In this best-selling book, America’s #1 love and marriage experts Drs. Charles D. and Elizabeth A. Schmitz show what it takes to create and sustain a long-term loving marriage. Step-by-step they reveal their “Seven Surprising Secrets of Successful Marriage” that define a happy relationship—togetherness, truthfulness, respect and kindness, staying fit, joint finances, tactile communication, and surprise and unpredictability. Taking an upbeat, positive approach to living happily ever after, Building a Love That Lasts helps couples focus on what’s right in their partnership rather than on what’s wrong. The book includes many inspiring and beautiful stories of couples who’ve been together for at least 30 years.

Drs. Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz’s award-winning book reveals how to sustain a long-term loving marriage. In addition to exploring the seven key ingredients that define a successful marriage—togetherness, truthfulness, respect and kindness, staying fit, joint finances, tactile communication, and surprise and unpredictability—the authors have included hundreds of insightful and practical interviews with happy couples.

Drs. Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz are renowned love and marriage experts and multiple award-winning authors. As the Marriage Experts for PsychologyToday.com, the National Marriage Advice Examiners for Examiner.com and “The Official Guides To Marriage” and the Love and Marriage Experts for www.SelfGrowth.com, the Doctors provide inspiration and guidance to readers around the globe.

As America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts, Drs. Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz know that simple things matter in relationships. They understand what makes relationships work because they have conducted three decades of research on successful marriages, as well as sharing personal experience drawn from their own 43-year marriage.

Dr. Charles D. Schmitz is a highly successful faculty member and administrator in higher education. He is currently the Dean of the College of Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a longtime Professor of Counseling and Family Therapy, where he focuses on counseling psychology and leadership. During his distinguished career, Charles has received more than 40 local, state, and national awards; published 200 articles, manuscripts, books, and scholarly papers; delivered 600 speeches and professional presentations throughout the world; and has frequently appeared on radio, television, and in print. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri–Columbia.

Dr. Elizabeth A. Schmitz is a full-time author and lecturer. She has served as an award-winning administrator and educator for 36 years. She received her Ed.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia and has lectured at numerous colleges in the areas of counseling and leadership. Elizabeth has received 25 local, state, and national awards; published over 150 articles, manuscripts, and books; delivered over 400 speeches and presentations; made numerous radio and television appearances; and been quoted extensively in the media. She is president of Successful Marriage Reflections in St. Louis, Missouri, where she and Charles reside.

Together, the Schmitz’s have written the award-winning book, Golden Anniversaries: The Seven Secrets of Successful Marriage, and are popular speakers and talk show guests. Their latest book, Building a Love That Lasts, provides more surprising insights on creating successful relationships from America’s favorite love and marriage experts (Jossey-Bass/Wiley 2010).

Read more about Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz at www.simplethingsmatter.com.

A guide by the author of The Sexually Satisfied Woman explains why affairs happen, offers preventative advice, and presents a seven-step “reconstructive” program for couples who are willing to recommit to one another.

Dr. Edell holds a Ph.D. in Leadership and Human Behavior, Specialization in Counseling, and has been a counseling specialist and business consultant in private practice for many years, conducting groups, workshops, lectures, and seminars, in addition to individual sessions.

He has appeared many times on all the major national syndicated television and radio talk shows, including OPRAH, DONAHUE, MAURY, LEEZA, and others. Dr. Edell is the author of two best-selling books on relationship issues: How to Save Your Marriage from an Affair: Seven Steps to Rebuilding a Broken Trust, and The Sexually Satisfied Woman: The 5-Step Program for Getting Everything You Want in Bed.

What could be good about a bad marriage? The good news is, you can get beyond that old marriage and its destructive habits, and build a brand-new one with the same spouse. And you can do it in just 90 days, even if only one spouse is committed to change. Thousands of couples in marriages that are on the brink will never enter a therapist’s office, and for others it’s too late by the time they do agree to come. But for more than 20 years, David Clarke has seen marriages turn around in just 12 weeks. Here he takes his 90-day plan and presents it using humor, Scripture, and personal stories to help couples turn difficult marriages into great ones. Whether the issue is communication, the kids, negative attitudes, or even serious sin, Clarke’s personalized approach will put readers on the road to a great marriage.

