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The Divorce Lawyers' Guide to Staying Married
This book provides concrete advice on how to orevent divorce from the real experts on the divorce lawyers. Based in in-depth interviews wih 100 of America's leading divorce attorneys, The Divorce Lawyers' Guide To Staying Married explains why divorce occurs and what can be done to immunize today's marriages from the ever-growing divorce epidemic.
220 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 17, 2011
Actual answering-machine message received by a bewildered wife: “Debbie, I won’t be home for dinner tonight . . . OR EVER.”
Interesting, but also horrifying. The author, who used to be a divorce lawyer, interviewed 100 other divorce lawyers across the country to get their advice on how people can stay married. I really like how she structured the book: She starts with the most obvious red-flag issues and then covers the more subtle ones.
According to 101 divorce lawyers, you are at serious risk of divorce if . . .
• You haven’t had sex with your spouse in over a year.
• You don’t know what your spouse’s annual salary is.
• You don’t look at your tax forms before signing them (either because your spouse won’t let you or because you don’t want to know).
• One or both spouses have addiction issues with alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, gambling (casino-style or with finances), or some combination of these.
• You’re not interested in sex, but your spouse is.
• You’re interested in sex, but not with your spouse.
• You or your spouse is having an affair, or you are both having affairs. (Divorce lawyers call the other man/woman the liberator. The affair-haver doesn’t usually marry the liberator after a divorce because the ex-spouse and the children hold the liberator in such low esteem.)
• When you contemplate divorce, the thought of losing your spouse doesn’t bother you much, but the possible effect on your lifestyle really gives you pause. Instead of telling your partner, “I still love you, and I want to work this out,” you say something like, “We can’t get divorced because we’d have to sell the house, so we’d both end up in apartments.”
• You got married for the sake of getting married, or to get out of your parents’ house, or because your peers were getting married.
• You thought you could change your spouse.
• You thought your spouse would never change.
• You thought marriage would be a symphony, and your spouse thought marriage would be a high-school band . . . or vice versa. (If both spouses thought marriage would be a high-school band, that’s fine. If both thought it would be a symphony, that’s actually fine, too.)
• You had a whirlwind romance and married someone that you didn’t really know.
• One or more of your parents or in-laws controls your marriage.
• You belittle your spouse in public, or your spouse belittles you.
• You are no longer interested in what your spouse has to say, or vice versa.
• You want all the power in your marriage.
• Your spouse wants all the power in your marriage.
• You married someone who is exactly like your ex-spouse (or your past two or three ex-spouses). This is a spouse clone, and remarrying people who don’t have much insight into why they divorced fall into this trap all the time.
• One parent is a “kidaholic”—focused on the child or children to the exclusion of the spouse.
• One parent is a workaholic or a “hobbyholic.”
• There is a significant age difference between you and your partner.
• You got married before age 25. (Many of the lawyers insisted that nobody should get married before age 30. I just don’t think this is feasible for couples who want a large family, but the author doesn’t address that issue.)
• You married someone who has different goals and values.
• There turns out to be a gap in success between partners, with one very accomplished and one much less so.
• Your spouse’s family doesn’t express love, or they express love in a way that’s very different from how your family members express it.
• You don’t treat your spouse like your best friend.
• You think divorce will be relatively easy.
• You don’t understand how long divorce takes and how much personal and financial information it will require you to reveal to strangers.
• You think that, if you get divorced, your life will be just like it was back when you were single (even though you’re older and possibly less attractive now).
• You never really committed to the marriage in the first place—you thought, “Well, if it doesn’t work out, I can always get divorced.”
Some people are significantly better off emotionally after a divorce, but many regret it years later. One woman, during her third divorce, told her lawyer, “I should have listened to you and stayed married to the first one.”
The lawyers agree that counseling can solve or reduce many of these problems, but only if it’s early in the marriage and if the therapist is skilled and experienced. Most people wait until it’s too late—one of the partners has emotionally “checked out.”
