Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

Background: Divorce is a social reality and an unpredictable change to marital status. This study aimed to explain post-divorce life experience in divorcee women based on socio- structural paradigm.

Methods: This is a qualitative study using grounded theory to explore lived experiences of divorcee women. The study participants included 26 divorced, 3 of their friends, 1 lawyer, 5 workers from Imam Khomeini Relief Committee, 3 real states and 2 insurance workers. Data collected through structured interviews and were analyzed based on Strauss and Corbin method.

Results: After analyzing the experiences of participants in this study, the "social acceptance of women in post-divorce life" was revealed as a central concept. The social acceptance shows that acceptance of a woman in society will be interpreted based on her marital status. Experiences of the participant’s revealed five main categories "credibility, "social attitudes", "exclusion", "alienation” and "suspension". The subthemes were "support", "being divorced", "social inequality" and "nonself-efficiency", "social structures", "legal dysfunction", "injury for health", "rejection", "gender identity threat"," social identity threat", "to strengthen the intellectual base" and "isolation".

Conclusion: Following the divorce of a woman, many challenges encounters. The participants’ most important explored concerns were sex discrimination, isolation and exclusion in post-divorce life.