Divorce Help

Do you ever wonder how many people end up with a divorce they didn't want? Divorce is an emotionally charged issue and I have to wonder how many people jump into it without giving it the proper thought.

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In the The Good Karma Divorce, Judge Michele Lowrance, a domestic relations judge in the Circuit Court of Illinois, wrote 'The court system was not built to house emotions, and attorneys are not trained to reduce emotional suffering.  Divorcing people expect relief far beyond what the legal realm can provide from their attorneys and the courts, and they often end up feeling like members of a powerless, unprotected class.'

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I receive heart breaking emails regularly from women who's husbands file for divorce out of the blue. Women who were happy in their marriage and assumed their husband was happy. The most devastating thing we can do to a marital relationship is assume there are no problems based on our feelings alone.

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The National Center for Family & Marriage Research at Bowling Green University released a study earlier this year documenting the increasing rate of divorce among couples age 50 and older. Between 1990 and 2009 the rate of divorce for couples over age 50 more than doubled, and in 2009 this age group accounted for roughly 1 out of every 4 divorces nationwide.

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Under a new law signed on April 12th by Gov. Tom Corbett, a service member who is being deployed abroad may petition the court for a temporary order to assign child custody rights to his or family members. The law says that formal or informal custody agreements can't be changed or ignored if a service member who is deployed has family who wish to take over his/her custody rights during deployment.

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A University of Cambridge study released in February 2011 found that upbeat teens were more likely to divorce than their less-happy peers. Researchers used data from 2,776 teens ages 13-15 who participated in a  1946 British cohort study,hh in which their teachers rated their happiness levels at the time.

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Do you believe in Karma? Or maybe you believe, like some Christians that if you victimize others to get what you want you will eventually become the victim. If it is possible for someone to 'reap' what they sow, then I think John Edwards is dealing with a plentiful harvest at the moment.

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Today is Parental Alienation Awareness Day. To help folks understand what Parental Alienation is, it is important they are 'aware' of the difference between healthy parental behavior and alienating parental behavior. I can think of no better way of bringing that awareness to my readers than sharing a bit of my Parental Alienation story.

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Americans' well-being differs greatly by marital status, according to data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Americans who are married have the highest levels of well-being (68.8), while those who are divorced (59.7) and, in particular, those who are separated experience the lowest levels of well-being (55.9).

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Earlier this year, Heather Armstrong, who writes the wildly popular mommy blog Dooce with her husband Jon, announced that they would be separating. Last week, Maxwell and Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan of Apartment Therapy divulged their separation after nearly 10 years of marriage. In the case of the Armstrongs, Jon left the business; the Gillingham-Ryans have not yet revealed any changes to Apartment Therapy.

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Those who have contemplated divorce for a long time have been stuck in what I call the Marital Indecision CycleTM. This is the cycle wherein couples live in a relatively calm routine but, due to hurt feelings or a buried resentment resurfacing, for example, tensions begin to escalate.

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I don't know anyone who likes to spend their hard-earned money on a divorce. And divorce is incredibly expensive with attorneys charging upwards of $300 or $400 per hour, financial people charging thousands, and any other professionals needed adding to the long list of bills that make it feel like money is flying out the door.

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Being left by a spouse who says that the marriage is over is difficult and coming to terms with the loss can be excruciating. But when the marriage is over because your spouse turns out to be gay, there is a whole different layer of thoughts and emotions to contend with.

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The holidays are the most emotionally charged time of the year; 
if you like where you are in life, it's a magical time, but if you don't
 like your life circumstances, holiday time can be quite awful.

To those of you who are divorced or divorcing, this can be an especially
 challenging couple of months.

Here are some suggestions to get through this period a little bit better:

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When trying to decide whether or not to end a marriage most people have at least some ambivalence. This ambivalence can be confusing and I often hear the contemplator say that he or she is waiting for a sign or waiting until the 'knowledge' that it's time to leave is present.

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In my experience, when a person is the leavee, they often tell me initially they would take their spouse back if he or she wanted to come back to the marriage. This is true particularly when the spouse being left didn't see it coming and didn't think the problems in the marriage were 'that bad.'

But then something interesting happens.