You can save your marriage What could be good about a bad marriage? The good news is that you can get beyond that old marriage and its destructive habits and build a brand-new one with the same spouse. And you can do it in just 90 days, even if only one spouse is committed to change. Thousands of couples in marriages that are on the brink will never enter a therapist’s office–and for others it’s too late by the time they do agree to come. But for more than 20 years, Dr. David Clarke has seen marriages turn around in just 12 weeks. Now, with humor, Scripture, and personal stories, he shares his 90-day plan with you to help you turn a difficult marriage into a great one. Whether the issue is communication, the kids, negative attitudes, or even serious sin, Clarke’s personalized approach will put you on the road to a great marriage. Dr. David Clarke is a Christian psychologist, a speaker, and the author of eight books, including Kiss Me Like You Mean It. A graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, he has been in full-time private practice for over 20 years. He lives in Florida with his wife, Sandy, and their four children. William G. Clarke has been a marriage and family therapist for over 30 years. A former Campus Crusade for Christ director and founder of the Marriage and Family Enrichment Center, he lives in Florida with his wife, Kathleen.

Read more about Dr. David Clarke at his website.

Money and Marriage Two: A Narrative Guide to Financial, Estate, and Retirement Planning in a Second Marriage is about law, money, and marriage. Each of us wants love and financial security, but there can be conflicting interests in a second marriage when you have children from the first. Here, you will learn legal and financial ways to support and strengthen your second marriage as you negotiate and make smooth the financial relationship. At the same time, however, you will learn hardball techniques to protect yourself and your children. Many second marriages don’t last, and blood is blood. The question you may ask is, “Can I be fair, yet smart?”

With an understanding born of experience, the author shares his answer through a story. The setting is an adult education course taught by two attorneys, one an estate planner, the other a divorce lawyer. The course combines a legal and financial mini-text that can be scanned, read, or studied with a highlighter, with a plot that captures it all with dialogue, character, humor, and romance. The instructors and their six students bring you into the intimacy of their lives as they struggle to achieve both love and financial security.

Read more about Jon Fitzpatrick here.

In almost half of all stepfamilies, each parent brings one or more children to a new marriage and while other books give general information about wills, trusts, and taxes, many of them may not apply to couples in second marriages.

Estate Planning for Blended Families is the first book for parents in second marriages who want to provide both for their current spouse and their children from the current and prior marriages. Author Richard Barnes has years of experience guiding couples through the process of setting goals, discussing competing priorities, and choosing strategies and this book covers:

Identifying goals and concerns
Discussing matters with your spouse
Planning for all children involved
Estate and gift taxes in a second marriage
Choosing executors and trustees
Working with lawyers, financial planners and other experts
And much more

Estate Planning for Blended Families will also provide sample estate plans as well as the latest information regarding federal and state laws.

Twenty-five years ago, Judith Wallerstein began talking to a group of 131 children whose parents were all going through a divorce. She asked them to tell her about the intimate details of their lives, which they did with remarkable candor. Having earned their trust, Wallerstein was rewarded with a deeply moving portrait of each of their lives as she followed them from childhood, through their adolescent struggles, and into adulthood. With The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, Wallerstein offers us the only close-up study of divorce ever conducted–a unique report that will change our fundamental beliefs about divorce and offer new hope for the future.

Wallerstein chooses seven children who most embody the common life experiences of the larger group and follows their lives in vivid detail through adolescence and into their love affairs, their marriage successes and failures, and parenting their own children. In Wallerstein’s hands, the experiences and anxieties of this generation of children, now in their late twenties to early forties, come to life. We watch as they struggle with the fear that their relationships will fail like those of their parents. Lacking an internal template of what a successful relationship looks like, they must invent their own codes of behavior in a culture that offers many models and few guidelines. Wallerstein shows how many overcame their dread of betrayal to find loving partners and to become successful, protective parents–and how others are still struggling to find their heart’s desire without knowing why they feel so frightened. She also demonstrates their great strengths and accomplishments, as a generation of survivors who often had to raise themselves and help their parents through difficult times.

For the first time, using a comparison group of adults who grew up in the same communities, Wallerstein shows how adult children of divorce essentially view life differently from their peers raised in intact homes where parents also confronted marital difficulties but decided on balance to stay together. In this way she sheds light on the question so many parents confront–whether to stay unhappily married or to divorce.

The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce should be essential reading for all adult children of divorce, their lovers, their partners, divorced parents or those considering divorce, judges, attorneys, and mental health professionals. Challenging some of our most cherished beliefs, this is a book that will forever alter how we think about divorce and its long-term impact on American society.

