2024 EDITION — REBUILDERS INTERNATIONAL

The State of Divorce Recovery 2024

What 1,301 people going through divorce told us about where they actually were.

All figures drawn from Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale assessments completed during calendar year 2024. Each person counted once, at their first assessment. Released September 2026 alongside the 2025 edition. Free to cite with attribution.

Who seeks divorce recovery

n = 1,285.

Half were in the middle of proceedings. Only three in ten had finished. Material written for life after divorce reaches the smallest of the three groups.

n = 1,289. Self-reported. 68% of respondents were women.

n = 1,294.

Two in five had been married more than twenty-one years, and seven in ten more than a decade. The shortest marriages were the smallest group.

Adjustment norms for 2024

n = 1,292.

n = 1,292. Higher indicates better adjustment throughout.

Anger and trust sit lowest, as they do in every year we have measured. Grief is close behind. These three are where people arrive worst off, and they are the areas least helped by time.

Reference norms by situation

A client benchmarked against everyone is barely useful. Benchmarked against people in the same position, the comparison becomes clinically meaningful.

Out of 500, with population percentile. Cell sizes 90 to 336.

The spread across those six cells is 84 points — the same score means something quite different depending which one a person is in.

The gap between being left and leaving

People who were left scored a median of 281. People who ended the relationship scored 334. A 53-point gap.

Almost the entire gap is one thing: whether you have let go yet.

Someone who ends a relationship begins detaching before they leave, so they arrive with that work largely done. On anger they are identical, and on trust nearly so. Leaving is not easier — it is further along on one dimension.

Who has the hardest time

Stay-at-home parents scored 71 points below people in managerial roles and 53 below the overall median — the lowest of any group we measure. The divorce that removes a partner also removes the adult contact that came with them, and there is no workplace to absorb the difference.

What it actually feels like

Beneath the scores are a hundred statements people agree or disagree with. Some of the responses are worth reporting on their own.

n = 1,295.

Two in three were lonely. Only two in five could see a future.

What this report does not show

• Not a random sample of divorcing adults. Everyone here sought out a divorce recovery assessment. These findings describe people looking for help.

• Self-reported on a single instrument, with no independent clinician rating.

• Who ended the relationship is self-reported, and accounts routinely differ between the two people in a marriage.

• Monthly counts reflect our own activity and are not a measure of divorce rates.

• Trust readings rest on a narrow base — one subscale worth 40 of 500 points.

Full detail on instruments, population and method is on the methodology page at rebuildersinternational.com/research/methodology

This edition was compiled and released in September 2026, alongside the 2025 edition, as the first two reports in an annual series. It was not published during 2024.

What came next

The 2025 edition shows adjustment falling further — from an index of 61.6 in 2024 to 59.2 in 2025, with five of six areas declining. The Divorce Recovery Index now publishes monthly.

Suggested citation

Rebuilders International. The State of Divorce Recovery 2024. Released September 2026. https://rebuildersinternational.com/post/state-of-divorce-recovery-2024

About Rebuilders International

Rebuilders International trains mental health professionals and divorce coaches in the Rebuilding method, developed by Dr. Bruce Fisher over more than forty years. Individuals going through divorce can find programs, classes and a free self-assessment at rebuilders.net.