DON'T BE OVERLY FRIENDLY OR HOSTILE WITH AN EX-SPOUSE, RESEARCHER SAYS
It's not a good idea to be extremely friendly with your ex-spouse, but it's not healthy to be overly hostile, either, according to a recent study from the University of Utah.
On the other hand, staying somewhat friendly or somewhat hostile with an ex-spouse may be helpful in working past the divorce itself, says Carol Masheter, an assistant professor in the U.'s Family and Consumer Studies department. Her findings were reported in a recent issue of the Journal of Marriage and the Family.
Masheter wanted to identify healthy post-divorce relationships that could benefit both spouses. Research suggests that on-going parental conflict and parental absence are harmful to children in both divorced and non-divorced families. "Identifying and fostering healthy post- divorce relationships and cooperation between ex-spouses is timely," she writes.
Earlier studies tend to link preoccupation, friendship and hostility toward the ex-spouse with poorer well-being, Masheter writes. More recent studies also show that some kinds of friendship appear to be unhealthy," especially those based on lingering romantic ties and overdependence," she writes.
Persistent, intense hostility also appears to be unhealthy, keeping some divorced persons "dysfunctionally involved" with the ex-spouse.
But friendships that provide mutual support are likely to benefit both spouses, she writes. And some forms of anger may protect others from depression and help them gain appropriate emotional distance.
Masheter's survey sample included 232 people -- 142 women and 90 men -- who divorced in Utah.
Using preoccupation and hostility as two indicators of attachment, Masheter's research found distinctions between healthy and unhealthy friendships and between healthy and unhealthy hostility in post-divorce relationships.
She determined:
Respondents with high friendship and low preoccupation seem likely to have healthy relationships with each other.
Respondents with high friendship and high preoccupation seem likely to still be in love with each other, or to expect the ex-spouse to take care of them, or both.
Respondents with low preoccupation and high hostility have higher well-being, a finding that supports a previously published idea that anger can mobilize divorced people against depression.
Respondents with high preoccupation and high hostility have lower well-being, which is suggestive of the hostility associated with custody disputes.
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Source: Carol Masheter, 801 581-6521 Writer: Karen Wolf, 801 581-4628
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