Judith S. Wallerstein is widely considered the world’s foremost authority on the effects of divorce on children. The founder of the Judith Wallerstein Center for the Family in Transition, she is a senior lecturer emerita at the School of Social Welfare at the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author, with Sandra Blakeslee, of the national bestsellers The Good Marriage and Second Chances, and with Dr. Joan Berlin Kelley of Surviving the Breakup. Julia M. Lewis is a professor of Psychology at San Francisco State University where she is Director of the Psychology Clinic and Coordinator of the Clinical Psychology graduate program. She is a co-principal investigator of the 25 year Children of Divorce Project. Sandra Blakeslee is an award-winning science correspondent for The New York Times.

Read more about Judith Wallerstein’s class work on Wikipedia.

In her book, Divorce and Money: How to Make the Best Financial Decisions During Divorce, author Violet P. Woodhouse outlines important strategies for protecting your finances during divorce. Currently in its ninth edition, Ms. Woodhouse’s book has been hailed by Steve Crowley, host of American Scene and author of Money for Life, as “the right book to read to keep your property, your rights, plus your sanity…”

Proper financial and tax planning is crucial to weathering the economic fallout from divorce. Violet P. Woodhouse is not only one of the most highly regarded family law lawyers in Orange County and Southern California, she is also a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional. Her expertise and success at guiding individuals through financially complex divorce issues have earned her recognition as one of the nation’s leading financial advisors. Ms. Woodhouse is also the author of Divorce and Money: How to Make the Best Financial Decisions During Divorce.

Read more about Violet Woodhouse on her website.

About half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce, and most of these divorces result in unnecessary collateral damage. Now there is a better way.

In Collaborative Divorce, Pauline Tesler and Peggy Thompson, two pioneers in the field who train collaborative professionals around the world, present the first complete, step-by-step explanation of the groundbreaking method that is revolutionizing the way couples end their marriages. Working with a team of caring specialists that includes two lawyers, two coaches, a financial consultant, and a child specialist (if necessary), you and your spouse focus on building a consensus that addresses the needs of everyone who will be directly affected by the divorce. This exciting new paradigm empowers you—not lawyers or a judge—to shape the outcome of your divorce. Collaborative Divorce is essential reading that will inspire you to approach divorce as a vehicle for conflict resolution, healing, and positive, long-term change.

“The end of a marriage is both common and, for many, emotionally devastating. In this brave and visionary work, Tesler and Thompson do the nearly unthinkable: they chart the path to a humane and compassionate divorce. In so doing, they reveal that much of divorce’s destructive power is not intrinsic, but comes instead from the adversarial system in which we’ve all been schooled. Change the system, as they describe in clear and convincing terms, and the pain of divorce can be drastically reduced. Collaborative Divorce is one of the rare books with a vital lesson, powerfully taught, that will make the world a better place.”
–Thomas Lewis, M.D., assistant clinical professor, University of California, School of Medicine, and author, A General Theory of Love

Pauline Tesler, M.A., J.D., has been a specialist in family law certified by California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization since 1985. She is a fellow of the America Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and she lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband. For more information, please visit www.lawtsf.com.

Peggy Thompson, Ph.D., has been a licensed psychologist specializing in families and children for thirty years. For the past fifteen years, she has been actively involved in the development and practice of collaborative divorce. Peggy lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband. For more information, please visit www.cdadivorce.com.

Read more about Pauline and Peggy at their website.

Bernstein, a psychologist specializing in couples and family therapy, and Magee (The Power of Positive Confrontation) offer partners a way to renew the spark in their relationships in this succinct self-help guide. They claim that one of the most significant steps is to focus on yourself rather than your partner by ridding yourself of toxic thoughts, “negative thoughts that have lost their basis in reality and have gotten out of control.” Examining nine toxic thought patterns (such as jumping to conclusions, labeling one another and playing the “blame game”), the authors provide well-researched explanations, relevant examples and practical alternatives to transform negative thoughts and behaviors into positive and constructive ones.

Most people think that poor communication is the reason why so many relationships end, but it’s actually the way we learn to think about our partners and our problems that kills trust, erodes intimacy, and cripples communication.

