Decision to Divorce Includes Uncertainty, and Many People Change their Minds
They were a few steps shy of divorce, separated and working out child custody, when Rick DeRosia of Hartford, N.Y., realized he wasn't so sure he wanted to split up.
His 16-year marriage had been shaky before the separation in 2009, when he told his wife, Tina, he wanted out. Their son and daughter were 13 and 11. "There wasn't any one event," says DeRosia, 42. "It was several things over the years."
Divorce "was not really what I wanted," says Tina DeRosia, 38, but she thought he did. "I felt moving on was what I needed to do, but … should we try to do more? I thought about the effect it would have on my children."
The angst of such a major decision is very real. But little is known about how people actually decide — or why, like the DeRosias, they sometimes change their minds. New research offers the first inklings of understanding — and shows that there's uncertainty even among couples who have already filed for divorce.
