My current guest, Sandy was married for twenty-three long years, many years spent trying to make it work and many years spent tolerating it. Here’s Sandy:

A lot of my marriage was tolerating.

A close friend who’s dying now was my saving grace. She was the person I went to every weekend to have some semblance of the Sabbath in a warm inviting environment and my kids practically lived at her house on the weekends. We used to walk over all the time.

I sought out ways to support myself and stopped looking to him for any kind of support on many levels for a very long part of our marriage.

My parents did that. When I was 16, I went up to my mom and asked, “Why are you married to my dad?” I did not understand why they would stay married and be screaming and yelling at each other every single day. I said, “Please get divorced.” I pleaded with her. I couldn’t stand that feeling of being in that environment.

I got married thinking it was for life as most people do and I didn’t realize a lot of things about my husband. When I look back there were definitely red flags, but I really thought that “I’m going to do something different. I’m going to break this chain of divorce and I’m going to stay married,” but I was losing pieces of myself in the process, because I just kept shutting down.

I tried so hard to be rational with him and tell him how harmful it would be to be parenting and to never be on the same page, the opposition and the undermining that would take place right in front of me. It was difficult.

We went to therapy several times. He never wanted to change. We had fights about where we were going to live, because he always wanted to live near his parents and I wanted to live in a Jewish community.  His attachment to his parents was really unhealthy.

We actually lived for eight years in a community that he chose that was near his parents that had no Jewish community. I was it. Because of that I saw how important the whole foundation of my Judiasm was to raising my children, because I created an environment for my kids that was positive, that was filled with music and books. We had neighbors over and introduced holidays to them through the foods that I cooked and the way they decorated our house together. And we decorated their Christmas trees and there was something really lovely about having to rely on myself.  I never gave that up and I did everything in my power to make it work for my kids and then it got to be too much.

There was so many things that were insurmountable. They were foundational things and I think that’s one of the main things I’ve learned is how to discern between, “What’s a foundational element to a relationship that absolutely has to be there and what are things that you can work on and grow?” When you don’t have those foundational elements you really can’t make it work. There’s too many things that are missing and you’re just always trying too hard to make something work.

I see a lot of that in business too. There are a lot of parallels. You attract the ideal client into your business and it’s a flow. You both get each other, you both want to work with each other. You attract the wrong person and they never value you. They never really understand why you charge what you charge. They don’t do the work. It’s very similar. So, start with the basics and I didn’t know what they were when we got married and some of the scripts changed.

Had we both moved at the same pace then it’s possible we could have grown together, but he’s not a rational person.

I’m a doer and I’m a thriver in tough situations. I really do well with adversity, but then it gets to a point where it’s just this uphill battle that’s just too much and I realized, “I just can’t do this.”

Ironically, at the end of our marriage, he went back to being Observant. He realized a number of things. One was that the observance of the Sabbath was something that he really did love and he went back to it.

I think there is a difference between working on a marriage and tolerating it.

Working on a marriage means being actively engaged, committed to making your relationship work, committed to working on resolving your issues. That means there’s discussion, negotiation, compromise, give and take.

Tolerating your marriage means still functioning to some degree as a couple but disengaging. It means working around the obstacles, finding the path of least resistance, avoiding confronting the issues, deflecting the disagreements. Think about how water flows down a hill, working its way around rocks and blockages. That’s tolerating.

At some point an element of ‘tolerating’ might creep into the ‘working on’ and gradually the ‘tolerating’ grows and as it grows you lose more and more of yourself because you no longer give voice to your needs, your views, your opinions, your values. Each time you decide something is not worth talking about, it’s a separation between you and your spouse and those separations build and build. The more you’re ‘tolerating’ your marriage, the harder it becomes to salvage it.

What do you think about working on your marriage and tolerating your marriage? What was your experience?

Sandy Weiner is a dating coach at Last First Date where she blogs about dating and offers coaching services for completing your online dating profile. You can also sign up for her free report: Top 3 Mistakes Midlife Daters Make.

Photo Credit: 2013© Jupiter Images Corporation

Following the advice of a lawyer-friend, the goal of my current guest, Sandy had been to stay married until her youngest child was through high school. She didn’t make it – her youngest was thirteen when the divorce was final. One of the triggering events was an emotional affair Sandy had. Here’s Sandy:

I think it happens to a lot of people. I was emotionally so vulnerable. I felt so completely alone and unheard and misunderstood in my marriage.