In Why Can’t You Read My Mind?, psychologist Jeffrery Bernstein reveals–for the first time–the nine toxic thought patterns at work in virtually every relationship, and shows couples how these distorted, negative, and exaggerated thoughts can poison their love and end their relationships. With warmth and wisdom, Dr. Bernstein offers a simple yet powerful approach for breaking that toxic thinking cycle and helps readers establish new and more positive thinking habits for solving their problems and dealing with the stresses of everyday life.

Jeffrey Bernstein, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist specializing in couples and family therapy in the Philadelphia area. He has spent the last two years conducting seminars for couples using his discoveries about the toxic thinking problem in relationships, and has helped hundreds of couples on the brink of separation and divorce think their way back to love. SUSAN MAGEE is an award-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction and co-author of several books, including The Power of Positive Confrontation and When the Little Things Count. Bernstein and Magee live with their families outside Philadelphia.

Read more about Jeffrey Bernstein at www.drjeffonline.com.

With the high rate of divorce and breakups, marriage and family experts point to the fact that people don’t learn from the mistakes of a failed relationship and assume the next relationship will be better, making little effort to fix or understand what didn’t work.

There are plenty of self-help books for committed couples on how to enrich a marriage and scores of guidebooks on how to manage through a divorce, but very few focus on partners with differing degrees of commitment where the separation process itself is viewed as an opportunity for self-growth.

Taking Space: How to Use Separations to Explore the Future of Your Relationship provides struggling couples and individuals with a step-by-step process for managing separations. This model allows people to view and use separations as a proactive way to get space, reduce conflict, and focus on self-growth. This method can even work with a non-cooperating partner. This problem-solving road map teaches partners how to design a separation plan that addresses their specific issues by pinpointing 10 essential tasks necessary to maneuver through an often highly stressful experience. The steps are applied through real-life couple situations. Skills, techniques, and coping strategies to empower individuals to overcome feelings of helplessness and victim thinking help create choices where none have been seen previously.

Once partners have the tools and time to manage psychological and/or physical separations, they are often better able to make an informed decision about the future of their relationship. Taking Space helps couples use separation to learn, develop, and then recommit to their relationship with adjusted expectations, perspectives, skills, and a stronger sense of themselves.

For over 30 years, Bob Buchicchio has been working with couples as a marriage and divorce counselor. In the 1970s and 1980s, even as the divorce rate soared and divorce counseling became a specialty of its own, no models existed for counseling couples in the specific issues surrounding separation and divorce. In his practice Bob saw an increasing number of individuals and couples who did not necessarily want to divorce but wanted,or knew they needed, to take space from each other. At the time, taking space was uncharted territory. How could an individual temporarily separate from their relationship or marriage whether emotionally or physically, in the most productive and least hurtful way? Was this a viable alternative to the rush to divorce?

Read more about Robert Buchicchio at www.takingspace.com.

“A divorce prevention society should be formed to place a copy of this book in every hotel room in Niagara Falls-scratch that, every hotel room in this country. Every wife or husband struggling to say married, especially happily married, should read this book.” — Maggie Gallagher, coauthor, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier, & Better Off Financially

Howard J. Markman, Ph.D. has devoted his career to research on the prediction and prevention of marital distress and success. He has worked privately with couples and conducted long term research studies funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation for 28 years. These studies have resulted in over 100 publications in scientific journals, books, and chapters. During this same period, he has been the Director of the Center of Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver as well as co-founding PREPinc an internationally known company that has provided research based help and programs for couples since 1991. Dr. Markman has co-authored 12 books including, We Can Work It Out, 12 Hours to a Great Marriage and the best seller, Fighting For Your Marriage and regularly appears as an expert on marriage, marital therapy, marriage education and divorce in the media, including Oprah, The Today Show, NY Times, Time Magazine, Washington Post, Redbook, Men’s Health, Wall St. Journal, and USA Today.

Read more about Howard Markman at the University of Denver website.

Generic marriage-saving advice has no place in this book. Instead you will find a step-by-step, nuts-and-bolts approach to getting unstuck and making your marriage loving again.

In this ground-breaking book, Michele Weiner-Davis, MSW gives straightforward, effective advice on how couples can stay together instead of come apart.

