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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.
Using Divorce Mediation is the comprehensive manual you need to understand the entire divorce mediation process — from finding the right mediator to writing your final settlement.
By choosing to mediate your divorce, you can:
*steer clear of bitter court battles
*save money
*get through your divorce quickly
*soften the blow on kids
Encouraging and straightforward, Using Divorce Mediation answers all the questions people have about divorce mediation, including:
*Why should I choose mediation?
*How does mediation fit into the divorce process?
*Will I still have to go to court?
*How do I propose mediation to my spouse?
*How do I locate the right mediator?
*How should I prepare for each session?
*How do I negotiate in mediation?
*How can I get answers to my legal questions?
*What can I do if we hit a brick wall during mediation?
*Can we mediate if issues come up after divorce?
Written by Attorney-Mediator Katherine Stoner, Using Divorce Mediation gives you a legitimate, increasingly popular alternative for resolving your divorce issues without spending a fortune.
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.
In my several decades in and near divorce court, I have seen more than a fair share of sad people who can’t seem to move on from their divorces. Some of them manage to turn the process of getting a judgment terminating their marriage from something that should have been finished in a few months into litigation that stretches on for way too many years. Others who have already divorced continue to find new legal issues or causes that allow them to come back to court and continue to fight their former spouses for many additional years.
And those battles are expensive. It costs the taxpayers somewhere around $30,000 a day to keep the courtroom operating. That doesn’t include the cost of the building, the utilities, or anything like that — just the salaries of the judge, the courtroom staff, and the support group backing up the courtroom. If one of these divorced people files a motion over a question such as which school a child should attend in the coming year and then calls a series of witnesses to testify on that issue, the judge is somewhat limited as to how strictly he or she can limit testimony to move the matter along. Meanwhile, other cases back up in the hallway outside the courtroom.
The inside scoop on divorce, from the judge who’s seen it all. “Whatever you do, try to keep your case out of divorce court.” These key words set the stage for A Judge’s Guide to Divorce, which exposes a system in which everyone loses — especially the kids. Fortunately, there’s hope: A Judge’s Guide to Divorce shows you how to reach your own agreements outside the courtroom, in the most civil manner possible. But if court is unavoidable, this book will help you at every step. Find out about:
- the alternatives to divorce court
- courtroom etiquette
- how and where to get legal help
- dividing property fairly
- determining alimony and child support
- settling custody and visitation issues
- enforcing court orders
- getting on with your life
Plus, the book comes with a CD-ROM that features an interview with Judge Duncan and audio scenarios that can help you get through divorce without court.
A Judge’s Guide to Divorce delivers straight talk from someone who has witnessed the war zone of divorce court firsthand. Find out how to avoid it — and what to do if you can’t.
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.
