The rising divorce rate is one of the main challenges of family life in the present era. The divorce rate in our country has experienced an upward trend in recent years. Today, divorce is not an individual problem but a multi-step process that affects not only the family relationship, but also the entire community involving the deep, irreparable and serious problems.
Considering the unique features of Iranian society, using grounded theory methodology, this study attempts to examine common semantic understanding and interpretation of divorcees from the social structural and ideational changes with regard to the institution of the family and their influence on the contextual and personal situation leading to their divorce. It also attempts to provide a deeper understanding of how the process of changing attitudes and values with regard to family, influences the decision to get involved in divorce. For this purpose, 40 divorcees (20 men and 20 women) who went through divorce during 5 years prior to the study and were living in Tehran were interviewed using in-depth semi-structured interviews. The results indicate that the social structural, contextual, and personal factors favorable to cause divorce, can be categorized in the micro, meso and macro categories. Couples as the main decision makers for divorce, think about these facilitators and inhibitors in reference to their individual context and situation to proceed towards divorce. They consider and evaluate all social, cultural and personal factors leading to divorce, strategies to cope with the situation after divorce, and eventually make a decision about the continuation of marriage or divorce accordingly.