Michele Weiner-Davis, MSW is an internationally renowned relationship expert, best-selling author, marriage therapist, and professional speaker who specializes in helping people change their lives and improve important relationships. Among the first in her field to courageously speak out about the pitfalls of unnecessary divorce, Michele has been active in spearheading the now popular movement urging couples to make their marriages work and keep their families together. She is the author of seven books including her best-selling books, DIVORCE BUSTING: A Step-by-Step Approach to Making Your Marriage Loving Again (Simon & Schuster), and THE SEX-STARVED MARRIAGE: A Couple’s Guide to Boosting Their Marriage Libido (Simon & Schuster).

Michele is the Director of The Divorce Busting® Center with offices in Boulder, Colorado and Woodstock, Illinois. In addition to her private practice, Michele is a highly acclaimed and sought-after speaker, known for her life-transforming, energetic and entertaining keynote addresses and seminars for both lay and professional audiences including Fortune 500 companies, universities, religious organizations, the military, professional organizations, and community agencies. She consistently ranks among top presenters at national conferences. Her extremely busy website, www.divorcebusting.com attracts thousands of visitors each day.

Ann was thoroughly convinced that her marriage of fifteen years was over. She believed she tried everything humanly possible to straighten things out between her and Steve. Nothing ever worked. The more she tried reasoning with him, the more unreasonable he became. Appealing to his sensitivity brought out only his insensitivity.

Years ago when their problems began, Ann thought, ” This is just a stage we’re going through.” But, now she knew she was just fooling herself. She sadly admitted that their marriage had gotten progressively worse, not better. As she reminisced about the past, she recalled nostalgically that, despite their difficulties, they occasionally shared good times. Recently, the constant war at home served as a painful reminder that much of what they had together appeared to be lost forever. To make matters worse, their battles had not gone unnoticed by their three children. Bedtimes had become fraught with tears, questions about divorce, unusual nighttime fears and anger.

Desperate for some answers, Ann reflected on what went wrong. Though things were never perfect, Ann thought the birth of Melissa, their oldest child, marked a turning point in their marriage. Initially, both Steve and Ann were ecstatic about their new baby, but their mutual joy was short- lived. Ann became totally immersed in motherhood as Steve spent increasing amounts of time with his buddies participating in whatever sport happened to be in season. At first, Ann frequently expressed her hurt and resentment about his long absences, but since Steve seemed unresponsive, she stopped trying.

Now, five years later, Ann and Steve appear more like roommates; separate bedrooms, few shared activities and, when not fighting, verbal exchanges limited to “Pass the salt.” After watching a talk show about women who feel lonely and alienated within their marriages, Ann saw a reflection in a mirror; she suspected that the camera crew secretly moved in and candidly filmed the story of their lives. She finally realized that struggles with Steve had reached life and death proportions. Simply, if she stayed unhappily married to Steve, she would die a slow and torturous death; if she divorced, she might live.

Read more about Michele Weiner-Davis at www.divorcebusting.com.

Until now, couples facing the dilemma of deciding whether or not to stay in an unhappy marriage had three options: individual or couples therapy, separation, or divorce. Should I Stay or Go? provides these couples with a fourth option–the Controlled Separation (CS). Should I Stay or Go? explains CS and shows how it can be used as a tool to help couples make the best decision for both partners.

Lee Raffel is a practicing psychotherapist for over 35 years. She is a published poet and author of I Hate Conflict (McGraw-Hill, 2008) and Should I Stay or Go? How Controlled Separation (CS) Can Save Your Marriage (McGraw-Hill, 1999). Lee is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Clinical Member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, Board Certified Diplomate in Psychotherapy and Behavioral Medicine, and relationship coach, mediator and educator.

A recognized expert on marriage and interpersonal relationships, Lee has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning New York, hosted a radio show, and appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS nationwide addressing Controlled Separation. She also has been featured in Psychotherapy Networker, O – The Oprah Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Ladies’ Home Journal, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, and radio and newsprint nationwide. Lee has also presented a radio show titled Should I Stay or Go? Straight Talk About Troubled Relationships.

Lee, proprietor of Awareness Counseling Services, Inc., maintains a private practice and as founder of Fresh Perspectives Training Institute®, presents numerous programs on the complexity and possibilities inherent in conflicted relationships. She also is available to offer workshops on Controlled Separation, and troubled family relationships. Her provocative insights and timely strategies have been utilized nationally and internationally for people at risk of destroying their meaningful connections.

Lee says that much of what she has learned about healthy relationships has come from sharing 24 years with her husband, Mark, who initiated much laughter and made every day a fruitful experience even when there was sorrow. Mark died suddenly on December 12, 2000. Since then, Lee continues to reinvent herself over and over again.