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In my last article, I wrote about some of the reasons people get married other than love.

While most of those who responded thought the article had several good points, some told me in no uncertain terms that my ideas were not novel, and the religiously-minded readers were infuriated by my lack of focus on the holy nature of marriage.

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Kate Schermerhorn is an Emmy Award winning filmmaker who contacted me after reading the 'Getting Marriage-Whys' article I posted a few weeks ago. She had many of the same thoughts I did about the role that marriage plays in our lives today.

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This week in headlines, we heard that Mexico is introducing legislation that will potentially put time frames around marriage with the minimum contract lasting two years.

There are now approximately 26 countries throughout the world that recognize civil unions, domestic partnerships and same sex marriages.

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When most of us hear the word divorce, we think of one process that involves tasks such as dealing with the local courts and getting a lawyer, sorting out finances and child custody issues and one or both spouses having to move to a new neighborhood.

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If you love an alcoholic or addict, you know how terrible the disease of addiction can be and you are indirectly impacted. If you are married to an addict or alcoholic, not only do you suffer from watching the person you love go down the tubes, you are directly effected. 

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Cora and John had been married for nine years and had no children. One night, they had a terrible argument over a financial issue that had been brewing for some time. John threw around the 'D' word like it was nothing, They had never gone to the level of animosity before. 

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Ten years ago, Nan (not her real name), told her then husband, Frank, that she wanted to remodel the kitchen. After over seven long months of hellish construction, Nan finally had the kitchen she'd always dreamed of. 

Just when she thought life was going to return to a sense of normalcy, she got the rudest awakening of her life: Frank announced that he wanted a divorce. 

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When my parents divorced, thirty years ago, my younger brother was the only one of the five kids who hadn't gone of to college yet. As the 'only child' at home, my mother leaned on him heavily and, as so many lonely parents do, she turned him in to her surrogate husband.

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Being held hostage in a sexless marriage is, to some, nothing short of torture. Sex is not only physically pleasurable, it is also an avenue for intimacy and emotional (and sometimes mental and spiritual as well) connection. It is a stress reliever when relationships are good but it can be the --cause--of tremendous stress when the relationship is not so good.

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This past week, on June 14th, my 79-year-old mother died. The good news is that in her last few hours, I watched her get to the place where she only had love in her heart. The bad news is that, even the day before her death, she was expressing ill will toward her ex-husband, my father.

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'Only people who have what you want can take you where you say you want to go.' ~ Pauline Tesler

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It seems that the news has almost weekly reports of a famous couple who has experienced a breech in the marriage by one party or the other having extramarital relations. Today it's Arnold and Maria, last week it was Shania Twain's husband, before that Jesse James, Kelsey Grammar, John Edwards, David Letterman, Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton, etc., etc., etc. The list certainly seems endless.

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I recently discovered that many mothers and fathers actually dread summer for the mere fact that, without the structure of school for their children, they are left to fend for themselves.

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I recently attended the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) conference in Chicago and found it to be a very enlightening series of talks spanning two days on family trends. Speakers included representatives of the U. S. Census Bureau, authors and scholars, among others.

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There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity.  ~ General Douglas MacArthur

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Last week, I conducted a survey on attitudes of PT readers on marriage, divorce and remarriage.

What was so fascinating to me is that the results showed a great disparity of opinions on what marriage is for and what should happen to this age-old institution.

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Rather than writing an article this week, I am posting an on-line survey to find out how conservative or liberal people are when it comes to marriage, divorce and remarriage.

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Generally, there are two things that impair a person's ability to make good decisions during the divorce process.

The first is emotional state of each spouse. Most divorcing people have periods of feeling overwhelmed by fear, anger, sadness and other negative emotions.

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Heather was a woman who was completely shocked by her husband’s abrupt announcement that he wanted out of their marriage.

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Traditional marriage (that is, a union between a man and a woman 'til death do they part) seems to be the subject of a tug of war in the recent past. Same sex couples around the world are demanding the equal right to marry that heterosexuals enjoy. Heterosexual couples, who ten or twenty years ago would have 'had' to marry, are choosing to tie the knot later in life or not at all. 

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