Motherhood Experience of Divorced Women on the Custody of their Children-A Phenomenological Study-

Marriage and having a family is along with consequences for each person and it provides the ground for developing identity and stability in his life. However, the separation of couples leads to various problems. This issue is along with far more complicated problems for women. The objective of this study is the better understanding of motherhood experiences of divorced women on the custody of their children. The present research is considered a qualitative kind and it has been done through survey method. The data collection was done through the interview and at the end; it has been conversed with 20 women via the purposeful sampling. It was generally achieved four kinds of experiences with the themes of “suspension in womanly sexual identity”, “lack of achievement in motherhood sexual identity finding”, “feeling despair”, and “feeling envious and lonely”. Later, these experiences were separately described in the three grounds and social-economical conditions under the title of “self-centered motherhood, fate- centered motherhood, and child-centered motherhood”. If we consider the four motherly concepts and the three motherly grounds of divorced women in Tehran on a perspective, it can be observed that the clear property of motherhood experience of divorced women in Tehran is the womanly sexual overcoming on avoiding loneliness and passing the motherhood responsibility. In the opposite side, there exist women who are of more unpleasant feeling of sexual identity finding in spite of maternity efforts and taking the motherly responsibilities. In fact, the passage of time, middle age, not being supported by family or children’s father has changed their efforts to failure in motherhood experience. In the middle of range, there are the fatalist motherhood experiences along with some distress. This kind of experience has made them fragile women since they are struggling with some identity.