The Parental Divorce Transition:

The Double ABC-X Model of family stress was used to develop a theoretical model of the parental divorce transition. Interview data from 125 former spouses with children were analyzed to investigate the relationship between divorce-related stressors and post divorce well-being. Divorce-related stressors included economic, housing, legal, parent-child, and former spouse components. Well-being included self-esteem, parenting satisfaction, and economic well-being. Using multivariate regression the results indicated that parents' divorce transition was characterized by major role shifts. For custodial mothers, economic well-being correlated negatively with legal stressors. Other significant independent variables were income during marriage, employment, education, number of children, and her remarriage. For noncustodial fathers, parenting satisfaction was correlated negatively with legal and parent-child stressors.