Moving beyond the specific hypothesis, our study is not able to address
the general issue of whether people’s reports represent the real causes of
marital breakdown or merely post hoc reconstructions of events (Hopper,
1993). There may be some truth in both interpretations.Women who left
abusive husbands, for example, may be able to give straightforward and
unambiguous answers to this question—answers that correspond closely
to objective events. Other people, however, may convince themselves that
they were not to blame even when most objective observers would conclude
otherwise. Nevertheless, because people’s subjective accounts are
bound up with their postdivorce adjustment, these accounts are worth
studying in their own right. Indeed, helping people to cognitively reconstruct
the cause of the divorce may be a useful therapeutic intervention.