'The Karma Effect': Before, during and after divorce

• Published date: 07 January 2021
• Author: ALAN ROSENBAUM
• Date: 07 January 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

"The decision to get divorced," she writes, "is one of the most difficult decisions in life, and sometimes it takes years to make. One thing is certain. If you don't want to get divorced, don't threaten divorce."

Wolfner depicts a wide range of spousal behavior that has threatened, and in many cases, led to the dissolution of marriages, including jealousy, obsessive-compulsive behavior, infidelity, insecurity and abuse – both physical and mental. The stories of the couples whom she profiles attest to the difficulties inherent in the divorce process, some of which are natural extensions of the decision to separate and others that occur during the divorce process itself.

READING WOLFNER'S description of these cases sometimes feels like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion. The sheer cruelty that husbands and wives exhibit toward one another – both during the marriage and as part of the divorce process – is staggering, and the volume of incidents that Wolfner lists seems to be part of a never-ending cycle of unhappy marriages.

Yet, as the author explains, there are times when couples can overcome their differences. Wolfner describes a case of a bitter, short-tempered housewife, unhappy with her position in life, who daily subjected her husband to a stream of verbal abuse upon his return home from work. The couple's children assumed that most parents treated each other with the same contempt that her mother exhibited toward their father.

One day, their eldest daughter slept over at a friend's home and reported to her mother that her friend's parents actually liked each other and displayed affection toward one another. During her parents' next fight, their daughter demanded that her mother stop cursing her father. The mother responded, reports Wolfner, "You're just like your father. Go to your room." That unkind remark convinced the husband that a divorce was necessary.

Initially, he refused his wife's requests to reconsider. Still, at the negotiating meeting between the wife's lawyer and Wolfner, who represented the husband, the wife burst out in tears, admitted that she had belittled her husband out of insecurity, apologized for her actions and begged him to reconsider. The couple never returned to the divorce negotiating table, survived and saved their marriage. The husband credited the threat of divorce with his wife's promise to change her behavior.

ON THE other hand, the author describes another unhappy marriage, in which a neglectful wife...