In most cases, I would recommend both, but there are exceptions. In many cases, you can save thousands of dollars by having a mediator help you and your former partner go as far as you can in mediation. The mediator’s area of expertise is facilitating communication – helping both parties say clearly what matters […]

by Guest Author Elinor Robin, Ph.D. and Virginia L Colin, Ph.D. (mostly Elinor) 1. If you have not done so already, call a truce with your Ex. Divorced parents can succeed at co-parenting. To begin, a ceasefire is necessary. It takes two to make a fight, so there is a good chance that either one

  It is a phrase I hear often. Often the person who says it appears to be angry or scornful. Usually the other person becomes angry or defensive. The phase interferes with constructive communication. “That’s a lie” is received as a close cousin of “You are a liar.” Even people who know they are lying

  Recently I was having dinner with a group of friends who all run their own businesses. Most of them had husbands with jobs and also had children under age 12. This means that their families were dealing with the usual work/family/life balance issues. With normal kids needing normal amounts of parental attention, one job,

    Recently I read a HuffPost article about regrets about being a stay-at-home mom. It was a good article about the long-term economic, social, and psychological costs of leaving a career to stay at home and raise children. (You can find the article here.) The comments after the article come from many different perspectives. Is

by guest author Sharon Zarozny   Ask anyone who’s been through it, and they’ll tell you one of the most gut-wrenching aspects of separation and divorce is figuring out how to co-parent going forward. It can bring out the worst in the best of us. While married, most parents understand the importance of modeling good

  Recently an important member of my family died. So I am reminded of Kübler-Ross’s “stages” of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and, eventually, acceptance. For example: Denial: “This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. This didn’t happen.” Anger: blaming, rage, punching things, sometimes envy, sometimes guilt. Bargaining: “Please God, bring him back to life,

  Recently I read many of the comments on a Huffington Post article about the new documentary film, Split, in which children describe and illustrate how their parents’ divorces affected them. The film is scheduled for release in June. The comments to date have covered a wide range of opinions, including the statements below. True or False: 1.

  This topic is challenging. If a stepparent gets off to a bad start with the stepchildren, he or she may never be able to recover. Sadly, this happened when I remarried. My husband and I each had two children in the third grade to tenth grade age range. My husband knew that I had

    It’s a tough topic. People don’t like to think about it. They don’t want to know how many people are affected by it. According to a 2010 CDC study,* one of every four women and one of every seven men experience stalking or physical violence from an intimate partner. That’s 25% of women