One of the most difficult and hurtful things about the process of divorce is one adult finding out that the “family home” is no longer theirs and that they are no longer welcome. Whether they built it brick-by-brick, were in charge of remodeling it to fit the needs of the family, or painted all the art that’s hanging on the walls, when a divorce settles, 99% of the time the family home goes to one…Read More
I attended my daughter’s cello recital last week and it was delightful. It’s wonderful to see all of these children have the courage to go in front of a room and play solo pieces, whether they were 45 seconds long or complicated five minute pieces (depending on their experience level). The piano was accompanying most of them, but there was a duet and even a quartet piece for cello. Lovely, and the little ones of…Read More
I know a lot of men who have gone through divorce, and while sometimes it’s a smooth transition with little argument and hassle, other times it can be an extraordinarily difficult journey with contentious lawyers and a hostile legal system that remains biased against fathers. When I heard from Mark about their new Men’s Divorce web site, I was curious to learn more about the resource they were building, a question that spawned the following…Read More
This morning I had the privilege of being on my friend Bruce Sallan’s radio program A Dad’s Point of View, talking about tech and being a single dad, among other topics. You can listen to our ten minute segment, if you’d like: Or you can listen to the entire program (I’m the fourth ten minute segment) here: A Dad’s Point of View. Turns out that we scheduled this radio appearance to coincide with a live…Read More
I was approached by the New York Times about a week ago asking if I’d like to contribute a short essay to their Room for Debate section for Father’s Day, the topic being described as: “With all of the endless discussion about the Mommy Wars this spring, dads were pretty much left out of the discussion, which reveals that Attachment Parenting is really just Intensive Mothering. But with the approaching of Father’s Day, all the…Read More
My ex, her fiancée and I attended a meeting at school with a counselor, a check-in meeting about how my son is doing in school. He’s had a rather rough journey, as a lot of boys do in an era when school is more about cerebral activities and passive cooperation than actively running around, having lots of physical activities and just plain doing stuff. You can tell what my philosophy of raising boys is in…Read More
I seem to have opened the floodgates on letters from people, which is good. I do have to disclaim that I’m just a regular guy with no special training in family therapy, psychology or anything to do with the legal, psychological or emotional trauma of divorce. And I don’t — yet — play a divorce therapist on TV either. So here’s the latest letter I got: I’m about to become a divorced dad. I don’t…Read More
Ah jeez, I hate getting this kind of email from a reader: My wife and I are currently going through a divorce. We are committed to easing our children’s transition during this otherwise tumultuous time. At present, our children do not know that this is occurring. Do you have any recommendations on how to tell the children? Is there any books you have read that can approach this subject with the children in a story…Read More
I’m really saddened to learn that a good friend of mine is poised to go through a very similar journey that I’ve been on for the last few years and that — more importantly — my children have been on, a journey that started with all too much tension and too little effective, honest and humble communication, detoured through lawyers and endless arguments at $250/hr, and ended up with a contentious divorce. Years later it’s…Read More
This is an article I wrote for a divorce recovery book. I hope you find it useful… You already know about splitting up the checking account, figuring out what happens to the bank loans and your cars, and even have started to discuss who gets the family dog and that great bunk bed that your daughter’s loved forever but you want to keep, but in the 21st Century, a lot of us have an entire…Read More
