For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered | E. Mavis Hetherington, John Kelly

For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered | E. Mavis Hetherington, John Kelly | No squishy self help fuzzies here

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For Better or For ...

	For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered E. Mavis Hetherington, John Kelly W. W. Norton & Company, 2003 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Mavis Hetherington, "without doubt the world's preeminent researcher on the family processes that surround divorce,...has distilled the wisdom growing out of her many studies of the short-term and long-term impact of divorce on family members" (Eleanor Maccoby, Stanford University). Offering "a welcome corrective to misleading and simplistic accounts," Hetherington "not only provides scientifically sound and wonderfully sensible guidance but dispels the myth that divorce is always negative" (Ross D. Parke, University of California, Riverside). This "widely-heralded study" (Time) is a "reader-friendly guide to how people can build success out of the stress and adversity of divorce" (Michael Rutter, Institute of Psychiatry, London), presenting a more nuanced picture of marital breakup?not as a momentary event but as a life process. Hetherington identifies the kinds of marriages that predispose a couple to divorce or not and also pinpoints "windows of change" that allow some to fashion the challenges of divorce into an opportunity for themselves and for their children.

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No Agenda, Except the Truth

This was a most helpful, elucidating book. It maps out what life after divorce is like, on the basis of an enormous, scientific study. Anyone who has been divorced, or is the child of divorced parents (or marrying one) will find in it all the touchstones you need to know about to help you guide your emotional life.
After all the political fighting about divorce, here is a book with no agenda, except the truth. Indispensible.

No squishy self help fuzzies here

Just the facts ma'am. The first truly helpful book I've ever read on the subject. This book allowed me to look at divorce from a different, more productive perspective. The fact that it is backed up with solid research gave me the confidence to trust that I have the power to control where I go from here... a message that I'm trying very hard to instill in my children too.

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Read Both of the Books and This is the One

Just look at the numbers: 1400 families in this study, something like 70 in the Wallerstein "study" (which was really just a non-scientific anecdotal case report on children who were ALREADY being seen for emotional problems - some statistically significant sampling). This book is very straight forward, and seems to strive to give you a good feel for what you can work to control during your own divorce (or maybe gives you the impetus to stay in a marriage if that's an option). I found this to be an extremely helpful book and much much much stronger than the 'other' one.

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A MUST FOR DIVORCED PARENTS

This book present an impressive quantity of facts about divorce, family, children. Based on observation, they find what makes that while some persons became winners afer divorce others just keep so so, or even loosers for the rest of the life after divorce. This book is based completely in the observation and following of families for 20 years, the information presented here is so true, is not like a priest or a therapist is advicing you, is not a book of psycholycal help, or self esteem, is just the summary of the pure observation.
It's very intereseting when the author talks about the "protection factors" and "risk factors" that can help you or not to be succesful after divorce.
Also talks very clearly about the case, often presented, when a person just change of husband or wife, but keep making the same mistakes than the previous marriage.
Describe the process and different ways that can follow the children after divorce, and what it helps.
This book changed completely my view of divorce, and certainly gives hope to the people who is involved in it. If you are passing thru this, this book will be an incredible help to understand it, and to have a happy ending.

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It's about time

After Wallerstein's study, this is a relief. Why? Because Wallerstein's study was based on only 60 individuals from Marin County, California.

Having lived in Marin County for the last 7 years, I can tell you that a less heterogenious mix of people will be difficult to find. This is one of the most elite, wealthy, insular groups of individuals gathered in one geographic area. As an example of just how insular this area is, The Marin Independent Journal put a story on the front page a few years ago about an individual that had dared to put up a billboard which is against a county ordinance. If this type of news can make it to the front page, what can I tell you? To take only 60 from this rarefied group and extrapolate the findings to apply to the rest of the population... is disturbing. This just shows that Wallerstein hasn't made it out of Marin County (having been educated at UC Berkeley) and doesn't have the perspective to speak to how the US population as a whole might be affected.

It's about time we see a study based on a much broader and more representative base than Wallerstein's.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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