Difference between revisions of "Good Behaviour and Respecting Privacy After Separation"
(→Introduction) |
|||
| Line 11: | Line 11: | ||
==Introduction== | ==Introduction== | ||
| − | We have all sorts of social scripts about how people meet, fall in love, marry and start having children. You can't watch a Hugh Grant rom-com, walk past the supermarket greeting card aisle, or read one of the very fine novels published by Harlequin Enterprises ULC without have those scripts reinforced. What we don't have are scripts about how people separate. Yes, Hollywood has dabbled its toes in this plotline — ''Marriage Story'' and ''War of the Roses'' spring to mind — but these are fairly awful stories. | + | We have all sorts of social scripts about how people meet, fall in love, marry and start having children. You can't watch a Hugh Grant rom-com, walk past the supermarket greeting card aisle, or read one of the very fine novels published by Harlequin Enterprises ULC without have those scripts reinforced. What we don't have are scripts about how people separate. Yes, Hollywood has dabbled its toes in this plotline — ''Marriage Story'' and ''War of the Roses'' spring to mind — but these are fairly awful stories. What we don't have scripts about how people separate ''well''. |
| − | In 1967, two psychologists, Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, published [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0022399967900104?via%3Dihub a study] showing that the end of a long-term relationship is one of the most traumatic events people | + | In 1967, two psychologists, Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, published [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0022399967900104?via%3Dihub a study] showing that the end of a long-term relationship is one of the most traumatic events people will endure, second only to the death of a spouse or a child. That seems about right to me. This trauma leads people to do and say things that they'd never do under other circumstances. I've seen people behave far more cruelly toward family members in family law and wills and estates cases than they would ever behave to anyone else, including an enemy. |
| + | Maybe this odd and unpleasant phenomenon is where the saying "familiarity breeds contempt" comes from. But perhaps there's another cause than simple familiarity. When spouses separate, particularly when they separate suddenly, they go through an awful transition &mdash from loving partners who would trust each other with their lives to adversaries pitted against each other — in the blink of an eye. That's hard. Understandably, the transition fosters mistrust, ill-will and suspicion among everyone involved. | ||
| + | It takes a big person to accomplish this transition with care and grace. Very few people have the conscious uncoupling Gwyneth Paltrow. | ||
==Resources and links== | ==Resources and links== | ||
Revision as of 00:04, 14 March 2020
The previous section in this chapter talked about the emotional aspects of separation, and how they can affect the choices we make to deal with the legal consequences of separation. The next section, "Separation and the Law on Separation", talks about those legal consequences in a lot more detail, but this section is first going to talk about the importance of good behaviour after separation.
Introduction
We have all sorts of social scripts about how people meet, fall in love, marry and start having children. You can't watch a Hugh Grant rom-com, walk past the supermarket greeting card aisle, or read one of the very fine novels published by Harlequin Enterprises ULC without have those scripts reinforced. What we don't have are scripts about how people separate. Yes, Hollywood has dabbled its toes in this plotline — Marriage Story and War of the Roses spring to mind — but these are fairly awful stories. What we don't have scripts about how people separate well.
In 1967, two psychologists, Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, published a study showing that the end of a long-term relationship is one of the most traumatic events people will endure, second only to the death of a spouse or a child. That seems about right to me. This trauma leads people to do and say things that they'd never do under other circumstances. I've seen people behave far more cruelly toward family members in family law and wills and estates cases than they would ever behave to anyone else, including an enemy.
Maybe this odd and unpleasant phenomenon is where the saying "familiarity breeds contempt" comes from. But perhaps there's another cause than simple familiarity. When spouses separate, particularly when they separate suddenly, they go through an awful transition &mdash from loving partners who would trust each other with their lives to adversaries pitted against each other — in the blink of an eye. That's hard. Understandably, the transition fosters mistrust, ill-will and suspicion among everyone involved.
It takes a big person to accomplish this transition with care and grace. Very few people have the conscious uncoupling Gwyneth Paltrow.
Resources and links
Legislation
Links
- Legal Services Society’s Family Law website's information page on Separation & Divorce
- Department of Justice's website "Divorce and Separation"
- BC Counsellors by Practice Area
- BC Association of Clinical Counsellors
- Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
| This information applies to British Columbia, Canada. Last reviewed for legal accuracy by JP Boyd, 13 March 2020. |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 JP Boyd on Family Law © John-Paul Boyd and Courthouse Libraries BC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada Licence.
|
