Category: Surviving Divorce

Dear Pat: I am married to a women 28yrs I thought I would spend the rest of my life with. We even had children in there 20s now. I came out about a year ago, we still live together. I am the only one working at the moment and I won’t abandon her, have have a history together. I do love her but it is not the same. I tried my hardest to be str8 and be the great dad and husband it finaly came to a head and I can’t live this lie anymore. Continue reading “Was Their Marriage A Lie?”

He’s a 40-year-old father of two pre-teens who is getting ready to end a 15-year marriage. He’s looking for books and guidance to help him through the process of leaving his marriage and setting up a new home for himself and his kids when they come to visit. He hasn’t told his wife he wants a divorce yet and already is considering going into debt to comfortably outfit his new home.

Continue reading “Transitioning Through Divorce”

I knew before I got married the first time that marrying the man I did would be a mistake. We had nothing in common, and I can’t even say we were ever friends. We dated off and on for several years and even that didn’t go smoothly. We just weren’t a good match.
Continue reading “Why My Marriage Lasted So Long”

An advice columnist advised a woman to attend her son’s wedding and show class in dealing with her son’s demands regarding her role in the wedding reception. In other words, dance with her ex, pose for family pictures, smile whether she felt like it or not, and let the son have his special day. I thought it was pretty simple advice, except that:
Continue reading “Continuing Parental Roles After Divorce”

It’s completely impossible to predict what the future holds. I certainly never would have guessed that I’d be promoting my own book on national TV. All it took was two divorces to get me to the Today Show where Gay Courter (my co-author) and I shared the spotlight with Stephen King and Demi Moore!
Continue reading “My Today Show Appearance”

It is not easy to give up the life and the dreams that you thought were going to last forever, but when your husband or wife is no longer sharing that life and those dreams you have little choice.
Continue reading “You Have Choices”

“I love him and I don’t want to lose him. I am so desperate to save my marriage!” It’s a familiar plea… the need to force a husband or wife to stay in a marriage they’re attempting to flee. Some marriages never should have begun at all while others are built on the weakest of foundations.
Continue reading “Begging Him (Or Her) To Stay”

As you work your way through the black hole of divorce, memories of particularly good times that you and your soon-to-be-ex husband or wife shared together will surface. You may hear a song, or find a photo, or someone will say something that triggers the memory. The pain will get deeper, or your anger will grow stronger.
Continue reading “Memories Of The Past”

She wanted to know how she could move on after her 19-year marriage ended when her husband left to be with someone from his past. The marriage hadn’t been a good one for quite a few years but it took her a long time to decide that she’d rather be out of it than deal with all of its dysfunction. What she was having trouble with was moving past the memories.
Continue reading “Moving On After 19 Years”

What was happening in your life a year ago? Were you happily married? Were you contemplating divorce? Were you separated but not yet divorced?
Continue reading “How Quickly Time Goes By”

Has someone ever said to you “Oh, but it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” expecting that to put a positive spin on your divorce? In other words, maybe you’ve lost love but that’s not as bad as never having been loved. No doubt they mean well, but it’s a fairly clueless comment to make to someone whose marriage is ending.
Continue reading “Better To Have Loved And Lost?”

Logically, I know that the holidays are no different than the rest of the year and if you’re having a bad year it probably won’t get any better just because everything you see and hear suggests this time of year is just naturally full of warm and fuzzy feelings. Emotionally, though, I really want to believe that something magical will take place at this time of year to make those warm and fuzzy feelings a reality.
Continue reading “It’s Okay To Feel Blue”

When I remarried, I moved into my husband’s home. My home, on the scruffy side and in need of much repair, sat vacant after our marriage. My husband and I thought it might make a nifty place for visiting friends and relatives to stay but it didn’t work out that way.
Continue reading “A Moment In Time”

When divorce ends your marriage, you may believe your situation is unique and unprecedented. For you it is, but millions of people are dealing with and surviving divorce every day and you can, too.
Continue reading “The Right Friends At Divorce”

A little over 20 years ago I was feeling sorry for myself. I was divorced and my new relationship was having a few problems, my job wasn’t going as well as it could, and minor irritations were getting blown out of proportion. I remember thinking that things couldn’t get any worse.
Continue reading “When Our Little Worlds Fall Apart”

It’s a wonderful thing to be in love with another person. Before your marriage fell apart you knew what it was to be in love and loved by someone else, didn’t you?
Continue reading “Learning To Love Yourself”

Can’t convince them to change their ways? Desperation definitely won’t help your cause. When your marriage splits into thousands of fragments, none of which you can put back together, desperation becomes a way of life.
Continue reading “Dump The Desperation”

Do you remember how you dreaded coming home because you had to face her? Listen to the gripes, the complaints, the accusations? Remember when he’d walk in the door and all you could think of doing was trying to hide? Remember the bad times?
Continue reading “You’re Divorced… Now What?”

