The role of the spatial dependence of dipole coupling on the dissociation dynamics of the classical driven Morse oscillator is investigated, in particular, the effects of oscillatory behavior of the dipole function are considered. The initial conditions for the calculations are chosen to correspond to highly excited vibrational states, which are close to the Morse potential separatrix. It is shown that the oscillatory form of the dipole function influences the splitting of the separatrix and accordingly the dissociation dynamics. Specifically, the dipole oscillatory behavior can prevent trajectories from escaping the potential well and consequently inhibiting the dissociation mechanism. It is found that this inhibition of dissociation is related to the change of sign of the dipole function. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)