“If He Were a Terrorist,You Would Have Caught Him Already”: The Experience of Divorce Denial Among Intimate Partner Violence Survivors

Divorce Denial as a Form of Separation Abuse

One of the most frequent responses IPV survivors encounter when sharing is “Why don’t you just leave the relationship?” (Ahrens et al., 2021; Peled et al., 2000). This reaction fails to consider the phenomenon of separation abuse (Mahoney, 1991), which is a different form of violence and power and control tactic that has been identified in the literature as used by spouses during, and after, separation (Adelman, 2000, 2017). For example, research has found instances of financial abuse (such as withholding financial support; Krigel & Benjamin, 2021), endangering the children, disrupting the mother's relationship with her children, and using physical or sexual violence against the former wife (Estefan et al., 2016; Rivera et al., 2012). This intersection of various types of abuse is a pervasive IPV manifestation, a cumulative abuse with traumatic, long-term, and multifaceted ramifications (Scott-Storey, 2011). Furthermore, given the long-term and persistent effects of abuse on the well-being of survivors, it is imperative to study not only recent abusive experiences but also abuse in the context and at the intersection of former abuse experiences (Scott-Storey, 2011). Since one distinctive type of separation abuse is the denial of divorce (Adelman, 2017), it is important to study it in the context of former IPV experience among IPV survivors.

Denial of divorce occurs when one side refuses to grant, or accept, a divorce. This can take the form of avoiding or delaying proceedings; asking for reconciliation to keep the family together, resulting in endless formal and informal mediation attempts or familial pressures that delay, or even terminate, divorce proceedings; or even fleeing the country, or disappearing (Adelman, 2000, 2017; Machtinger, 2018). This form of separation abuse is enabled by religious Jewish law that pertains to Jewish marriages in Israel and in Jewish communities worldwide (Machtinger, 2018). However, separation abuse may be also relevant in any mutual consent divorce regimes (Zion-Waldoks, 2022). This suggests that there is a need to explore IPV in broader social–political–economic contexts, as well as the larger forces that shape the lives of individuals, to prevent pathologizing the plight of victims or individualizing the “poor choices” they have made (Adelman, 2017; Krigel & Benjamin, 2021; Peled et al., 2000).

Specifically, Adelman (2000) coined the label the battering state regarding Israel, where cultural politics enables such statutory structural violence—since Jewish marriage and divorce legislation is regulated by the edicts of Orthodox Judaism, and marriage courts are managed exclusively by the rabbinical authorities (Adelman, 2000, 2017). Developed to protect women from abandonment, Jewish law requires that divorce be conducted by mutual consent, with both husband and wife agreeing of their own free will to divorce each other, resulting in the husband giving his wife a “bill of divorcement” and the woman accepting that bill. This stipulation makes it easy for the husband to deny his wife a divorce. In such instances, religious court judges can, and do, use various strategies to compel the husband to grant the divorce—such as incarceration, freezing his bank account, or even employing detective services to track him down anywhere in the world (Adelman, 2000). However, those restrictions are limited because according to Jewish law, the divorce must be granted voluntarily by the spouse to be regarded as valid. A divorce may be declared invalid if granted under duress or compulsion, as those forms of pressure may be considered inappropriately coercive (Halperin-Kaddari & Yadgar, 2010).

However, although the need for mutual consent pertains to both genders, its implementation is dramatically different for women than it is for men. If a man refuses to grant a divorce when his wife wishes to do so, it does not go ahead. Meanwhile, the wife cannot remarry, and if she becomes pregnant from another man, her child would be considered a mamzer (“bastard”), and he or she and his/her descendants for 10 generations would be excluded from participation in Jewish rituals, including marriage to other Jews (Adelman, 2000). In contrast, a Jewish man whose wife refuses to accept their divorce can get “marital relief” from religious court judges—namely, the right to marry another woman—and may even be granted religious protection against claims of bigamy (Adelman, 2017). Moreover—and far more common than receiving “marital relief” to marry another woman—a married Jewish man may live with, and have children with, another single woman, with few or no religious repercussions (Adelman, 2017).

