Strategic Communication during Marital Relationship Dissolution: Disengagement Resistance Strategies

Abstract

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.

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