I was going away every year and working in sleepaway summer camps with my kids and my ex-husband would be home. He would come up on the weekends and he hated being up in camp. After the very first sleepaway camp I knew that I had to get divorced because the differences between us were so much more obvious with the distance.

I stayed.

Then during summer 2004 I met a man who was working at the camp for the month and we really bonded. We connected on so many levels. I was really, really emotionally vulnerable and I didn’t realize that I was very much falling in love with him, because he paid attention to me in a way that felt really good, that felt like he saw me and understood me. He wanted to have an affair with me and I said, “No.” But I did emotionally fall for him.

I came home that summer and it actually was the catalyst to being able to say, “No,” to my husband, because this guy gave me hope that there would be other men that I could fall for, because up until that point, I didn’t really think there would be. I just thought, “This is the best it gets.”

My husband started digging. He went into my emails. He said, “You must be in love with someone, because you’re—,” I was very detached. I was in another world. I was like in high school. I didn’t even know that I was feeling these emotions, because I was so shut down that I had this awakening. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat and I didn’t know what it was.

Now I know that what I was feeling was like high school infatuation and yes, so there is a betrayal, I guess you could say.

I was emotionally weak, but I did say “no” to this man and I was proud of myself for that. That was my wake-up call.

I thought, “If it got that close to where I could actually see myself having an affair, I have to get out of this marriage.”

My husband took that one incident of me falling for someone else and blew it up to be the whole catalyst for the divorce like there was nothing he did wrong and it was all about that and “I’m going to tell the kids.”

He interrogated my son first, who had been in camp with me and he said, “Did mom have any special friends?” He interrogated me. He went through all my stuff and he just kept asking me and asking me until I just finally said, “Yeah, there was this guy, but I didn’t have an affair with him.”

He was hellbent on telling the kids. When we went through mediation the first lawyers that we saw, the lawyer just kept saying, “Don’t tell your kids. I don’t care if she actually had an affair or didn’t have an affair. You don’t tell your kids this.”

And he did. He did and I had to have this conversation I never wanted to have with my children. I was able to really be honest with them and I said, “Look, this is not a conversation I ever wanted to share with you. This is not your business. It’s really something that I’m not proud of having this happen in my life, but I’m also not ashamed and it happened for a reason.”

Just recently he told my youngest. She’s now eighteen. She didn’t want to talk to me for a couple of weeks, but we’ve worked that through too.

I appreciate Sandy’s willingness to share this part of her story. It takes courage to share parts we’re not proud of.

While opinions differ on whether an emotional affair constitutes cheating, experts generally agree that there’s always self-learning for all parties that can come from an affair regardless of whether it was emotional or physical. That’s also difficult to hear if it was your spouse who had the affair.

In Sandy’s case the affair brought her clarity about staying in the marriage and it also boosted her self-esteem. Another of my interviewees, Pippi also ended up asking for a divorce after her emotional affair. IronSpineSally also had affair and she ended up leaving her marriage for this man. Again, her affair brought her clarity that her marriage was not the way she wanted to live her life and that the dynamics between her and husband wouldn’t change.

Have you or your spouse had an affair? What did you learn from it? What advice would you give others?
Sandy Weiner is a dating coach at Last First Date where she blogs about dating and offers coaching services for completing your online dating profile. You can also sign up for her free report: Top 3 Mistakes Midlife Daters Make.

*Source: Statistic Brain, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 09-08-2012

Photo Credit: 2013© Jupiter Images Corporation

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Sandy Weiner who was married for twenty-three years. Three of those years were spent getting divorced (!) and seven of them were spent tolerating the marriage for their three children who were aged 18, 16, and 13 when the divorce was final. Sandy was following the advice of an attorney friend, advice she now says was bad. Here’s Sandy:

We began our marriage as a Sabbath Observant Jewish Orthodox couple who agreed to raise our kids in a Sabbath Observant Orthodox home.

Within a few years of our marriage, he gave it all up. Our first born child was born with a genetic disease and his response to my son’s disease was anger at God, anger at me, trying to put the blame on me.

My response was, “What can I do to advocate for this child? How can I learn much about his disease as much as possible and be his best advocate.” I see now that my ex-husband really fell into a low level depression. He was stuck in a very angry and depressed place for a very long time and he kind of retreated into himself.

So, the script changed.

We were no longer raising our kids in the same way on pretty much any level. Not only did we not raise them to be religiously the same, which is very confusing, but there was a lot of anger. So it wasn’t just, “I’m not going to observe.” It was, “I’m going to show you how angry I am at God all the time. And I’m going to take my yarmulke and throw it on the ground and I’m going to do all these things,” where he wasn’t coming to the table on Friday night. It was very difficult.

I was working at an Orthodox camp during the summers and he would come up on the Sabbath to visit and hated it. I went to work there primarily because I wanted my kids to have a happy environment where Judaism was being observed instead of home which was this angry, confusing environment. I wanted support for what I was doing. He would just be walking around scowling. He couldn’t stand the social scene either and I had developed some really nice friendships with people there. So, he didn’t want to come to the table. He didn’t want to hang out with people and he’d undermine my parenting, which was a huge part of the reasons for our divorce.

My son who was then eight years old. He really was too young to be in a bunk, but they didn’t have another option for him. He’d come to my door everyday and knock on my door and he’d ask to be let in. I was not allowed to let him in. It was against camp rules. My husband would come up on the weekend and say, “Come on in,” and he was putting my job at risk and he was undoing all the discipline and limits that I had set during the week.

It was just the most frustrating, frustrating thing and I had to start over again, from square one. It was really screwing up my son, it was making me angry and those differences were huge.

I actually went to a divorce lawyer right after my first summer there. She was my neighbor. We used to walk together and I said, “I can’t be with my husband anymore.”

I had known that for a long time.

She said, “Listen, I’m a divorce lawyer. If you can stay in your marriage until your youngest graduates high school, it will be the best thing you can do for your kids, because no matter what problems you have right now, they’re going to get worse. So, I advise you to just stay.”

It was probably the worst advice I ever got in my life. I told her that afterwards when I finally realized, “I cannot wait for my daughter to graduate high school. I’ll be dead by then. I’ll be like an emotional wreck.”

There was too much at stake and so I said to her, “That was bad advice. Please don’t give that to people. It’s not a blanket thing to say to people. ‘Stay for your kids.’”

My parents did that for us and it was a bad idea.

One of my divorce lawyers said, which I think is so true and it’s such an important thing to remember, “Kids are like the doormen of your building. They hear and see everything.”

You think that they’re not hearing that you’re fighting. You think that they’re not seeing that you have this horrible relationship and even if you’re trying to hide it, they sense it.

In a perfect world, staying married for the sake of the kids would be an open, honest discussion between both spouses during which the terms of the marriage such as sleeping arrangements, finances and family commitments are renegotiated.

I suspect that doesn’t happen very often and instead it’s a decision made privately by one spouse until like Sandy, they realize that they’re no longer willing to pay the price.

I’ve never cared for the phrase ‘for the sake of the kids.’ It never made any sense to me even as a teenager. Now it comes across as a cliche and somehow smacks of a lack of courage or an absence of conscious, intentional decision-making. There’s also an implication that anything other than staying married is harmful and clearly that’s not a viewpoint I support.

The framework I prefer is taking everything into consideration and making the best decision you can at the time. You may decide that now is not the right time to end your marriage and that’s a perfectly acceptable decision. You have your reasons. It doesn’t mean you can’t revisit the decision later when your circumstances may have changed. Equally, you may decide that now is the time to end your marriage and that’s OK too. You have your reasons.

Sandy Weiner is a dating coach at Last First Date where she blogs about dating and offers coaching services for completing your online dating profile. You can also sign up for her free report: Top 3 Mistakes Midlife Daters Make.

Photo Credit: 2013© Jupiter Images Corporation

It’s wonderfully reassuring that there are fabulous people out there to partner up with. If you really understand the deeply rooted reason why you are seeking to be in a new life and discover the things about yourself that you need to know before you enter a new relationship, then I think you will find a relationship that really does meet some of the new needs you have at that time in your life.