Special circumstances in which marriages are rarely repairable: a child dies, one partner physically or verbally abuses the other, one partner is gay, one partner is mentally ill, one or both partners refuse addiction treatment.
Interesting, but also horrifying. The author, who used to be a divorce lawyer, interviewed 100 other divorce lawyers across the country to get their advice on how people can stay married. I really like how she structured the book: She starts with the most obvious red-flag issues and then covers the more subtle ones.
According to 101 divorce lawyers, you are at serious risk of divorce if . . .
• You haven’t had sex with your spouse in over a year.
• You don’t know what your spouse’s annual salary is.
• You don’t look at your tax forms before signing them (either because your spouse won’t let you or because you don’t want to know).
• One or both spouses have addiction issues with alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, gambling (casino-style or with finances), or some combination of these.
• You’re not interested in sex, but your spouse is.
• You’re interested in sex, but not with your spouse.
• You or your spouse is having an affair, or you are both having affairs. (Divorce lawyers call the other man/woman the liberator. The affair-haver doesn’t usually marry the liberator after a divorce because the ex-spouse and the children hold the liberator in such low esteem.)
• When you contemplate divorce, the thought of losing your spouse doesn’t bother you much, but the possible effect on your lifestyle really gives you pause. Instead of telling your partner, “I still love you, and I want to work this out,” you say something like, “We can’t get divorced because we’d have to sell the house, so we’d both end up in apartments.”
• You got married for the sake of getting married, or to get out of your parents’ house, or because your peers were getting married.
• You thought you could change your spouse.
• You thought your spouse would never change.
• You thought marriage would be a symphony, and your spouse thought marriage would be a high-school band . . . or vice versa. (If both spouses thought marriage would be a high-school band, that’s fine. If both thought it would be a symphony, that’s actually fine, too.)
• You had a whirlwind romance and married someone that you didn’t really know.
• One or more of your parents or in-laws controls your marriage.
• You belittle your spouse in public, or your spouse belittles you.
• You are no longer interested in what your spouse has to say, or vice versa.
• You want all the power in your marriage.
• Your spouse wants all the power in your marriage.
• You married someone who is exactly like your ex-spouse (or your past two or three ex-spouses). This is a spouse clone, and remarrying people who don’t have much insight into why they divorced fall into this trap all the time.
• One parent is a “kidaholic”—focused on the child or children to the exclusion of the spouse.
• One parent is a workaholic or a “hobbyholic.”
• There is a significant age difference between you and your partner.
• You got married before age 25. (Many of the lawyers insisted that nobody should get married before age 30. I just don’t think this is feasible for couples who want a large family, but the author doesn’t address that issue.)
• You married someone who has different goals and values.
• There turns out to be a gap in success between partners, with one very accomplished and one much less so.
• Your spouse’s family doesn’t express love, or they express love in a way that’s very different from how your family members express it.
• You don’t treat your spouse like your best friend.
• You think divorce will be relatively easy.
• You don’t understand how long divorce takes and how much personal and financial information it will require you to reveal to strangers.
• You think that, if you get divorced, your life will be just like it was back when you were single (even though you’re older and possibly less attractive now).
• You never really committed to the marriage in the first place—you thought, “Well, if it doesn’t work out, I can always get divorced.”
Some people are significantly better off emotionally after a divorce, but many regret it years later. One woman, during her third divorce, told her lawyer, “I should have listened to you and stayed married to the first one.”
The lawyers agree that counseling can solve or reduce many of these problems, but only if it’s early in the marriage and if the therapist is skilled and experienced. Most people wait until it’s too late—one of the partners has emotionally “checked out.”
Special circumstances in which marriages are rarely repairable: a child dies, one partner physically or verbally abuses the other, one partner is gay, one partner is mentally ill, one or both partners refuse addiction treatment.
February 7, 2022
Slightly out of date advice at points but provided invaluable insight into marriage.
August 4, 2012
Probably one of the best books about marriage not written by a pastor. I really enjoyed the practical advice and divorce horror stories. Made me glad I married my husband.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews