I normally don't post in this forum, but I thought this might be of interest. It was in yesterday's Post magazine. Includes interesting research on mediation vs. litigation, too.

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Is This Any Way to Run a Divorce? ...When Eli and Debbie split up, after 15 years of marriage, they worked really hard to do right by their kids. The result looks a lot different from the stereotypes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11784-2002Nov19.html

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Martes

I have several issues with this article.

First of all, it is extremely atypical for divorce to happen without there being someone else behind it. I strongly suspect that we are not getting the whole story here. Her comments about how you only have one chance in life sound exactly like a WS's. Otherwise, what was the point of divorcing at that time? If she is planning on waiting till her kids are older to try to snag someone new, why divorce then? I suspect she has been seeing someone else all along, and is just doing a good job of hiding it. It occurred to me that perhaps that someone new is female - that would be much easier to hide.

I am sure it would be great for fathers to come over and spend time with their kids every day, but I doubt if the OW's would let them. It is no surprise that 30% of kids doubt if their fathers even love them. Fathers don't not see or call their kids because the divorce is high conflict - they don't see or call them because the OW won't let them, and divorces are high conflict because someone is having an affair.