Various solutions have been suggested to address the plight of divorce denial. One often discussed solution to the issue relates to the authority of the religious courts, under certain circumstances, to compel the husband to grant the divorce. While those religious courts have the power to do so, the threat of an invalid divorce makes them inclined only to recommend a divorce and to send the parties away for the negotiation. This may result in the husband extorting the wife into paying him money or relinquishing property rights and child support (that are regulated by civil courts) in return for granting her the divorce and her freedom (Halperin-Kaddari & Yadgar, 2010; Shmueli, 2015). Other religious solutions to the divorce denial—based on creative solutions drawn from ancient religious texts—have been established by Rabbi Emmanuel Rackman's court, which has issued divorces based on mekach ta’ut (a “mistaken marriage”), whereby the religious court declares that the woman would never have married her husband had she known he would act in an abusive manner. Other religious solutions involve annulling the marriage retroactively, thus obviating the need for a divorce. However, most contemporary Orthodox authorities, in both Israel and the diaspora, consider those solutions to be contrary to mainstream religious codes and thus invalid (Broyde, 2020).

Other solutions to divorce denial exist, based on legal contract legislation. One—invoked over the past two decades—involves filing a civil claim for tort for the harm caused by the divorce denial, which also helps equalize the bargaining power of the two parties (Shmueli, 2015). Another—used in the United States and Canada—is that the consensus is the use of prenuptial agreements that set out the divorce procedure, if and when applicable, including the timeline and the penalties for avoiding doing so (Broyde, 2020). However, although in the United States and elsewhere in the Jewish diaspora religious law does not determine personal civil status, women may procure a civil divorce but still be considered by Orthodox Jewish authorities to be married to her husband if he refuses to grant her a divorce. Thus, if she wishes to remarry within the Orthodox community, she may still suffer the consequences of divorce denial (Starr, 2017).

Although women, in general, are susceptible to the threats and implications of divorce denial, women survivors of IPV are particularly vulnerable to this sort of abuse, since divorce denial is a legal means by which an abusive spouse may coercively control his former partner, delay their separation, or punish her (Adelman, 2000, 2017; Starr, 2017). The lengthy, time-consuming, and costly process of divorce denial has been found to have several emotional, economic, spiritual, and social implications for women, irrespective of their IPV background (Adelman, 2000, 2017; Starr, 2017). Thus, considering the toll that IPV during the marriage has on survivors’ well-being, what are the implications of divorce denial on particularly vulnerable women, such as IPV survivors?

The Well-Being of IPV Survivors

Internationally, research has found that IPV heightens women's vulnerability to poor well-being. Many mental health concerns—including depression (e.g., Illangasekare et al., 2013) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Brown et al., 2015)—have been found to afflict women survivors. Specifically, research has indicated that women IPV survivors are three to five times more at risk of suffering depression, suicidal tendencies, PTSD, and substance abuse compared with non-IPV victims (Dekel et al., 2019; Dillon et al., 2013; Romito et al., 2005). Furthermore, even after violence desists and after separation, a history of IPV has been found to be associated with a wide range of other health problems—such as sleep disorder, migraines, and chronic back pain (Lindhorst & Beadnell, 2011; Scott-Storey, 2011). In addition to these health consequences of abuse, research also indicates that domestic violence (DV) is linked to job instability, financial stress, and financial dependency (Adams et al., 2013).

In addition to those objective consequences of IPV, a growing number of studies have conceptualized well-being more broadly, to include subjective perceptions of well-being—namely, people's evaluations of the quality of multiple aspects of their life and their cultural perspective (Diener & Suh, 2000). However, very little research has been done on the subjective well-being of the survivors of separation abuse.

Moreover, while previous studies have well established the association between IPV and psychological well-being, the mechanism behind that process is not well explored. The COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989; Hobfoll et al., 2003) provides a theoretical framework for understanding why, and how, the experience of divorce denial may adversely affect a woman's well-being.

The COR Theory

Hobfoll's COR theory (1989, 2012) has assumed greater significance in recent years in the study of interpersonal regulation and coping processes with stress.

COR lists a broad range of four main types of individual and environmental resources. The first is object resources—such as a home or a car—given their tangible role as protective factors against stress and trauma survival, or because of their status-giving potential for the owner. The second type is condition resources, which are defined as desired states of being—such as having a supportive social network, membership in organizations, or steady employment. Personal characteristics are the third type of resource and include attributes such as a positive attitude toward the world and a positive self-perception. The fourth resource type is energies—including time, money, and knowledge—which, despite their limited intrinsic value, can hasten the acquisition of other resources (Hobfoll, 1989). According to the COR model, those resources do not operate independently but are interrelated, such that psychological distress increases as resources are depleted in an effort to cope with the distress—a phenomenon that Hobfoll (2012) has dubbed resource caravans.

