A VORBI DESPRE DIVORŢ: ASPECTE SENSIBILE, IMPLICAŢII EMOŢIONALE ŞI PARCURSURI EXISTENŢIALE

Abstract

This paper is an exploratory study that analyzes the narratives of divorced individuals and their interpretative repertoires used to explain whose fault it is when a breakdown of a relationship occurs. We were able to identify four types of discourse depending on the dominant discourse as to the assignment of guilt: Some of them say "I am guilty" even though they understand and talk about the role of their partner in ending up in a divorce, they tend to focus more on their personal responsibility for breaking the relationship. People who adopted the position "Both of us are guilty" proved to be more mature, more balanced and more likely to learn from their painful past. Their interviews revealed the following pattern of guilt explanation: "I used to do X (something bad), but he/she would do Y (something else equally bad)." The majority of the respondents uttered the following explanation «It’s him/her (the partner) who is guilty". Such people usually only blame the other person and almost never acknowledge their share of guilt. The prevailing explanation for guilt present in their speech is as follows: "He/she is X (something negative) and he/she has done Y (again something negative), so we ended up in a divorce". "You can see that I'm right" is the line of reasoning of the people who, besides putting all the blame on their partner, try to convince others that they have acted correctly.