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The Good Divorce
It's never too late to have a good divorce Based on two decades of groundbreaking research, The Good Divorce presents the surprising finding that in more than fifty percent of divorces couples end their marriages, yet preserve their families. Dr. Ahrons shows couples how they can move beyond the confusing, even terrifying early stages of breakup and learn to deal with the transition from a nuclear to a "binuclear" family--one that spans two households and continues to meet the needs of children. The Good Divorce makes an important contribution to the ongoing "family values" debate by dispelling the myth that divorce inevitability leaves emotionally troubles children in its wake. It is a powerful tonic for the millions of divorcing and long-divorces parents who are tired of hearing only the damage reports. It will make us change the way we think about divorce and the way we divorce, reconfirming our commitment to children and families.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1900
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 9, 2011
The Good Divorce was a reliable self-help book. The principle idea is that while a healthy marriage is always the best choice, if a marriage is not healthy and divorce is inevitable, there are ways to make it a "good divorce". The main points are: 1) put your children first, especially before revenge and resentment of your former spouse, 2) don't make your child play the role of the "middle man", 3) establish new rules and roles instead of gripping tight to the old ones, 4) have healthy transitions from one home to the next, and 5) achieving a “good divorce" is a process, not an instant change. I did not like the first half of the book because Ahrons spent too much time sugar coating issues before getting to the meat of her book and that made it tedious. I also did not appreciate the stereotypes, especially in regards to gender roles (men are from mars, women are from venus nonsense… not that extreme, but similar). And, while Ahrons constantly refers to the couples she studied over a 10 year period, I did not feel that she told their stories enough. It felt as if she merely used pieces of their stories to validate her point. Overall, it was a very helpful book that aimed to help the reader avoid the pitfalls of an ugly divorce.
January 18, 2023
Read for my thesis— was a good resource for understanding the perspective and experiences of divorced parents, did not give as much detail about the effects on children as I had hoped.
November 23, 2025
This was a good and informative book. I think it could help many people facing divorce. I agree with her that we as a society need to change our perspective of marriage, divorce and family. Sometimes the healthiest and best choice is to divorce and have two separate households. No one is healthy in a contentious home. It is my hope that society will change and we can encourage healthy over marriages staying together. If we empower individuals to do what feels right and healthy to them we will be nurturing the next generation and teaching them healthy relationships rather than encouraging them to stay in a toxic environment.
It is better to go through that temporary, excruciating pain than to continue to live with the permanent, excruciating pain of a bad marriage. Introduction Pg. V
One tightly held secret is that out of many bad marriages come good divorces. Pg.9
Most of my interview subjects, the subjects in the cross-national study, and those in many other recent studies, said fervently that they were much happier several years postdivorce than they had been during marriage. Even though most women's incomes had dropped sharply, they enjoyed their new control over their lives, their finances not being dependent on their partner's behavior or goodwill. Both the men and the women spoke poignantly about their wish that they'd separated sooner. Though they'd stayed together for the children, in retrospect they said that this had been a mistake, and that their children were better off in an honest and well-functioning household, even if it was a household that had experienced divorce. Pg.16
Dysfunction exists in married as well as divorced families. The way a family functions, the psychological health of the children, depends hugely on the way the spouses or exspouses get along.
Research comparing children from high-conflict families of marriage with children from a full range of families of divorce, shows that the children in the high-conflict families suffered more distress than the children in families of divorce. In fact, a study from England shows that when children go into a divorce psychologically okay, they come through it that way too. It is the bad marriage prior to the divorce that causes most of the psychological problems that children experience. In the past their problems were attributed to the divorce because the marriage and the children's adjustment prior to the divorce was not studied. Pg.19
Marriage is good-and so is divorce. It all depends to whom each happens, and why, and how and when. Pg.29
One of the factors that keeps women in unhappy, miserable, and even violent marriages is a lack of money. Research shows that women's greatest fear of leaving bad marriages is that they won't be able to support themselves and their children. Pg.34
However long each of us has to live, we each have to decide for ourselves what will make the rest of our years happy. Pg.44
I take comfort, in the knowledge that we did not do what my own parents did: stay in an unhealthy situation, tacitly conveying the message that pain is a fact of life and change impossible. Pg.62
accepting responsibility for your own feelings and actions is crucial to having a good divorce. Pg.222
Check your expectations against reality. Pg.224
Your old belief may have been that you'd stay married "Till death do us part." In order to work toward a good divorce, you must first challenge your fundamental beliefs about marriage, its beginnings, and endings. Endings are an inherent part of life. Anything that has a beginning also must have an ending. Change is inevitable and implicitly requires endings as well as beginnings.