In the context of IPV, the availability of resources is critical to understanding its repercussions, since empirical research has found considerable support for COR theory, with greater resource loss in the wake of a trauma linked to worse psychosocial outcomes among survivors of child abuse (Lamoureux et al., 2012). Recently, in a COR-guided study of 147 female IPV survivors, Sauber and O’Brien (2020) found that the loss of financial, work, and interpersonal resources predicted posttraumatic stress, depression, and economic self-sufficiency.

Participants

The research sample consisted of 15 Hebrew-speaking Israeli women who self-identified as IPV survivors and who were, or have been, denied divorce for a period between 1 and 12 years. They ranged in age from 34 to 64 (M = 47). At the time of the interview, 12 of them had been granted a divorce, while the other three were still waiting for divorce. All participants were mothers with between one and 10 children; and all were Jewish, given that different rules apply to members of other religions in Israel such as Muslims and Christians. For example, unlike in Jewish law, Islamic court judges can, and do, dissolve a marriage after a husband has abandoned his wife, and Islamic religious law routinely allows a man to marry more than one wife, anyway, without the need to end an existing marriage (Adelman, 2017).

In terms of religiosity, three of the participants self-identified as “ultra-Orthodox” (the most devout Jewish group in Israel, in terms of beliefs, practice, and adherence to Jewish religious law and institutions). Nine participants self-identified as “religious” (also known as “modern Orthodox,” as they are integrated into modern society). Three participants self-identified as “secular” (i.e., nonobservant and favoring separation of religion and state). All participants were employed but varied in terms of economic status and education. Most (n = 11) had an academic education, three only had a high school diploma, and one had only an elementary school education.

Procedure

A purposive sampling technique was used for this study. Purposive sampling has been described as an intentional selection of individuals, who, based on specific characteristics, may be uniquely suited to provide insight or feedback on the research question (Patton, 2002). Further, in the purposive sampling strategy, a maximum-variation approach was used to recruit research participants of diverse characteristics, to capture the diversity of this phenomenon within a relatively small sample (Patton, 2002). To ensure the largest pool of prospective participants, we applied only one parameter—namely, Jewish women survivors of IPV who had been denied divorce for at least one year. Three recruitment methods were employed. First, a recruitment ad was published on social media, in forums dealing with issues related to divorce denial, in a bid to appeal to the wider general public. This yielded six participants. Second, we contacted the directors of NGOs and social services centers across the country that provide a variety of services (mostly legal-related) concerning advocacy for IPV and/or divorce denial. To ensure anonymity, we asked the professional staff at these centers to make the initial approach by email, with a brief description of the study's objective, to see if the women were willing to take part. This yielded another six participants. Third, this purposive sampling methodology was coupled with snowball sampling, to identify other potential participants. This resulted in other three participants.

Semistructured, face-to-face interviews were then conducted by the second author, at a venue of the participant's choosing (a room at the university, their home, or a coffee shop). The interview time ranged from 1 to 2.5 h. They were conducted as open conversations but guided by a series of open-ended questions designed to provide direction and to ensure that the same topics were covered with each participant. These questions first addressed the participant's motivation and decision-making regarding their divorce and whether there had been any signs of denial before the separation process. Next, the interviewer asked about the significance of divorce denial and its implications for the participants’ well-being (e.g., “What are the main challenges you experience as a divorce denial?” “How has divorce denial affected your life domains?”). After obtaining the participants’ consent, the interviews were recorded, then transcribed verbatim, and translated into English for this paper, in line with recommendations for cross-language qualitative research (Squires, 2009). Thematic saturation was determined once it became apparent that no new information was emerging (Guest et al., 2006).

Data Analysis and Quality Criteria

Data collection and analysis were conducted by means of the interpretative phenomenological analysis method, which was chosen for its flexibility, as it enables its users to examine new areas (Smith et al., 2009), such as divorce denial. The analysis coding team consisted of all the authors. The analysis began with the second author reading the transcripts of all the interviews and noting her observations about their content, as she familiarized herself with the participants’ narratives. In the second stage, all members of the coding team converted these notes into identified themes that reflected the participants’ accounts and the team members’ interpretations of them, while highlighting their differences and common features, such as religiosity. Next, in a more focused analysis, the coding team looked for links between the themes in each case and then refined these themes to a higher level of abstraction, to group them into superordinate themes (Smith et al., 2009). The final stage involved an iterative process of cross-case analysis—resulting in themes presented in a narrative format, with supporting extracts.

