Separated wives, separated lives: Life stories of separated women

Abstract

There is a research gap on separated wives today as many of these women would rather not let their true status in marriage be made known. In order to bridge this gap, the present qualitative study was conducted by having interviewed six separated women via purposive sampling to explore their lived experiences of marital separation and the meaning they derived from the experience. It specifically looked for the causes of marital separation, challenges experienced after the separation, effects of separation on family relations, coping strategies employed after separation, lessons gained after the separation, similarities and differences of lived experiences of selected participants. Data gathered from interviews were analyzed using social constructionist epistemologic lens, theoretical perspective of interpretivism and transcendental phenomenological analysis method for its methodological approach in data analysis. Six central themes emerged in this study pertaining to the experiences of separate women namely: 1) Whys of being separated wives; 2) Trials and tribulations; 3) When the bond breaks; 4) Surviving after separating; 5) Lessons learned; and 6) Commonalities and Differences of Lived Experiences. As to the whys of being separated wives, the most prevalent cause of the separation is the husband. Specifically, it is the husband's infidelity, meddling family, husband's vices, husband's attitude, husband's money or unstable finances and abuse. As to Trials and tribulations, outcome of challenges experienced after separation were focused on relation between children and father which were wrought with fear, lack of closeness with the father, lack of father's presence, resentment toward's father, father seen as good for nothing and deprived by father. When the bond breaks, effects to marital separation on family relations centered on children affected wherein some developed cautiousness and fear to love, high level of maturity, matured thinking by accepting situation, avoided the idea to retaliate, became too rebellious, and traumatized. As to Surviving after separating, time was a main factor for coping in DABDA, everything became positive, pray and spent time looking for money, decided to go back home and work there, letting go and surviving without husband. As to Lessons learned, children were taken into consideration when finding someone new I will not marry him, don't marry too early, if we stayed together life would have been a mess, know him so well, accept whatever comes and if I stayed I'd be dead. Commonalities were found in the husband, relationship between children and father, children affected, time and children taken into consideration. And finally differences were found in the self, husband, family, community, culture, society, environment and world. These themes were then discussed in connection with theories of attachment, attribution and social exchange. It is hoped that this study provided an understanding of separated wives to give us insights on ways to strengthen families.