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"I remember those feelings exactly," an acquaintance told me a few months ago when we ran into each other at the gym. Separated for 15 years, she was talking about some columns I had written about divorce. "I had forgotten," she said. "It fades with the years."

That observation is a welcome one for anyone who is divorced - or about to be. Several times, I have heard from readers who wonder when it all gets better again. The question at the heart of the recovery discussion is this: Does divorce make you happy?

It is a difficult and troubling question, because it potentially undermines what we want to believe about divorce - that it is a catharsis, however painful, which leads to personal happiness.

"I thought it was going to be better after I left him," says a mother of three children who has been divorced for almost six years. "But it isn't," she says. "The problems are different, but there are still problems. Lots of them."

"It's always a pebble in your shoe," a man in his 50s says about his two marriages that ended in divorce.

The issues that make complete - and easy - recovery difficult for many divorced people are not easily dismissed.

There is a loss of identity.

Not often, but sometimes, I still find myself in a crowded room of couples and from some deep part of my psyche floats up the thought: I am not a wife. It produces a kind of spacey bafflement. "Where the heck does that come from?" I wonder, because I am content with my life. It has something to do with the loss of a role, I think. At a certain point in our lives, we define ourselves by who we are not so much to ourselves, but to others: You are someone's brother or someone's daughter or someone's mother or someone's husband. When one of those roles disappears, well, you can feel diminished, as if a part of yourself has been amputated.

The financial setback of divorce can diminish one's life, as can the reduced access many divorced parents have to their children. There can be a loss of "social capital" as psychotherapists call it, as a former spouse loses contact with the ex's family and some friends who side with the other. Society is not often as accommodating to the divorced, which can create isolation - another form of marginalization.

And when people do venture out into the dating market, they often realize that no one is perfect: not the ex and not Ms. Purrfect who approaches you on a dating site. "I have talked to patients who complain about the dating scene. They are disillusioned, and say, 'I thought I would find the perfect person. But people all have problems,' or 'There is no one out there,' " says Mark Goulston, a relationship expert at Divorce360.com, an online newsletter.

In 2002, a research paper, "Does Divorce Make People Happy? Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages," released by the University of Chicago, showed that the answer was a resounding no. Researchers were testing what they called "the divorce assumption," the belief that a person in an unhappy marriage has two choices: remain married and miserable or get divorced and become happy. The team used data collected from more than 5,000 married adults, 645 of whom reported being unhappily married. Five years later, the same people were interviewed again. Some had divorced or separated and some had remained married.

The study discovered that divorce is not all it's cracked up to be. It didn't reduce depression, raise self-esteem or boost a sense of mastery, they reported. On average, unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier than unhappily married adults who stayed in their marriages. "Some divorce is necessary, but results like these suggest the benefits of divorce have been oversold," the lead researcher, Linda Waite, explained at the time.

Naturally, the results were quickly taken up by couples therapists across the land. Spouses need strategies for improving their unions because they are better off staying in them, many said.

But no one focused on what the study also clearly suggested: the lack of support during the recovery process after divorce.

For many, complete and lasting recovery means a new partner. "Some [divorced] people are left without a romantic partner. It's a need that is not fulfilled, and some of these people remain unhappy," says Ulrich Schimmack, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto who studies happiness and draws upon longitudinal research from around the world. That may be true - love is what we all want - but it's also worth noting that staking one's happiness on the presence of someone else is a recipe for disaster. What if a new relationship doesn't last?

Better to find a foundation of oneness. And part of that shoring up of self is to gain the distance to see that the marriage you did have was not all bad.

"As [divorced] people move away from blame and resentment, they begin to develop a more compassionate view of themselves and, quite often, of the other person," says Stephen Madigan, a therapist in Vancouver. "We become humanized again once we look at the real story and the facts of what happened, not just those heightened horrible times."

Forgiveness for your ex, but more importantly for yourself, can yield the resilience that experts see in some people who find happiness after trauma - whether it be a job loss, the death of a spouse or divorce. "You have to forgive yourself for any mistakes you made," says Arlene Matthews, a psychotherapist and author whose latest book is The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Psychology of Happiness. "Every time you dwell on how angry your ex made you, you think the same thoughts. You get into a mental rut, and when you're doing that you're not moving forward."

Ms. Matthews says that a new social network is also important after divorce. "It's about finding people to laugh with and pursue your hobbies with."

But I also think acceptance of self - with or without a partner - is part of the secret to contentedness after divorce. In an essay, "Memoirs of an Ex-Bride," New York writer Daphne Merkin described the difficulties of divorced life. It is not easy, she said. But in conclusion, she offered a brave and wise self-assessment. "I haven't ruled out the hope that the marital experiment might yield a better result the second time around. But eight years after my divorce, I have also begun to entertain the possibility ... that I may be one of those people who is more equipped to handle the risks of loneliness than those of intimacy."

That, right there, is the voice of resilience and determination to make the best of what you have.