Parents Making Meaning of High-Conflict Divorce

Abstract

This article reports on the findings of an empirical study conducted with 25 parents in British Columbia, Canada, who experienced a high-conflict divorce and later came to see the experience as having been transformative despite the difficulties they faced. While considerable research and policy initiatives frame high-conflict divorce as an individual and interpersonal problem, there is less reference to the fact that these disputes occur in a social, political, and legal context that also changes over time and across generations. There has been little research examining long-term divorce outcomes, and no research to date examining how mothers and fathers who experienced a high-conflict divorce process overcome their difficulties and make meaning of their experiences retrospectively. This interdisciplinary study starts to fill these gaps. Following an overview of the study findings, the article highlights common themes arising from parents' narratives with a particular focus on agency, voice, and meaning-making across the life course. I argue that by taking a long view of the challenges participants faced, it is possible to move away from decontextualised understandings of high-conflict divorce.