The Stigma Of Divorce

With the chance of a marriage ending in divorce running over 50 percent, it would seem that divorce will be just another stage of life for many people. Would you date someone who is divorced or would you consider them “used goods”? If you’re divorced, do you feel that divorce brands you unfairly?

When my first marriage ended, over 20 years ago, I felt the “stigma of divorce” in several ways including finding places to live. Some apartment complexes were suddenly “full” when I said I was in the process of getting a divorce.

Once I did find a place that would accept a divorced person, getting utilities and phone service in my name became a challenge. Because everything had been in my husband’s name, I would have to put up large deposits before they would consider opening accounts for me.

Up to this point I had accepted that rules had to be followed but it seemed that the rules were biased toward divorced women. My husband’s status was changing too, but no one was requiring him to put deposits down before continuing their services.

This is when I learned the power of the word “discrimination” and how quickly it could resolve otherwise unresolvable issues.

When I started dating again I learned that divorced women were at the last of the line as far as desirable dating partners. First were the never-married women, then the widows, and, finally, the failures… the divorced women. One man even suggested that the reason I hadn’t been able to stay married was because I wasn’t sensual enough. He based sensuality on the number of children a woman had regardless of her marital status. With no children, it was apparent why I had failed as a wife.

Today, with divorce so prevalent and the media so focused on high-profile and celebrity divorces, the stigma isn’t the same as it used to be. But maybe it was the stigma that kept some marriages together. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing after all.