Throughout the study, scrupulous care was taken to maintain the standards of quality of qualitative research (Lincoln & Guba, 1999). First, to enhance the study's credibility, we sought to establish a pleasant atmosphere during the interview that allowed participants to speak freely. Second, the transferability of the results was supported by a detailed description of the methodology and thick descriptions of the participants’ points of view. To address sensitivity to context, we strove to maintain vigilant awareness of our views and to identify any preconceived beliefs about IPV, religious, and gender issues that we may have brought to the interview and its analysis. In the preliminary thematic analysis and peer-debriefing process, differences between the researchers’ coding and theme identifications were discussed, until consensus was reached.

Ethical Standards

The study was approved by the (deleted for review) Institutional Review Board and met accepted ethical benchmarks for qualitative studies with a vulnerable population (Peled & Leichtentritt, 2002). Given this vulnerability, the importance of voluntary consent was emphasized before and during the interviews, and participants were assured that they could stop the interview at any point of their choosing and that their confidentiality would be fully maintained. They were also given the option to contact the interviewer with any concerns they might have about the interview topics and a chance to receive a copy of the findings and comment on them. Finally, they were also assured by the first author of immediate professional support after the interviews and/or referral to IPV consultation services, if necessary.

Loss of Sense of Autonomy and Spiritual Resources: Impeded Decision-Making, Relevance of Religious Edicts, and Undermined Spirituality

According to the participants’ accounts, one of the core experiences of the lived experience of divorce denial is the experience of loss of autonomy and self-efficacy. This was described as beginning in a predivorce denial experience—years of recognizing the abuse and the need to end the marriage but avoiding doing so, due to the spouse's threats of divorce denial. During this time, the divorce denial took the form of indirect threats and intimidations by the abusive spouse as another means of inflicting coercive control, thereby limiting the woman's ability to end the marriage. Specifically, the participants described how they endured abuse and were deterred from asking for a divorce, for fear of losing capabilities such as the ability to have children (by having the divorce withheld beyond their child-bearing age). Thus, the threat of divorce denial was a factor in the participants’ decision-making and risk assessment of the separation, due to the risks involved with divorce denial. For example, Sarah described how she hesitated for 2 years to ask for a divorce, for fear of divorce denial, which would prolong her abuse indefinitely:

I was confused as to whether to go for a reconciliation process or divorce. It went on for the two most nightmarish years of my life […] He would quietly whisper in my ear, but with such venom: “You’ll never get a divorce from me—this is how your whole life will look like!”

During the divorce denial phase, the participants noted that the sense of loss of autonomy was the main form in which they felt deprived of liberty. Terms such as “cage” and “imprisonment” cropped up repeatedly in their accounts. For example, Osnat experienced the divorce denial as a covert form of abuse, which she could do nothing about:

You just feel imprisoned. I sometimes said to myself “It's like you have some kind of transparent cage around you—and you have no way out of it!”

Participants also described how they gradually lost belief in their ability to influence their life events, since the divorce denial felt like an extension of the abusive spouse's control that they had experienced during their marriage, which they had sought to escape by divorce. As Hagit put it:

The divorce denial is a continuation of his control over me. It's the continuation of the violence […] The violent experience is a collection of things—some of which are visible, and some are not […] He kept telling me: “You have two ways of doing things: Do it my way, or my way.”

The women's loss of autonomy and difficulty in understanding why religious commandments were relevant to their present life amplified the distress that they felt because of the divorce denial. For example, Neta described how the contradiction between her self-perception as a strong, independent woman and her position as a divorce-denied woman affected her well-being, because of the frustration and sense of helplessness that the divorce denial entailed:

I’m a secular person with financial independence—a mature woman, not twenty years old, with an opinion and a backbone—but I’m in prison! In the hands of someone who isn’t my superior in any way—just because he's a man! And it's absurd!

One of the specific sources of the participants’ sense of loss of autonomy due to the divorce denial is the subordinate position of women in marriage under the tenets of Jewish religious law and norms. They described being denied a divorce as involving a loss of human sense of dignity. As Shira pointed out:

Women are in prison! […] A man who sleeps with another woman isn’t forbidden […] The woman becomes an object because she was bought, she isn’t a person in this world […] It's [like] someone is being sold! A slave! The age of slavery is still here!

Another manifestation of the loss of autonomy felt by the participants due to the divorce denial was the loss of their sense of predictability of the world, due to their despair and loss of hope in the interminable limbo of divorce denial. For example, Hagit noted the emptiness and loss of meaning from her life due to the divorce denial and the sense that her life was put “on hold” as she lived from one religious court hearing to the next:

Any discussion in the rabbinical court […] It's this hope—will it happen today?’ No! You need a week just to recover; a week later there's another discussion […] I should be getting on with my life, I should be raising the children, to behave, as usual, to continue to work—yes? To keep living! You feel like you’re not really alive, time passes only to get to the next discussion.

