In this research, we ask why and how some women start or grow a business after initiating divorce, while others will not. Grounded on an in-depth study of 24 women who experienced divorce in a patriarchal society, we develop a framework that identifies two pathways. The first pathway is followed by those women who felt trapped in their marriage and engaged in entrepreneurial activities as part of an overall process of self-discovery and self-development that enabled them to search for and find new sources of meanings, while the second pathway is followed by those women who felt discontent with their marriage, remarried but did not engage in entrepreneurship. Our emergent theoretical framework explains the importance of entrepreneurship to attain eudaimonic well-being following an adversity, thereby expanding the scope of entrepreneurship research.