Page Lambert was married for twenty-five years. When her marriage ended she moved from their Wyoming ranch to Colorado to take care of her mother who was dying of cancer. After that she spent some time in Santa Fe and then moved back to Colorado and fell in love with a wonderful man, a romance that started with a charitable donation request.

by Margaret W. Miller

The emotional burden of planning and paying for a wedding is massive — even happily married couples find it enormously stressful. Divorced couples may find the process so upsetting that they’ll want to divorce their ex-spouse all over again. But as someone who’s recently been through this experience, I can promise that it doesn’t have to be as traumatic as you may imagine.

To plan my son’s rehearsal dinner, top secret midnight wedding in Central Park  and formal ceremony at a private club in Manhattan the next day, his dad and I collaborated on guest lists, expenses, menu choices and much more while maintaining a sense of humor and good will. How did we do it?

Though we divorced when Evan was nine years old, we’ve worked hard through the years to put our two children first, (Evan has a younger brother) to communicate regularly regardless of how many miles separate us, and to “forgive and forget” continuously along the way.

Every couple wants to see their son or daughter find love and have the wedding they’ve always dreamed of. Parents who split up may think they’re not ‘eligible’ for this right of passage or even that they don’t deserve it. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In fact, collaborating with your child’s other parent throughout the wedding planning process is one of the most loving gifts you can bestow on them. Engaged couples have enough to worry about without arbitrating fights between squabbling ex-spouses. Besides—you want to set a good example for your adult children who, with all good intentions, are embarking on the journey of matrimony despite your failure to uphold your own vows. The best thing you can do is to model support, patience and cooperation at a time when they need it most.

Whose wedding is it, anyway?

Even if your wedding was decades ago, you can probably remember the anticipation and joy you felt upon becoming engaged and looking forward to your big day. This is exactly what your child is experiencing, so don’t even think about becoming the center of attention by airing old grievances or declaring restrictions about what you will and won’t do that are sure to put a damper on the occasion.

With one in two marriages ending in divorce, odds are that your in-laws-to-be may also be separated, divorced, or remarried. At Evan’s wedding, three of the four parents walked down the aisle with a second spouse on their arm. Fortunately, all of us were on good terms. Evan’s father, a writer, composed a reading with a paragraph to be read by each mother and father of the bride and groom, which you can read on our blog. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

5 Ways To Ease The Tension

Even if your child is only a teenager, it’s never too early to begin thinking about how you’ll handle emotions and logistics on The Big Day. Here’s a checklist to help you get started.

1. Just because you are divorced doesn’t mean that your child has lost the need—or the right—to the couple that can be called his parents. Maintaining a shared vision for your child and communicating about it on a regular basis will prepare you for milestone events like high school graduation, college commencement, and wedding planning, which await you both.
2. As soon as you’re aware of the engagement, communicate to your child and their significant other your understanding that this is an occasion to celebrate and honor their vows and that you’ll do all you can to make their day go smoothly.
3. Reach out to your in-laws-to-be with a courteous note or phone call of congratulations. Be aware that you’ll share your child (and grandchildren) with these individuals each Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and other special occasions for years to come. Embracing them as ‘family’ will go a long way toward making those shared visits easier to bear. Encourage your former spouse to do the same.
4. Be honest when communicating with your ex about wedding expenditures. A wedding is no reason to go into debt. If you can’t contribute an equal amount toward the rehearsal dinner, wedding gown, flowers, venue, cake, entertainment, transportation, honeymoon, say so. But find opportunities to contribute in other ways. Address the invitations, arrange the flowers, invite out-of-town guests to stay in your home.
5. There are bound to be differences of opinion along the way. Instead of unloading your grievances or complaints about your former spouse on your child, enlist a trusted friend or a counselor to take on the role of listener/advisor.

When the wedding photographer snaps a photo of the groom (or bride) between two smiling parents, you’ll be sending a hopeful message to the world.

Divorce doesn’t always mean disaster.

Children come first.

Families are forever.

Margaret Miller is a writer in Austin, Texas and the web editor of the LBJ Presidential Library. She and her former husband, Kipp Miller, have been divorced for 19 years and are co-authoring a book about parenting after divorce. Read their blog at Divorced But Not Divided.

If you’re considering a divorce in the near future, you may be surprised to learn that there may be a few alternatives available to you.