The findings from these accounts also revealed that during divorce denial there were significant changes in the participants’ spiritual outlook as a result of the injustice they suffered by the divorce denial. Some of them described how the divorce denial adversely affected their spiritual beliefs, since they felt that the religious court judges were misinterpreting the Jewish religious commandments regarding divorce denial—and that this, in turn, was disrespectful of God. As Gloria put it:

The fact that the religious court discussions are conducted in a horrible way has nothing to do with my faith. It is degrading for God […] It hurts me, because I’m religious, and I believe in God.

Others described the harm to their spiritual life, as they associated the divorce denial with spiritual punishment. For example, Sarah described the changes in her spiritual beliefs—both in terms of her religious practice and her feelings toward God:

[Before the denial] I dressed much more modestly [according to religious practice] […] I wore a head covering […] but after the denial, I dared [to wear other clothes] […] Because if I was so pious and did only what I was supposed to, and still don’t get a divorce […] There are times when I’m very angry at God.

The implicit assumption in Sarah's account is that being denied a divorce is a mark of divine punishment—which makes her angry at God, as it is an affront to her spiritual beliefs and diminishes her spiritual self-worth.

Other study participants also spoke of how their Jewish religious beliefs and observance were impaired as a result of their prolonged divorce denial. For example, Shira described how she underwent an extreme change in religious and spiritual outlook and practice as a result—from a conservative ultra-Orthodox lifestyle to outright apostasy with regard to the Jewish religion and religion in general:

That entire world [of religion] doesn’t exist for me anymore […] Thanks for getting rid of it! I don’t wish religion on my children. It ruined my life […] I don’t fast on Yom Kippur. I’ve lost all my faith. […] If he [her husband] asks me for something, or suddenly threatens me, I travel on the Sabbath.

Even for the secular women among the study participants, who do not rely on any religious institution to approve their intimate partners, the divorce denial was described as a drain on their spiritual resources. They described the need for a divorce because of the spiritual meaning they ascribed to the wedding ceremony and because of the spiritual distress they felt without a formal divorce. As Neta put it:

I’m not a religious person—but the whole ceremony itself has great significance [… It's a] mystical ceremony [… and] spiritual, and everything you do in life affects everything else […]. I’m in a relationship that's in full view on social media […] But you [just] want […] to be spiritually free—nothing more.

Loss of Interpersonal Relationships: Stigmatization and Threatening Prospects of Motherhood

A second aspect of the lived experience of divorce denial that the participants described as inflicting significant and often irreversible harm to their social and intimate life—since it perpetuated social isolation, created barriers in relationship building, and exacerbated their family and individual stress—was the stigmatizing label of being denied a divorce. As Osnat pointed out, this was thought to be worse than being divorced:

People treat you differently […] No one thinks that being divorced is a flattering title […] It's like [being denied divorce] is the lowest of the low—you’re nothing! […] You’re officially married—but you’re not.

Being denied divorce was described by the participants as being stuck in limbo: unable to get on with one's intimate life due to loss of opportunities for a relationship—resulting in their social isolation. For example, Ronit waited over 10 years for her husband to grant her divorce, during which time she lost more than one opportunity to have an intimate partner, as well as other social bonds—which continued even after she got the divorce, due to her age:

A terrible period […] a social struggle […] I was cut off from everyone, from all my surroundings […] My social life is over—just over—and it hasn’t recovered to this day: I was between forty and fifty by the time I got the divorce. When I told men I was not divorced, they stopped calling—no one contacted me, and it's harder to socialize and get into a relationship at the age of fifty.

Another resource loss described by the participants concerned their motherhood status. In the predivorce phase, the spouses used the threat of divorce denial to intimidate them into not asking for a divorce, for fear of jeopardizing their ability to have (more) children. For example, when Yael sought to separate and start divorce proceedings, her husband couldn’t bear the thought that she might start a new relationship, so he threatened her with divorce denial beyond her child-bearing age: “There was a stage where the statements were very very clear. “You will never see a divorce from me!”; “You’d better freeze your eggs”; “If you’re not with me—you won’t be with anyone!”; “You’ll stay my wife forever!”

Moreover, the interminable divorce denial phase was described as undermining their ability to parent their existing children, by sapping their energy and compromising their ability to function well as mothers and as a source of strength and security for their children. As Yael put it:

[After] every court hearing, where you come out with a nervous breakdown, I lay in bed for a few days […] It's very hard, it takes a heck of a lot out of you, and in front of the children. […] The children see a broken mother—a mother who is busy on the phone, a mother who has not been home for half a day […] who just doesn’t function.

