Evaluation of an Intervention Designed to Help Divorced Parents Forgive Their Ex-Spouse

Abstract

This study evaluated a 1-day workshop combined with postintervention journal writing designed to help divorced parents forgive their ex-spouse. Participants (N = 99) were randomly assigned to a workshop with gratitude journal condition (WG), the same workshop with daily events journal condition (WDE), or a wait-list comparison condition (WAIT). Participants completed measures of forgiveness, well-being, and parenting at pretest, posttest (i.e., after the workshop but prior to journaling), and 1-month follow-up (i.e., after the journaling). Consistent with hypotheses, forgiveness of an ex-spouse and dispositional forgiveness were positively related to coparenting, and forgiveness of an ex-spouse was related to better mental health. Participants assigned to WG improved more on situational and dispositional forgiveness as compared to other conditions. Contrary to hypotheses, participants in WG and WDE did not improve over time more than WAIT participants on mental health or parenting measures.

Keywords:

• divorce
• forgive
• forgiveness
• gratitude
• intervention
• parenting

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to the Fetzer Institute for providing generous funding for this project. We would also like to thank Samantha Savoy, Mila Woodfield, Samia Shaikh, Christina Hein, Sydney Weill, Kelsey Carson, Sara Kranser, and Liza Rimsky for their contributions to this project.