Although, at some level, we all accept these seeming truisms, we go on to live life denying the very real ending of marriages. In his very wise and moving book, Soul Mates, Thomas Moore tells a story of a man who had lived with bitterness for years after his wife left him. In conversation with the man, Moore learns how unhappy the man, too, had been in the marriage. Moore asks him why he would continue to live in a relationship that was "obviously soulless and lifeless." The man replies that he kept hoping one day it would change. To this, Moore reflects: "It takes courage to read the signals of fate asking for change, asking us to acquiesce to the bitter truths that are revealed slowly and painfully. An ending may be part of the special logic of relationship, an expression of its logos, its deeply inherent nature and its own laws and requirements." That's not to say that one should leave a marriage at the first glimpse of problems, or when one first faces the inevitable disillusionment that marriage wasn't all it was cracked up to be, or when the romance wanes under the pressures of daily intimacy. Although I have said this earlier, it bears repeating. People rarely leave marriages easily; they usually struggle with their feelings for years. But one common wish of the divorced, in 20-20 hindsight, is, "If only we'd ended our marriage sooner." The data are beginning to support this belief by showing that much of the damage children suffer was caused in the last few years of their parents' troubled marriage. Pg.247
If we could change our basic belief about the "shoulds" of marriage being "till death do us part" we might be in a better position to acknowledge which problems are relationship-breakers. in so doing, we could honestly confront these problems and look for healthy, constructive ways to perhaps resolve them. If, however, our fears make us unable to accept the very real possibility that our marriage may not be a lifelong contract, we are more likely to deny these early warning signs, sweep them under the rug, pretend all is well. It is only years later that most people remember these early signals of trouble. Therapists note that it is the rare couple who seeks help when it is most needed and could be the most helpful; most arrive at the therapist's door years later. Now it may be too late. Serious damage has already been done.
Judith Viorst, in her bestselling book Necessary Losses, examines the inevitability of loss. She also suggests ways that we need to integrate loss--to make losses and endings a productive part of our lives. Losing sucks. But to look at loss is to see how inextricably our losses are linked to growth. And to start to become aware of the ways in which our responses to loss have shaped our lives can be the beginning of wisdom and hopeful change. If we accept this basic fact that endings and loss are woven into the fabric of our lives, we will change our beliefs about divorce Rather than seeing divorce as the end of the family, as the failure of self and even of society, we can accept it as the end of a relationship. Pg. 248
Accept that all-out war is not inevitable and is in fact destructive.
Recognize that compromise is absolutely necessary.
Stay in charge of your divorce.
Construct a vision of your binuclear family.
Make new rules for how the two households will be linked. Pg.251
Slow down the process-children need time to adjust.
Accept that your child needs--and has a right to- both parents.
Cooperate with your ex if only for the sake of your children.
Establish a limited partnership agreement with clear rules.
Accept that your child's family will expand. Pg. 252
To integrate your divorce as part of your life means you have to accept that there may be some feelings that remain ambiguous and unresolved. There are also losses that you may have to grieve even years later. Remembering that the marriage contained good times as well as bad times, that your ex has good characteristics as well as bad ones, that not staying married for life doesn't mean you, your ex, or even your marriage have failed, allows you to fully accept your life and integrate the past with the present. Pg.255
It is better to go through that temporary, excruciating pain than to continue to live with the permanent, excruciating pain of a bad marriage. Introduction Pg. V
One tightly held secret is that out of many bad marriages come good divorces. Pg.9
Most of my interview subjects, the subjects in the cross-national study, and those in many other recent studies, said fervently that they were much happier several years postdivorce than they had been during marriage. Even though most women's incomes had dropped sharply, they enjoyed their new control over their lives, their finances not being dependent on their partner's behavior or goodwill. Both the men and the women spoke poignantly about their wish that they'd separated sooner. Though they'd stayed together for the children, in retrospect they said that this had been a mistake, and that their children were better off in an honest and well-functioning household, even if it was a household that had experienced divorce. Pg.16
Dysfunction exists in married as well as divorced families. The way a family functions, the psychological health of the children, depends hugely on the way the spouses or exspouses get along.
Research comparing children from high-conflict families of marriage with children from a full range of families of divorce, shows that the children in the high-conflict families suffered more distress than the children in families of divorce. In fact, a study from England shows that when children go into a divorce psychologically okay, they come through it that way too. It is the bad marriage prior to the divorce that causes most of the psychological problems that children experience. In the past their problems were attributed to the divorce because the marriage and the children's adjustment prior to the divorce was not studied. Pg.19
Marriage is good-and so is divorce. It all depends to whom each happens, and why, and how and when. Pg.29
One of the factors that keeps women in unhappy, miserable, and even violent marriages is a lack of money. Research shows that women's greatest fear of leaving bad marriages is that they won't be able to support themselves and their children. Pg.34
However long each of us has to live, we each have to decide for ourselves what will make the rest of our years happy. Pg.44
I take comfort, in the knowledge that we did not do what my own parents did: stay in an unhealthy situation, tacitly conveying the message that pain is a fact of life and change impossible. Pg.62
accepting responsibility for your own feelings and actions is crucial to having a good divorce. Pg.222
Check your expectations against reality. Pg.224
Your old belief may have been that you'd stay married "Till death do us part." In order to work toward a good divorce, you must first challenge your fundamental beliefs about marriage, its beginnings, and endings. Endings are an inherent part of life. Anything that has a beginning also must have an ending. Change is inevitable and implicitly requires endings as well as beginnings.