Even after they were finally granted the divorce, some participants said their chances of getting remarried were irretrievably reduced, because they were approaching, or past, child-bearing age. Such was the case with Tamar, who after many years of divorce denial managed to remarry but could not have any more children in this new relationship, as she was past child-bearing age:

[I got the divorce] only when I reached a certain age, when I could no longer have children and that's also what he wanted […] he wanted to destroy my life because I would never have another child […] I love children very much; I love large families.

Loss of Institutional Resources: Mistrust of Religious Courts, and the State as Protector

Another aspect of the lived experience of divorce denial that shaped the participants’ well-being concerned their loss of trust in the religious courts and the Israeli state as a protector of its citizens’ rights, because of the powers it grants the religious courts. This was due to how the religious courts were perceived to operate—in terms of the cynical, disrespectful, and judgmental attitude toward them during the divorce hearings which, as Shira described, was highly distressful:

I lost trust in them […] the hearings were held with the judges full of laughter and contempt […] They started mocking me and saying, “We didn’t marry him—you married him, you’re to blame!’ […] It's true! I made a mistake; I’ve come to you to save me! It's none of your business to judge me for marrying him.

Another example of the religious courts’ conduct that caused many participants to lose their trust and respect for the religious authorities, which had been a central and significant resource for them in the past, was the lack of transparency of the proceedings. As Ronit pointed out:

My naivety in believing that respect for rabbis was important—has taken a big hit since then. [In fact], I was so disappointed by what I saw there […] I believe that they [the judges] also received a bribe in our case […] My belief in that institution is [now] very weak—very.

This loss of trust also translated into an intention to avoid any future use of religious services. As Hagit put it:

There's no chance that I will go there [to the religious courts] ever again […] Anyone who wants to marry me […] it won’t be through the religious courts.

The participants felt that the religious institutions and authorities were complicit with their spouses’ abuse by providing him with the means to coercively control them—rather than use its power to dissolve a clearly abusive marriage. Specifically, the participants expected the religious courts to find creative ways to end their entrapment. Michal cited the example of courts annulling marriages: “In the US, they use mekach ta’ut (mistaken marriage) to annul marriages … but that's not valid here.” In another example, Neta who at the time of the interview was still waiting for a divorce thought that the evidence of abuse she had experienced would be sufficient grounds for her marriage being annulled. As she put it: “Enough! Release me! […] [You] the religious courts are denying [my divorce] even more than him!” In the case of Rennea, her husband had abandoned her, and despite the evidence of the abuse she had experienced, which she felt was sufficient grounds for her to be granted a divorce unilaterally, she felt that instead of protecting her by finding a creative way to dissolve the marriage, the judges placed the burden of proof on her for doing so. This amplified her sense of being victimized yet again, as she likened her situation to a family context:

They didn’t rule that he should grant a divorce, even after he ran away […] The court made my life hell […] They told my lawyer to look for legal grounds for dissolving the marriage […] If it was your daughter or granddaughter, would you behave like that? You would have gone to the ends of the earth to find legal grounds.

The participants described how such protracted legal proceedings and arbitrary, meaningless, inconclusive, and time-wasting court hearings felt like an assault on their person. As Tiferet put it: “Every day they don’t allow a divorce, another soul is destroyed!”

The participants specifically highlighted the religious judges’ deliberate refusal to use their authority to grant a divorce as draining, harmful, and ultimately unprofessional—as it was entirely uncalled for and caused the women to feel that they were simply wasting their time. As Tehila described it:

They acted as though it was out of their hands. They had a lot of power, and there were a lot of hearings, but nothing happened! […] They could have made this nightmare much shorter […] Sanction the guy! Why does it have to take another year? Every day that passes is a nightmare!

The participants also accused the state authorities of granting the religious courts the exclusive authority over all matters of Jewish marriage and for reneging on its commitment to protect its citizens’ bodily integrity, moral autonomy, dignity, and human rights; for its blinkered focus on national security issues; and for only intervening in cases of severe physical harm. Vareli, for example, castigated the rabbinical courts and the Israeli state authorities for failing to stop her husband's abuse and for giving him the ability to control her life. In other instances of violence, she pointed out, the state has demonstrated it is fully capable of protecting its citizens:

If he were a murderer, or a rapist, or a terrorist, you would have found him. Treat the root of the problem—don’t empower it! The fact that the husbands see that it [divorce denial] is possible, they will do it. My husband knew how much I needed the divorce, that I couldn’t continue my life without it, so he demanded a lot, knowing the court wouldn’t expedite it.

