| link = [http://www.familylaw.lss.bc.ca/legal_issues/divorceBasics.php Divorce and Separation basics]
}}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==
xWe 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 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 commonly 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 to family members in family law and wills and estates cases than they would ever behave to anyone else.
==Resources and links==