Although, at some level, we all accept these seeming truisms, we go on to live life denying the very real ending of marriages. In his very wise and moving book, Soul Mates, Thomas Moore tells a story of a man who had lived with bitterness for years after his wife left him. In conversation with the man, Moore learns how unhappy the man, too, had been in the marriage. Moore asks him why he would continue to live in a relationship that was "obviously soulless and lifeless." The man replies that he kept hoping one day it would change. To this, Moore reflects: "It takes courage to read the signals of fate asking for change, asking us to acquiesce to the bitter truths that are revealed slowly and painfully. An ending may be part of the special logic of relationship, an expression of its logos, its deeply inherent nature and its own laws and requirements." That's not to say that one should leave a marriage at the first glimpse of problems, or when one first faces the inevitable disillusionment that marriage wasn't all it was cracked up to be, or when the romance wanes under the pressures of daily intimacy. Although I have said this earlier, it bears repeating. People rarely leave marriages easily; they usually struggle with their feelings for years. But one common wish of the divorced, in 20-20 hindsight, is, "If only we'd ended our marriage sooner." The data are beginning to support this belief by showing that much of the damage children suffer was caused in the last few years of their parents' troubled marriage. Pg.247
If we could change our basic belief about the "shoulds" of marriage being "till death do us part" we might be in a better position to acknowledge which problems are relationship-breakers. in so doing, we could honestly confront these problems and look for healthy, constructive ways to perhaps resolve them. If, however, our fears make us unable to accept the very real possibility that our marriage may not be a lifelong contract, we are more likely to deny these early warning signs, sweep them under the rug, pretend all is well. It is only years later that most people remember these early signals of trouble. Therapists note that it is the rare couple who seeks help when it is most needed and could be the most helpful; most arrive at the therapist's door years later. Now it may be too late. Serious damage has already been done.
Judith Viorst, in her bestselling book Necessary Losses, examines the inevitability of loss. She also suggests ways that we need to integrate loss--to make losses and endings a productive part of our lives. Losing sucks. But to look at loss is to see how inextricably our losses are linked to growth. And to start to become aware of the ways in which our responses to loss have shaped our lives can be the beginning of wisdom and hopeful change. If we accept this basic fact that endings and loss are woven into the fabric of our lives, we will change our beliefs about divorce Rather than seeing divorce as the end of the family, as the failure of self and even of society, we can accept it as the end of a relationship. Pg. 248
Accept that all-out war is not inevitable and is in fact destructive.
Recognize that compromise is absolutely necessary.
Stay in charge of your divorce.
Construct a vision of your binuclear family.
Make new rules for how the two households will be linked. Pg.251
Slow down the process-children need time to adjust.
Accept that your child needs--and has a right to- both parents.
Cooperate with your ex if only for the sake of your children.
Establish a limited partnership agreement with clear rules.
Accept that your child's family will expand. Pg. 252
To integrate your divorce as part of your life means you have to accept that there may be some feelings that remain ambiguous and unresolved. There are also losses that you may have to grieve even years later. Remembering that the marriage contained good times as well as bad times, that your ex has good characteristics as well as bad ones, that not staying married for life doesn't mean you, your ex, or even your marriage have failed, allows you to fully accept your life and integrate the past with the present. Pg.255
August 21, 2017
Ahrons is a researcher in divorce and blended families. She presents findings from the Binuclear Family Study as well as insights from her personal experience. She is a supporter of the idea of a collaborative divorce. An excellent resource for anyone going through the process or divorce or separation.
May 7, 2017
A must read for a healthy exit strategy
May 23, 2022
Great read that provides a framework and language on how to think through and discuss divorce. In a good divorce, a family changes in structure and size but parents are still parents, and the psychological health of the children, depends hugely on the way the exspouses get along. I love all the real world examples and data based suggestions.
March 17, 2020
Helpful, mainly for couples with children who are contemplating divorce. Not that useful for childless couples.
December 2, 2007
I read this book when I was going through my divorce. It was hard to imagine seeing an end to the disappointment and pain, but the book forced me to see beyond it.
I believe that Ahrons had previously published work that demonstrated that children of divorced parents are rarely better off (I'd read this because I was interested in "getting over" the long-ago divorce of my parents.
We can make the "best" of a sad thing, and I believed that my responsibility to my child was to preserve what I could of family without sacrificing my dignity.
I believe that Ahrons had previously published work that demonstrated that children of divorced parents are rarely better off (I'd read this because I was interested in "getting over" the long-ago divorce of my parents.
We can make the "best" of a sad thing, and I believed that my responsibility to my child was to preserve what I could of family without sacrificing my dignity.
December 11, 2021
An outstanding book that maps out a divorce, collaborative or not. Most importantly helps you to save money in the process. Just don’t get discouraged by the first 20 tedious pages. It all will be worth of your time at the end. All the best!
April 24, 2009
Children oriented; got none. Save in case bachelor #2 has kids.
December 31, 2010
Good book, with great examples on how to live in a binuclear family. Helped to give me a road map of where I would like to be a year from now. Very insightful.
January 22, 2023
Excellent book on how to put aside your fight with your ex in order to let your kids keep their family, albeit in two homes.
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November 1, 2007Deal with your anger, be specific about who you are angry with, and keep the greater good in mind.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews