Identifying and Achieving Your Goals in a Divorce

By Erica Christian

The circumstances giving rise to a divorce may be emotionally consuming making it difficult for you to think about what life will be like once the divorce is granted. It’s also easy to be overwhelmed with all of the terminology and procedures that come along with filing for a divorce.

As you begin this process, you must thoughtfully consider what your goals are in regards to the issues that will be addressed in your case. Identifying goals, both in the short and long term, is essential to developing the best strategy to obtain the results you want in a divorce.

Below is a guide that will help get you started on defining your goals and identifying how these goals can be achieved. Read more

Misinformation From the Stepmothering Industry

By Wednesday Martin, Ph.D.

Books for stepmothers tend to perpetuate certain myths. The myth of the blended family and the myth of the maternal stepmother are the most glaring examples. These books’ relentlessly upbeat tone can make stepmothers feel as though our own occasional negativity and impatience regarding his kids are freakish.

Other books on stepmothering are so lighthearted, so insistent that we see the humor in our situation and in our responses to it, that reading them feels suspiciously like being told that our concerns don’t matter and that we just need to lighten up. But the real problem with many books for stepmothers is not what they imply, but what they actually say:

• Remember that his kids will always come first.

• Leave the disciplining to him.

• You will regret it forever if you lose your temper or say something nasty to your stepchildren, so whatever you do, don’t.

• With patience and love, they will come around.

The fact that these directives have become a virtual mantra, the unassailable golden rules of stepmothering does not mean that they are right.

For example, a number of stepfamily experts concur that in a remarriage with children, giving the couple relationship priority is crucial (see chapter 6). It may jar us to learn that our concept that “the kids are the most important thing” is misguided, even destructive to our partnerships.

The ideas that you should be second and should accept it, that his kids came first chronologically and so are first in his heart, and that his believing and acting on these ideas makes him a good person are powerful, deeply ingrained beliefs. But all of them can be fatal for the remarriage with children. They are even bad for the children, giving them an uncomfortable amount of power and focusing an undue amount of attention and pressure on them.

Andrew Gotzis, M.D., a New York City psychiatrist and therapist who works with couples, echoed the advice of a number of marriage counselors when he told me, “In a remarriage with children, the hierarchy of the family needs to be established quickly and clearly. The kids need to know that the husband and wife come first and that they are a unified team.” Otherwise, Dr. Gotzis cautioned, the kids can split the couple apart and create tension in the marriage indefinitely.

To remarried couples with children, the scenario of kids turning to Dad when Stepmom has said no, or vice versa, in an attempt to split the team is all too familiar. A woman with stepchildren may exhaust herself with her attempts to resolve such situations.

For this reason, sociologist Linda Nielsen notes that a woman with stepchildren will have more success when she adopts the attitude “My main goal and my main focus is to build an intimate, fulfilling relationship with my husband and to take better care of my own needs, not to bond with or win the approval of my stepchildren.” Nielsen notes that a shift like this cannot happen in a vacuum; the woman’s partner needs to be on the same page with her.

If the marriage is to work, Nielsen insists, “her husband has to be committed to creating a [partnership] around which his children revolve rather than a marriage that revolves around his children. Especially when his children dislike their stepmother, the father has to make it clear that the kids will not be handed the power or given the precedence over his marriage.”

“Things didn’t improve until I let my daughter know that, even though I loved her, my ultimate loyalty was to my wife,” one man who had survived a rocky early remarriage with children observed. We can only imagine the resultant fireworks in that household. But the outcome was a stronger marriage. This in turn gave his daughter proof that marriages can last. It also replaced what could have become profound confusion about her unchecked power in the family with a sense of secure belonging.

As for the advice “Leave the disciplining to him,” whoever said it never went to a home while the stepkids were visiting and their father was out.

Certainly, no one is saying to step right in and start issuing orders to your stepkids in your first days and weeks together — and few of us are likely to do that, fearing that we will be perceived as wicked. But what works in theory — you should hold back more or less indefinitely so that you don’t seem like the villain, backing up your husband rather than doing things yourself — doesn’t always work in practice.

What happens when a stepchild does something that crosses the line but hubby isn’t around? Are you to sit on your hands and bite your tongue rather than issue a firm “That’s not okay, and you know it”? Moreover, firsthand experience has often demonstrated that the longer a woman with stepchildren waits, the harder it is for her ever to draw the line or be taken seriously as an adult with authority.

I can attest to this fact. Because I was more or less a fraidy cat in the first year of my marriage, I had to be a tiger for the subsequent two or three years, as my stepdaughters still occasionally tried to walk all over me, just to see if they could. This was hardly their fault; I waited ages to take a stand about things such as snide remarks, dumping suitcases in the middle of the floor, and ignoring me.

Sometimes it is easier and smarter to ignore a stepchild’s annoying habit, to decline to get involved in an emotion-charged discussion over her sweet sixteen party, or to be the voice of reason when planning her wedding. A number of women with stepchildren have found that “disengaging” is, in some situations, far and away the best strategy for them (see chapter 4). Other times, ignoring bad behavior just feels like being stepped on and creates a breeding ground for more resentment. And then what?

The culture at large is eager to gloss over women’s anger in general, and advice for stepmothers in particular is full of warnings that if we express it, the consequences will be dire and irreversible. This strikes me as absurd.

It would be the rare stepchild who never went through a phase of wanting to provoke his or her stepmom. Of course we lose our tempers, inevitably. And although it can feel catastrophic — What if they hate me? What if they think I’m wicked? – expressing our anger is, in my opinion, something we should do sooner rather than later. Otherwise, we risk setting the bar too impossibly high for everyone and creating a situation in which kids, teens, or even adult stepchildren go on pushing our buttons forever in an attempt to see where our limit is.

Most of all, we need to learn as soon as possible — to experience firsthand — that being disliked is an occupational hazard for stepmothers, not a referendum on our worth. “Dad’s girlfriend Laura yelled at us once in the car,” my stepdaughter told me solemnly in our early days together. I didn’t know exactly why she was telling me this, but I knew how Laura must have felt, and I admired her for letting the girls know when she thought they’d gone too far.

You’re not my mother! Most of us fear that it is yelling or disciplining or losing our tempers or not being nice enough or patient enough or selfless enough that will keep our husbands’ children from accepting us or drive them away. If only we had so much control. Instead, unrealistic expectations about blending and being maternal, difficult developmental stages, competition that is largely inevitable and unavoidable, misinformation about stepmothering, and a host of other factors play a bigger role in the way a reconfigured family group coheres — or doesn’t.

We are not, in fact, their mothers. Happily ever after and happiness all around are ideals — unlikely ones at that, even in traditional nuclear families. Eventually, we may find that we have arrived at a place of comfort, familiarity, and real pleasure with our husbands’ kids. But if our happiness is contingent on his kids being happy for us, being happy with us, and loving us, then we have given away our greatest power and put everything at risk.

The above is an excerpt from the book Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do by Wednesday Martin, Ph.D.. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do

Author Bio
Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., is a social researcher and the author of Stepmonster: a New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do (2009). She is a regular contributor to Psychology Today (www.psychologytoday.com) and blogs for the Huffington Post and on her own web site (www.wednesdaymartin.com). She has appeared as a stepparenting expert on NPR, the BBC Newshour, Fox News and NBC Weekend Today, and was a regular contributor to the New York Post’s parenting page. Stepmonster is a finalist in the parenting category of this year’s “Books for a Better Life” award.
A stepmother for nearly a decade, Wednesday lives in New York City with her husband and two sons. Her stepdaughters are young adults.

What Should I Expect To Pay In Alimony?

Ask the Lawyer

Question Submitted:

My wife has filed for divorce and is asking for $4000 a month in alimony. She filed without the use of a lawyer. The amount she is asking for is half of what I make in a month. I am a self employed contractor.

She has five kids from two previous marriages and we have had none together. We have been married for almost five years and pretty much supported them all by my paychecks. She has three businesses that she has started since we moved to California in 2005. She is a realtor, owns a small cosmetics company, and recently started a catering company. What should I be expecting to pay in alimony?

Answer:

Maintenance, or alimony, laws vary a great deal from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. So until you consult with a local attorney, it’s hard to say with any accuracy what you may be expected to pay.

If during your marriage you have generally made more money than she has, you will likely have a maintenance obligation. The duration of maintenance is not likely to be very long given that your marriage was under five years.

You’ve alluded to a couple of arguments that will be helpful in minimizing any maintenance obligation the court might order. Specifically, she’s a business woman. She is educated, well trained and experienced.

One purpose of maintenance is to help the lesser earning spouse rehabilitate his/her self to become a more marketable employee. Your wife doesn’t need to do that. She’s already a realtor, cosmetic company owner and she owns a catering company.

Further, any expenses that you covered during the marriage for her children were gifts, but you should not be obligated to continue to provide that support. The children’s fathers are obligated to do so through child support.

Claudia J. Weaver is an Associate Attorney with Cordell & Cordell, P.C., in Overland Park, Kansas. Ms. Weaver practices exclusively in the area of domestic relations.

Courtesy of DadsDivorce.com

Does A New Live-In Boyfriend Change My Alimony Payments?

Ask the Lawyer

Question Submitted:

What is the rule for alimony when your ex-spouse’s boyfriend moves in? I’ve talked to a lot of guys about this and there seems to be confusion about the addition of a new live-in boyfriend. Does his income ever make any difference in the amount of maintenance and child support that I’m paying? Does the time that he has lived in the house make a difference? Do I still get right of first refusal when my wife wants to leave the kids with him?

Answer:

The child support and the right of first refusal should not be automatically affected by the status of the boyfriend, absent specific terms in your divorce addressing such circumstances.

While normally not applicable to most situations, if the boyfriend is contributing to the support of your ex, that may constitute a substantial change in her ability to provide more of the support for the children to permit you to seek a reduction in your obligation. Such a reduction would be unusual.

The right of first refusal is intended to assure that the parents, not step-parents or other caregivers, are given primary responsibility for caring for the children, such that childcare by the boyfriend is not a substitute for your involvement with your children and the right of first refusal should still apply.

Spousal support (alimony), however, is usually affected by cohabitation with someone who is helping to support the ex.

The theory is that if someone else has taken on the responsibility for supporting your ex, you should no longer have to support her. The impact of the boyfriend upon the spousal support will depend upon the terms of your divorce as to the type of spousal support and the reasons for the spousal support. The specifics as to when the cohabitation affects spousal support, and when you have to file with the court to end your support, vary by State.

You should seek an immediate review, before the boyfriend moves out, by qualified legal counsel, such as Cordell & Cordell, as to the impact of the boyfriend’s cohabitation on your divorce terms and the time frame to file court proceedings.

Richard Coffee is a Litigation Manager in the Belleville Illinois office of Cordell & Cordell. He is an experienced divorce attorney whose practice is devoted to domestic litigation. He is licensed in the State of Illinois and is admitted to practice law in the U.S. District Courts for Northern, Central and Southern Illinois.

Courtesy of Dadsdivorce.com

10 Steps to a Happy, Healthy Remarriage

By Wednesday Martin, Ph.D.

Don’t call them deadbeats. Research shows that today’s fathers are spending more time with their kids than ever — an average of nearly three and a half hours a day more than Dads of a few decades ago. Kids and fathers alike are reaping the benefits; more time spent together sows the seeds of closeness. But the flipside of this trend is that it makes divorce more painful for fathers than ever before. As one man I interviewed said, “There are no words to describe the pain of not being able to tuck my kids in every night.”