At the holidays more than any other time of the year we are supposed to feel particularly warm and fuzzy toward our family and friends. It’s a nice goal but the holidays are dreadful for people involved in unhappy relationships. I just put a lot of different reasons for dreading the holidays into the phrase “unhappy relationships.” Being alone because of divorce isn’t the only reason you might dread the holidays.
Continue reading “More Holiday Blues”

Divorce can make us feel as though we are missing a major part of ourselves… the part that validates our worth… the part that gives us a reason for being. If this person — the center of our entire universe — feels we aren’t worth “keeping,” if this person to whom we have devoted our life is dumping us by the roadside like a bag of garbage, why would anyone else believe we would have value? Most of all, how can we possibly believe ourselves to have value? How can we feel good about ourself?
Continue reading “Validating Your Worth”

For anyone who is going through a divorce, the holiday season ranks right up there with root canals as a fun time. And why shouldn’t it? It’s a time when families get together and share all the warmth and love they’ve stored up all year long for each other.
Continue reading “Holiday Blues”

When things are going badly in our lives it’s easy to develop tunnel vision with a focus on the negative aspects of the life we have. I’ve found that adversity can be a powerful stimulant for positive change, even if I wasn’t looking for changes at the time.
Continue reading “Count Your Blessings”

As much as I hate to join with the rest of the world in discussion about Princess Diana and her life, there is no divorce in recent times that was in the spotlight than hers. Every step, every turn, every breath came under minute scrutiny and then was put into the media for public consumption.
Continue reading “People Will Talk. So What?”

It was the grandest wedding of all! And so it has been through the years, the two of you, side-by-side, the perfect couple, sharing all of life’s good times — and bad — as only two people in love can do! Not!
Continue reading “Everlasting Love (and Other Fiction)”

He wrote requesting information about alienation of affection lawsuits. That’s not what he called it but that’s what he was looking for because he wanted to take his wife’s lover to court for breaking up his marriage.
Continue reading “Healing And Moving On”

I’ve been divorced twice. The first time, after quite a lengthy marriage, my personal midlife crisis began and I decided there had to be more in this life than my marriage and my husband were capable of providing. My husband was not happy I was leaving. Not because he loved me, but because I disrupted a routine he had grown comfortable with.
Continue reading “Divorce Is Not Easy”

Some people are so afraid of being alone that they would rather stay in a bad marriage or they will rush into a new relationship to avoid being alone. And yet, you can be more alone in a bad marriage than you’ll ever be by yourself.
Continue reading “The Power That Comes From Being Alone”

Picture this: You’re watching a suspenseful movie… the nice (but painfully naive) young man hears a sound at the door, gets up, and against his better judgment, and certainly with no encouragement from us, goes over to the door and asks “Who’s there?”
Continue reading “Emotional Baggage”

Divorce intimidates people. You learn just how much when you’re dealing with your own divorce and some of your friends stop calling “just to talk” and they are always too busy to get together.
Continue reading “Why Married Friends Don’t Call”

Most major shopping malls have locator maps at various spots, a red “X” with an arrow pointing to it and the words “You Are Here” so that you can see how close or how far you are to the place you really want to be. Similar maps can be found at highway rest stops to show travelers where they’ve been and the distance and roads to their destinations.
Continue reading “At This Moment, You Are HERE”

One of the most difficult lessons to learn and to thoroughly understand is that we cannot make another adult do anything they don’t want to do.
Continue reading “Life’s Difficult Lessons”

Separation and divorce doesn’t just cause stress and trauma to the immediate parties — the husband, the wife, and the children. It can be devastating to other family members and it can cut a wide path through the emotions of those people who are close friends with the couple.
Continue reading “Friends Get Hurt, Too”

It’s a wonderful thing to be in love with another person and to have them return that love. It’s a comfortable place to be, knowing that no matter how badly things go wrong, there is one other person who will be there to offer words of comfort, who will walk by your side for support.
Continue reading “Are You Nobody Without Love?”

“It wasn’t much of a honeymoon for Rick Rockwell and Darva Conger: TV’s multimillionaire groom says they didn’t consummate their marriage and it’s not likely to last.”—Associated Press
Continue reading “Dumb Ideas”

Divorce changes your life forever. It teaches you things about yourself that you would never have known otherwise.
Continue reading “Divorce Lessons”

What is your attitude (or mood) when you talk about your marriage? Are you negative, angry, resentful? Do you blame your ex or almost ex-spouse for the marriage failing? Do you get angry if friends or family show signs of forgiveness toward your ex?
Continue reading “Selective Memories”

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that divorce and holidays are a painful combination, but perhaps there’s more involved in what you’re feeling than just the impact of an unhappy marriage or a divorce in progress.
Continue reading “S.A.D. For The Holidays”

The effects of being married and subsequently divorced last a lifetime. What can you expect as a result of being divorced?
Continue reading “You’re Divorced. Now What?”

When Beth’s husband started working late and spending way too much time with a female co-worker Beth joined a health club and stepped up her attempts to lose ten pounds.
Continue reading “Don’t Take It Personally”

If you are experiencing turmoil in your marriage, or the loneliness of divorce, let me welcome you to “my place” and let me assure you that the pain does get less and less with time. I’d like to share some thoughts and ideas with you. Some might make you angry, some might give you hope.
Continue reading “Divorce”

We enter this world with no baggage. As we grow and experience life itself, we begin packing our “baggage.” We learn that if we do “this,” “that” will be the result. If we’re quick learners we don’t need three bags for some of life’s lessons that can be packed into one bag.
Continue reading “Not All Baggage Is Bad”

Sometimes simple wisdom can come from the most unlikely of places. I’ve always enjoyed reading the fortune cookies brought along with the check at most Chinese restaurants. The “fortunes” are generic and could easily fit anyone who receives them.
Continue reading “Fortune Cookie Wisdom”

I was caught in slow moving traffic, behind a large truck. No matter which lane I moved to, the truck was just a little quicker. It wasn’t that the driver was trying to keep me behind him, he was trying to find the fastest lane, just as I was, and most of the other drivers around us.
Continue reading “Keep Moving Forward”

I’ve been divorced twice, the first divorce was my choice, the second was his. Even though the circumstances of each was different, one phase immediately after we separated, was similar. I had to adjust to being alone.
Continue reading “Adjusting To Being Alone”

Feelings of sadness are part of the divorce process regardless of which person initiated the divorce or how dysfunctional the marriage may have been. It’s important to accept that sadness and not turn it into more than it is.
Continue reading “Divorce And Depression”

With the chance of a marriage ending in divorce running over 50 percent, it would seem that divorce will be just another stage of life for many people. Would you date someone who is divorced or would you consider them “used goods”? If you’re divorced, do you feel that divorce brands you unfairly?
Continue reading “The Stigma Of Divorce”

Regardless of how your life has gone up to this very moment, today begins the rest of your life. Do you want to spend today and tomorrow, and tomorrow after that, waiting for someone who says they no longer love you? Aren’t you worth more than that?
Continue reading “Your Future Starts Today”

If divorce has lowered your standard of living, which is more likely than not, there are some ways you can cut costs that you may not have thought about. Limiting your spending doesn’t make you a failure any more than how much you can buy should define you as a person.
Continue reading “Cutting Expenses After Divorce”

It took me several years before I got up enough courage to end my first marriage. There was a lot of agonizing, the continual thoughts that I was doing something wrong, the search for answers everywhere. I hoped my husband would end it, taking the decision and choice away from me, but he wouldn’t and didn’t. If I wanted my life to change, it would be up to me, and me alone to make it happen.
Continue reading “Staying Together For The Holidays”

Is revenge motivating you right now as you deal with your divorce? I think thoughts of revenge are normal for most of us but those thoughts shouldn’t be all-consuming. Once the divorce is final, you may regret vengeful acts if they prevent you and your ex from remaining friends. Don’t let revenge close that door.
Continue reading “Motivated by Revenge?”