‘No one cares because ultimately, you’re an adult’ Exploring emerging adults’ emotional adjustment following their parents’ divorce. An interpretative phenomenological analysis. 

Abstract

Research into emerging adults’ experiences of parental divorce has tended to focus on the impacts on family dynamics, whereas research focusing on the emotional experience itself is less common. Previous research has established that the experience of parental divorce during emerging adulthood can be impactful as one’s emerging adulthood is potentially a turbulent time developmentally.  However, little is known about how emerging adults understand their experiences and their emotional adjustment following this. Exploring how people make sense of their experiences will add an important in-depth perspective to the literature. This study explores six young adults’ experiences of parental divorce during their emerging adulthood in the United Kingdom (UK). Semi-structured interviews were conducted, following which transcripts were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Three Group Experiential Themes emerged: Becoming Untethered; being all at sea, Weathering the Storm; a never-ending struggle, and Living in a Broken Boat; after the storm. The findings indicate deep and complex nuance in the emotional experience of emerging adults, and the impacts this has on their lives in the present. These experiences not only impacted participants’ present lives but also their past memories which had implications for the fundamental assumptions that they had come to have of themselves and their identities. Lastly, the isolation of the experience, with no friends’ experiences, literature, or popular media, made this experience outside of the public eye. Therefore, the present, past, and future impacted their ability to emotionally adjust. It is proposed that this research will be of value to an emerging adult hearing others’ experiences as well as aid in improving the support offered to emerging adults by clinicians. Recommendations for future research are also presented

Date of Award	12 Mar 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Roehampton
Supervisor	Onel Brooks (Director of Studies) & Rosemary Rizq (Co-Supervisor)