Buchanan, Marcy C.; O'Hair, H. Dan; Becker, Jennifer A. H.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
This study investigated communication strategies used by divorced individuals who did not wish
their marriages to end (non-initiators). Participants were 270 divorced persons drawn from
divorce recovery and support groups and network sampling. An adaptation of Buss’s (1988)
taxonomy of partner retention tactics served to capture communication strategies of noninitiators
during marital dissolution. A factor analysis revealed that four disengagement
resistance strategies, in descending order of reported use—Commitment, Alignment, Negativity,
and Harm—are used by non-initiators during the process of marital dissolution.