Healthy Divorce

In this post, I will share with you my thoughts on legal separation vs divorce and why my x-wife and I chose as we did.

When you get to the point in your marriage where things have not been working out for awhile, you will be faced with making some sort of decision.  As you may have read, my wife and I went through lots of therapy, Dr. Phil books, and endless discussions to make our marriage work.

We each put in a significant amount of effort to make our marriage work.  Unfortunately, we were each trying to fit a “circle in a square”…it just was not working.  We had become different people.  She had become someone else after we married, someone who prioritized money before all else.  As you may have read in the cost of divorce, the college sweetheart who prized happiness above a BMW metamorphosed into Ivana Trump. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Hello, to my faithful, inquisitive readers who read Healthy Divorce on a regular basis.  I apologize that I have been gone for some stretch but I have returned with many divorce stories to tell.

Sometimes in life you need to take a break, especially when you have gone through divorce or are in the midst of divorce.

There are always just so many issues to deal with:  divorce and finance, divorce and kids, relationships after divorce.  It can be a taxing process.

But fortunately, there is life beyond divorce and that is what I talk about on this Healthy Divorce blog.

Since I have been away, I have experienced dating after divorce and continue to deal with some divorce mistakes that I made that have made cost of divorce rather significant.

Fortunately, I have also gotten a new job which has helped to offset the cost of divorce somewhat.

Anyway, as always, I welcome your contributions and thoughts and hope that my insights of Life Strategies Before, During, and After Your Divorce can help you through the process.

It’s good to be back writing about my experiences. Not only is it therapeutic for me, but I actually enjoy it quite a bit!

During my divorce, I made many, many mistakes.  I hope, if anything, the information that I provide will help you avoid these same mistakes.  You might make other ones, but at least you won’t make these ones.

The biggest mistake that I made, and one that is so difficult to avoid, is becoming contentious.  With my x-wife, I harbored so many ill-feelings about finances that I wanted to explode.  As I have mentioned, my x-wife liked to spend A LOT of money.  I wanted her to be able to be financially secure since she was the mother of my children, but I felt she wanted to lead a life of excess on my dime.  [Read the rest of this entry...]

One of the greatest causes of divorce is also one of the greatest considerations during divorce:  finances.

My x-wife and I argued constantly over money.  She seem to have a spending disposition that I did not recognize before we were married…probably because I had no money before we were married.

I had more of a savings mentality that did not allow a peaceful financial coexistence between the two of us.   Each month I would see the credit card bills and I would have one reaction:  You have got to be kidding me! [Read the rest of this entry...]

It’s a question we all ask as we try to decipher our troubled marriages:  Should I stay or should I go?

I remember when I was pondering this question as my wife and I were having so many problems.  At the time, we were reading Dr. Phil’s Book Relationship Rescue together.  As I recently read that Dr. Phil may be getting a divorce, I had a slight chuckle at all the pain he caused me in going through his book!

Dr. Phil’s book is a long book with many exercises that you need to go through with your spouse or your girlfriend.  Since things did not work out between myself and my x, I view Relationship Rescue as both a blessing and a curse:  It was a blessing because I learned that I was in a relationship that could not work.  And it was a curse because I spent so much time to figure out that it would not work. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Divorce often occurs because one of the partners has cheated on the other.  My friend Eric was confronted with just this situation.

We often assume in relationships that the man will be the unfaithful one.  But, in Eric’s case, his wife Sarah was the offending party.  He came to me a couple of months ago with tears in his eyes.  I thought maybe he had had a death in the family.  I quickly learned that he was concerned about the death of his marriage.  His wife Sarah had cheated on him.  [Read the rest of this entry...]

I don’t like to view divorce as a battle.  Fortunately, now, I am on the other side of divorce and have found happiness.  I have a functional relationship with my x-wife and a terrific relationship with my kids, who I have with me half the time.  It’s great now, but I did have to fight for it.

Whether we like to admit it or not, divorce, while it is happening, is a battle.  And, like in every battle, you need to be armed with as much information as possible. [Read the rest of this entry...]

I received this letter from Cheryll in New York:

John,

Confession.  I came across your site searching for Divorce.  Specifically, I wanted to learn some of the tactics men use in divorce so I would know how to counterattack.  After all, I’m from New York, and if I am going to go through a divorce, I need to know how the enemy is thinking.

Well, as I was learning these secrets, my husband approached me with new reconciliation ideas.  He wanted to make our marriage work.  I did too, but I was preparing myself for the worst.  [Read the rest of this entry...]

The two biggest challenges that I faced during my divorce were finances and shared custody of the kids.  These two were also inextricably woven.

When my wife and I realized that things were not working out between us, we had what I thought were amicable discussions.  Then, on that day, when we decided that divorce was the only solution, she changed immediately.  Friendliness faded as she was out to get seemingly everything.  [Read the rest of this entry...]