Excerpt

At best, divorce is difficult, and it is life changing. The truth is that the changes that result from divorce can either be good or bad. We can choose how these changes effect and affect our lives. But as with every situation we move through in life there are valuable lessons and things to be learned from the experience. We can blossom despite the difficult circumstances, and we can experience the beauty of the colors in our wings when we emerge from the cocoons we were in.

This book is all about making it through a divorce with your confidence, strength, dignity and integrity intact. This is written entirely from the perspective of someone who has arrived at the other side of a divorce with strength. The advice given throughout this book is intended to assist both men and women.

Right or wrong, the younger generation today treats being divorced almost as a right of passage. It has become more common place to be divorced than to be in a long term (40 years or more) marriage. This seems to reflect a global sense restlessness and dissatisfaction. Moreover, it reflects impatience and the sad trend of not taking enough time in the courtship phase.

Despite the fact that (depending on which state you live in) somewhere between fifty and sixty-five percent of the adult population of the United States is single via divorce, being widowed, or by choice, there is still a definite, yet unfortunate, stigma attached to “being divorced.” The divorce rate is reported per 1000 people, and is adjusted based on age, race, and geographic location. Many sources report that the overall average divorce rate in the United States is 50 percent for first marriages, and just over 60 percent for second marriages.

In other words, more people are divorced than are married, and there are more “single” households than married households in the United States. Sadly the military divorce rate is even higher and is said to be nearing seventy percent. Yet, somehow when you mention to someone that you “are divorced” there is still a flash of judgment that crosses their faces.

Sometimes, people are bold enough to ask “what did you do wrong?” or “What happened?” There is a palpable feeling that somehow you have failed, or have been a failure. The truth is that dealing with this sense of failure is a critical part of moving through the divorce process, and is actually one of the first things that must be done. In other words the entire process of arriving on the other side of a divorce will be much easier if you can quickly come to terms with whatever amount of “guilt” or sense of “failure” you are experiencing. We all know what really happened in our relationships, and what part we played in the demise of the relationship. It may be as complicated as being the one who had an affair, or it may be that we enabled the behaviors in the relationship that lead to the communication issues and subsequent divorce.