Read more about Lee at www.leeraffel.com.

Discovering that a partner has been unfaithful hits you like an earthquake. Long after the first jolt, emotional aftershocks can make it difficult to be there for your family, manage your daily life, and think clearly about your options. Whether you want to end the relationship or piece things back together, Getting Past the Affair guides you through the initial trauma so you can understand what happened and why before deciding how to move forward. Based on the only program that’s been tested–and proven–to relieve destructive emotions in the wake of infidelity, this compassionate book offers support and expert advice from a team of award-winning couple therapists. If you stay with your spouse, you’ll find realistic tips for rebuilding your marriage and restoring trust. But no matter which path you choose, you’ll discover effective ways to recover personally, avoid lasting scars, and pursue healthier relationships in the future.

Dr. Douglas K. Snyder is Professor of Psychology and Director of Clinical Training at Texas A&M University in College Station. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Wittenberg University in 1974, received his doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1978, and interned at Duke University Medical Center. Prior to his appointment at Texas A&M, he served on the faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit and at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, where he also served as Director of Clinical Training and Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Snyder has been recognized nationally for his research on marital assessment and for his outcome research on marital therapy. He is the author of the widely-used Marital Satisfaction Inventory. He has published one of the few controlled studies comparing behavioral with nonbehavioral approaches to couples therapy. A four-year follow-up study of his couples treatment research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health was recognized by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy as the Outstanding Research Contribution in 1991. Dr. Snyder is coeditor of a text on Treating Difficult Couples published by Guilford Press, and is coeditor of a text on Emotion Regulation in Couples and Families published by the American Psychological Association. He has two additional books with Guilford Press that address working with couples recovering from an affair, including Getting Past the Affair: A Program to Help You Cope, Heal, and Move On, and Helping Couples Get Past the Affair: A Clinician’s Guide.

Dr. Snyder received the 2005 Award from the American Psychological Association for Distinguished Contributions to Family Psychology. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association in Divisions of Family Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Evaluation and Measurement. He is also a Fellow of the Society for Personality Assessment. Dr. Snyder has served as Editor of the Clinician’s Research Digest and as Associate Editor for the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology and for the Journal of Family Psychology. He also serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals in clinical psychology and family therapy. Dr. Snyder lives in College Station, Texas, where he also engages in private practice.

Read more about Douglas K. Snyder at the Texas A&M website.

This book provides a critical examination of and reflection on the American Law Institute’s (ALI) Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Analysis and Recommendations (‘Principles’, arguably the most sweeping proposal for family law reform attempted in the U.S. over the last quarter century. The volume is a collaborative work of individuals from diverse perspectives and disciplines who explore the fundamental questions about the nature of family, parenthood, and child support. The contributors are all recognized authorities on aspects of family law and provide commentary on the principles examined by the ALI – fault, custody, child support, property division, spousal support, and domestic partnerships, utilizing a wide range of analytical tools, including economic theory, constitutional law, social science data, and linguistic analysis. This volume also includes the perspectives of U.S. judges and legislators and leading family law scholars in the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada and Australia.

“The Principles consolidate many of the transformative trends in family law since the 1970’s and recommend further, far-reaching changes. This rich collection of essays by so many distinguished judges, practitioners, and scholars, with diverse viewpoints, will surely raise the level of the national conversation about where family law has been, where it is now, and where it ought to be headed.”
–From the Foreword by Mary Ann Glendon , Learned Hand Professor of Law Harvard Law School

“This is a major contribution to the field of family law as a volume putting the ALI Principles in perspective and providing thoughtful commentary is urgently needed. Without hesitation, I enthusiastically recommend Reconceiving the Family.”
–Claire Huntington, Professor of Law, University of Colorado School of Law

“This book is important and timely. The subject matter is of enormous significance. Not only has the American family been undergoing almost revolutionary reconfigurations over the past generation, public opinion about the ways in which law should reflect these changes has also shifted rapidly. The American Law Institute focused its enormous talents on developing Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution and carefully considered all of the significant questions raised by these changing family forms. The contributors to this volume broadly examine issues contained in the Principles which are sufficiently weighty and complicated that they must be discussed from multiple perspectives.”
–Martin Guggenheim, Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law, New York University School of Law

Read more about editor at the Washington and Lee University website.