This loss of trust in authorities meant that the participants no longer felt safe or secure; some described feeling defenseless and without the protection they are entitled to as citizens. Specifically, they felt that this was due to the law's failure to recognize that divorce denial is itself a form of abuse, despite the damage it entails to human dignity and liberty. As Orly pointed out:

The police don’t see divorce denial as a criminal act—and that's why they’re doing nothing. I think it should be criminal under the Constitution, because even in the Constitution it says to [protect] human dignity and liberty.

The refusal of state authorities to recognize that divorce denial causes prolonged distress to female spouses, due to their wasted time and mental energy in dealing with the endless bureaucratic difficulties involved with the unrecognized status of being “denied divorce.” As Michal described it:

Every time you go somewhere and are asked, “What is your [marital] status?” “I am ‘denied divorce’.” “There's no such thing.” If there was such a status—of being denied a divorce, […] in the forms, instead of [just] “Single” or “Divorced,” it would solve a lot of problems—because every time you have to talk about it […] it hurts.

Loss of Financial Resources: Disruption to Employment and Divorce Extortion

The final aspect of the experience of divorce denial concerned the tangible loss of financial resources, as it often took an economic and employment toll on the survivors and had various adverse effects on their well-being. This financial loss intersected with other abusive tactics used by the spouse—such as withholding financial support—and heightened the stress placed upon the participants. First, in the predivorce stage, their abusive partner's threat of divorce denial and a messy divorce—with all the financial costs and losses that would entail—shaped their decision to avoid or to put off the divorce as much as possible, to ensure they had enough resources to be financially independent during and after the divorce phase. As Neta explained:

The quarrels only got worse, and shouting, and swearing, and financial violence […] You live in your private hell […] and until you’re financially independent you can[’t] file for divorce, [because] you know very well that if you divorce him, you will not receive a penny in alimony.

Second, the protracted divorce proceedings enabled the abusers not only to avoid paying alimony but to run up enormous debts that they left with the participants. Those practices intersected with the divorce denial practice; the participants felt these behaviors were a deliberate control tactic by their spouses to extend the abuse they experienced during their marriage. As Osnat pointed out:

He didn’t pay [alimony]—that's also part of his [abusive] conduct […] There were times when the financial situation was dire: he left behind debts that I couldn’t pay. With my single salary, I have to pay the lawyer, raise the children on my own […] and spend money on emotional therapy for the children.

Another aspect of financial loss that the participants described as determining their well-being was the indirect loss of financial resources caused by the endless court hearings—due to taking time off work and paying for childcare and transportation and for legal representation. The longer the divorce proceedings dragged on, the more this resource drain depleted their financial resources—to the point where it added to their emotional distress. Hagit, for example, described how the endless court hearings resulted in such severe and painful financial hardship for her that it had profound emotional effects that were tantamount to covert abuse:

No one understands that coming to the court every two weeks is a day that I lose money! I never know when I start there and when I finish. So, I put on a babysitter, I pay her money as well! I’m traveling—it's all money! […] It's a crazy state of survival most of the time […] It's very painful and very complex for women who don’t have money.

Moreover, as the denial period went on and the need for legal representation continued, the financial damage and distress were described as exacerbating the participants’ vulnerability to further resource loss. Some of them described how their financial hardship reduced them to severe poverty, which was cynically exploited by the spouse as a tool against them in the courts because it meant that they could no longer afford to have legal representation—resulting in further resource loss. Ronit, for example, who was denied divorce for about 8 years, described how as time went on, her inability to afford legal representation resulted in an inferior divorce settlement: “I couldn’t take her [my lawyer, with me] to the courts anymore—I had nothing to eat, I spent a fortune at the court [… so] I got a very bad settlement.”

As the protracted legal process continued, the participants’ vulnerability to distress meant that their well-being deteriorated even further. Their desperation to end the marriage at any price was used by the abuser to secure a more favorable divorce settlement for himself as a condition for granting a divorce. This form of divorce extortion was not only financially damaging to the women but left them feeling humiliated and damaged their sense of self-dignity. As Hagit put it:

I bought my divorce […] I gave up alimony […] I felt more humiliated buying my divorce than by the divorce ceremony itself […] It's a feeling that he is your ba’al [Hebrew for “husband” and “owner”], in the sense that he owns you, and he is the one who should release you, with his consent, and at his decision, and at the time it suits him.

Study Strengths and Limitations

This exploratory study contributes to the theoretical conceptualization of abuse separation in three important respects. First, its findings extend previous research by indicating that divorce denial is a form of IPV that is currently not represented in the Power and Control Wheel model (Pence & Paymar, 1993) that covers many aspects of abuse. Second, applying the COR model to the context of separation abuse sheds light on multiple intersecting losses experienced by survivors of IPV as mechanisms that undermine their well-being—be they before, during, or after IPV—and continue to impede their reacquisition of these resources long after. Last, given the sociocultural setting of Israel, the study also shows the role of survivors’ expectation and relations with the state. This perspective highlights how when state authorities are perceived to fail to adequately recognize and address IPV regarding economic abuse (e.g., Littwin, 2012), they too perceived to be guilty of perpetrating IPV. This is true in any national context—especially in the era of globalization and multinational and multiethnic marriage laws. In addition, the COR model, as an integrated framework that explores various resource loss in various configurations (Hobfoll, 1989), can serve as a framework to study implications of other IPV such as economic abuse as it outlines a broader picture of the ramifications.

It is important to note several limitations of the present study. First, the participants were fairly similar to one another—all being Jewish, most from a religious or observant background, and mothers of children. This limits the generalizability of the study's findings for survivors with other attributes. Accordingly, future research should examine survivors of different and varying demographic factors, such as the level of religiosity and among divorce denial women who were not subjected to IPV before. In the Israeli context, specifically, particular attention should be given to the plight of Arab Israeli survivors of IPV, considering their cultural characteristics, who may be more vulnerable to postseparation violence given the greater likelihood that they might lose custody over their young children (Adelman, 2017). Second, the self-selected nature of the current sample may have excluded those with more extreme positive or negative separation experiences. Future studies, therefore, should be directed at gaining a more representative picture of the divorce denial experience. Third, given that in the present study we relied on self-reporting, our findings may be circumscribed by social desirability and recall bias. Further quantitative research is needed to develop valid measures to assess the impact of divorce denial on the well-being of survivors.

Clinical and Policy Implications

The results of the present study may have implications for clinicians in terms of the appropriate guidance to be provided to IPV survivors who are victims of separation abuse. The conceptual understanding of the role of resource loss in shaping the well-being of survivors may help in the design of more effective interventions or be incorporated into interventions that already have been proven to be effective in cases of IPV. This might include a standardized assessment of resource loss, to further understand mechanisms of action and to provide self-management skills that help in restoring lost resources. For example, the fact that the loss of interpersonal and institutional resources is interlinked may indicate the need for a support group for women who are denied divorce. The study's findings regarding the financial losses incurred by former IPV victims indicate the need to expand the resources available to such women—including opportunities for professional development, education, and housing. These would help them make an informed decision regarding separation, considering the threat of divorce denial, and would mitigate the harm to their well-being should that indeed occur. In addition, given the spiritual losses found in the present study and given the role of spirituality in women's recovery (Anderson et al., 2012), interventions should be designed to address such losses. At the policy level, the study's findings underscore the call for recognition and effective response to divorce denial as a form of separation abuse that reflects not only the failure of the state to adequately recognize and address IPV but also the survivors’ perception that the state is actively complicit in the perpetration of IPV, given the policies and institutional state practices that expose women to prolonged separation abuse. Specifically, there is a need to strengthen the “divorced for civil needs” trend (Halperin-Kaddari & Shmueli, 2020) and bring this trend to the acknowledgment of women whose divorce has been denied, thus mitigating the loss of institutional resources and their psychological ramifications.

Another conclusion from the present study is that proactive advocacy and campaigns that target the structural causes of separation abuse should be encouraged. This would raise the awareness of the vulnerability of every married woman to this type of abuse and available solutions, such as prenuptial agreements that detail divorce proceedings should these be applicable, including timelines and penalties for obstruction (Broyde, 2020). In addition, the present study's findings regarding the various types of harm incurred by IPV victims before, during, and after divorce denial can help determine the levels of compensation; they should be awarded for nonpecuniary harms in civil claims over divorce denial. Currently, there is no guidance in the law as to how such compensation should be calculated, and such a formula must be developed, based on sound theoretical grounds (Shmueli, 2015). Solutions such as civil tort claims and prenuptial agreements may serve as an ad hoc tool to address the gaps in family law (Shmueli, 2015), but the present study's findings highlight the need for legislation that eliminates the current power inequalities between Jewish men and women in Israel. Such legal innovations—both civil and religious—may in the future limit the scope and tactics available to Jewish men in Israel and the diaspora to abuse their female partners after separation.