Black Men And Divorce: Implications For Culturally Competent Practice

Minority Health Today, July, 2000 by Erma Jean Lawson, Tanya L. Sharpe

Additionally, black men may be constricted by the traditional male gender role, which discourages them from sharing their pain with others, increasing their post-divorce distress. According to Majors and Billson, [28] the socialization of black males may produce a coping style in which black men fail to acknowledge the personal vulnerability associated with divorce. Consequently, they may repress such feelings by engaging in self-destructive behaviors.

Divorce may be especially traumatic for black men because of the pain associated with negative cultural stereotyping. For example, working/middle-class black men may perceive that being in a stable marriage might counteract the cultural stereotype that black men often abdicate their family responsibilities.

A case in point was Edsel, a 49-year-old business executive who progressed from the ghetto of Harlem, New York, to earning $50 000 annually. He believed that having a stable marriage elevated his social identity and contradicted the negative images of black men. He explained: "A stable marriage is a plus for a black man in private industry because few people expect a black man to be a family man. Most people see a black man as a womanizer or as having a wandering eye. I wanted to prove to society that I was different. I wanted to have a successful career and a good marriage."

With fierceness, Douglass noted: "The stereotype is that a black man does not want to take responsibility for his family."

Custody Stressors

Approximately 90% of men reported that custody was a major post-divorce stressor. This often triggered depression.

Divorce changes the structure of fathering. First, there are no norms for non-custodial fathering. Thus, one stressor is an ambivalent post-divorce fathering role. Fathers often feel out of touch with their children because contact on a weekly basis or every other weekend does not provide for the same relationship with children as does living in the same household. Consequently, non-custodial fathers experience an extreme sense of loss, and this feeling exacerbates post-divorce distress.

Moreover, visitation was problematic for both biological fathers and stepfathers. One issue involved antagonistic relationships with former spouses that resulted in decreased father-child interactions. Post-marital conflicts often centered on fathers' visitation rights. Some former spouses linked nonpayment of child support to fathers' visitation rights, resulting in some fathers being denied access to their children. Ironically, those fathers who are more emotionally involved with their children before divorce tend to visit their children less often. [29] Evidence suggests that this trend also applies to stepfathers and men in cohabitation relationships. [30]

One-Year Follow-Up

One year after data collection, the men reported a number of tragedies and family calamities. Most of the men (85%) reported stress-related conditions, including ulcers, colitis, recurrent pneumonia, and joint pain. Approximately 15% of the sample had been in a serious car accident that resulted in physiological problems and/or chronic illness. One fifth of the men had been diagnosed with hypertension and 2 men had developed diabetes. One respondent's ex-wife had developed breast cancer. Another man's ex-wife had had 2 work-related accidents, and one man had experienced the death of his ex-wife.