sample of 3,000 married individuals of ages 25–50 (Hawkins et al. 2017b; National Divorce Decision-Making Project 2015). This study also included a 1-year follow-up survey and repeated in-depth interviews with a subsample of 30 individuals thinking about divorce.

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References

  • Allen, S. M., & Hawkins, A. J. (2017). Theorizing about the divorce/reconciliation decision-making process. Journal of Family Theory and Review, 9, 50–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12176.

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  • Hawkins, A. J., Galovan, A., Harris, S. M., Allen, S. E., Allen, S. M., Roberts, K. M., & Schramm, D. G. (2017b). What are they thinking? A national-sample study of stability and change in divorce ideation. Family Process. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12299.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

    Alan J. Hawkins & Sage Erickson Allen

  2. University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

    Kelly Roberts

  3. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Steven M. Harris

  4. Montana State University, Bozeman, ST, USA

    Sarah M. Allen

Authors
  1. Alan J. Hawkins
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  2. Sage Erickson Allen
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  3. Kelly Roberts
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  4. Steven M. Harris
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  5. Sarah M. Allen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alan J. Hawkins .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Jay L. Lebow

  2. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Anthony L. Chambers

  3. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Douglas C. Breunlin

Section Editor information

  1. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Kelley Quirk

  2. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Adam R. Fisher

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Hawkins, A.J., Allen, S.E., Roberts, K., Harris, S.M., Allen, S.M. (2019). Divorce Ideation. In: Lebow, J.L., Chambers, A.L., Breunlin, D.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_791

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