His dilemma is not uncommon. While dads are increasingly parenting on the front lines, custody is still more or less automatically awarded to mom. “Even when custody is technically joint, dad may get far less time with the kids,” says Texas divorce lawyer Stuart Gagnon. And so they want the time they do get together to be perfect. “I don’t harp on my daughter to pick up her towel since she’s only here for a couple of days,” one dad told me. Another said proudly, “My kids come whenever they want, and when they do, it’s all about them.” Read more

Domestic Violence Isn’t Necessarily What You Thought

By Matthew A. Breddan, Esq.

When you hear the words “Domestic Violence” what victim comes to mind? When you do a Google Search for “what is domestic violence,” the very first link is titled “Web Definitions for domestic violence.” Its definition states: “violence or physical abuse directed toward your spouse or domestic partner; usually violence by men against women.” This definition clearly shows a “bias” against men . Read more

For the Sake of the Children – Cooperative CO-Parenting During and After Divorce

By Pam Leo

“More than one million children are affected by divorce each year.
- Kids First Fact Sheet

In 20 years of being a family child care provider and 12 years of conducting parenting workshops I have seen parents struggle with and children suffer from uncooperative CO-parenting.

Years ago when couples found themselves in an unhappy, even unhealthy marriage they usually remained married “for the sake of the children.” Today unworkable marriages dissolve in divorce.

At first a divorce usually meant Dad moved out. The kids lived with Mom and visited Dad every other weekend. Now joint custody is often awarded to parents when both parents desire to raise the children. Depending on the maturity of both parents involved, joint custody can mean, at best, both Mom and Dad sharing the nurturing of their mutual children. At worst, it can mean two parents dividing time with their children 50/50 as if children were marital property with each parent fighting to make sure they each get and do exactly their share. Read more

5 Key Reasons For Conflict In A Marriage

Marriage Problems

Courtesy of James J. Gross

“In any group of people there are different agendas,” said my friend, who ought to know because she has a PhD in psychology.

“And different agendas mean conflict.”

Now comes the important part. “A group is any number more than one!”

So a marriage is a group. That means two different agendas. And that means conflict.

There can be many reasons for conflict in a marriage. Read more

4 Strategy Tips for Child Custody Battles

Great insight from an attorney’s perspective.

Courtesy of  James J. Gross

Sometimes in a child custody battle, a client will ask me, “What’s your strategy for my case?” I have to think about this for awhile because frequently I do things by intuition. That’s because through experience I know what has worked and what has not worked in prior cases. So here are some strategy tips for child custody battles. Read more

How Do You Handle Visitation With An Interfering Ex?

Ask The Lawyer

Question Submitted:

When does it end? Court order by Cambridge court that a father gets visitation for the week of Christmas – a week in March and the month of July. The month of July is if the child wants to stay with the father during that period of time.

The mother each and EVERY time interferes. The child (14 yrs in the coming august) has said the mother writes things down on a piece of paper and tells her what to say. The child then says when she does not say what is written the mother gets very angry. The child is now being told she CANNOT come in July.

This is now the second year I have had to deal with this. Of course, the easy solution would be to take it back to court. But, the decision was already made by the Judge. How do we proceed?

Answer:

Your description of the situation leads to the conclusion that the mother’s conduct will not change without court intervention. The law of your state will dictate the process for enforcement or modification of the court order setting the visitation. The preparation for a court review may require your daughter to be interviewed by an attorney appointed to represent her (sometimes referred to as a child’s representative or a guardian ad litem), a court appoint psychologist, or even the judge to allow for a determination of the situation free from the direct influence of the mother. You should consult a qualified family law attorney in your state to review your legal options.

Submit a questions to sdladvice@singledadlife.com

Courtesy of  DadsDivorce.com

Divorce for Men Before. During. After.

Richard Coffee is a Litigation Manager in the Belleville Illinois office of Cordell & Cordell. He is an experienced divorce attorney whose practice is devoted to domestic litigation. He is licensed in the State of Illinois and is admitted to practice law in the U.S. District Courts for Northern, Central and Southern Illinois.

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