Annulments and Legal Separations

Under certain circumstances you may qualify for the nullification of your marriage, removing all history of your marriage to reflect its invalidity. If you are considering a divorce but are not yet ready or are unable to officially part ways, a legal separation may be your best bet and a good alternative in the interim. The law allocates two, legal alternatives to divorce for couples in these situations.

Annulment is the legal nullification of marriage, a retroactive measure that makes the marriage void. If you qualify for nullification the courts will treat your marriage as if it never even existed.  Annulment became particularly popular in the Catholic Church where divorce is forbidden.  King Henry VIII  became renown for his four annulments and six marriages, one of which he declared his was invalid because his wife had seduced him with witchcraft.  To justify the annulment of a marriage it must be proven that some dishonesty or misrepresentation took place.

Qualifying For An Annulment

In modern day marriages many couples seek an annulment due to fraud- one partner believes they had been deceived or “tricked” in to marrying the other partner. Possible reasons include lying about being infertile, past criminal history or having an addiction to drugs or alcohol. Had the partner known the truth, their decision to marry the other may have been affected.  If other egregious errs of dishonesty come to light then the courts may also grant the annulment. Annulments can also be granted if you were not mentally sound or were under the influence of drugs and alcohol when you agreed to marry. Marrying a relative or being forced to marry are automatic reasons for annulment.

There is also room for annulment in the matter of personal disagreements over children and sex. Although a bit archaic, annulments can be granted on the inability to or refusal to consummate the marriage. In addition the courts require parties to disclose any ex-spouses or children, as hiding this part of your past can be considered a deceptive practice and grounds for an annulment. Also if one spouse wants children and the other doesn’t that is also grounds for annulment. Annulment can be a legal alternative to divorce for couples who somehow misrepresented their values and person to each other, allowing couples to bypass the social stigma of divorce.

Legal Separation Versus Divorce

For those of us who entered our relationships with a sound mind and heart, annulment is probably not an option. If you are not quite ready to divorce yet or can’t due to religious reasons, legal separation may be a good choice for you. All divorce processes up to the actual termination of marriage are completed. This includes: separation of debts and assets, child and spousal support and child custody and visitation. The most common reason couples seek a legal separation is because of the financial advantages, however legal separation also leaves open the door open to an easier reconciliation down the road. Legal separations are also quicker and cheaper than a divorce case.

One of the most notable financial advantages of a legal separation is that you will not be held responsible for debts incurred by your spouse during your separation. If you live separately and do not file for a legal separation, the courts will hold you responsible for all debts incurred regardless of your living situation. The IRS handles legal separation as the marriage still being valid, and you or your partner can choose to file together or separately. Legal separation also protects the property and assets you do have, allowing you to keep tabs on valuables like the house or cars.

A legal separation would also allow one spouse to stay on the healthcare and benefits plan of the other, something that may be lost during the divorce process. If the couple remains married for ten years then they would both be eligible for social security and pension benefits. Some religious families also opt to have a legal separation when a divorce is not an option. This way the spouses can lead separate lives and have separate finances, and child custody or spousal support can still be given to maintain the quality of life for the parties involved. Much like in divorce, spousal support can not be given if the couple chooses to remain in the same house (cohabitation), even if they section off areas as their own living quarters. Whether to honor your religion or a chance at reconciliation, legal separation can be a positive alternative to divorce for couples not interested in immediately terminating their marriage.

Sometimes, for a variety of reasons we may not have a clear desire to immediately divorce and part ways. Whether you feel as if the marriage was based on falsehoods, or you’re not ready or able to divorce at this time alternatives may be available to you. If you are unsure about your options, speak to a lawyer in your area to discuss which legal plan will best fit your situation, assets and long-term goals.

Jackie is the Digital Strategist for Timothy Durkin, the family law and divorce lawyer of the Jackson White Law Firm in Phoenix, AZ. 

Photo Credit: 2013© Jupiter Images Corporation

What is family?

In the family law context, defining what makes up a “family” is getting harder and harder to do.

Grandparents are raising children, so are aunts and uncles; sometimes, even, stepmom or stepdad attempt to get custody of children. Sometimes a married man will have an affair and “the other woman” will end up pregnant; likewise, a married woman will have an affair and “the other man” will be the biological father.

In such instances, the law can be clear with respect to the rights of each of these three parties concerning the children. First and foremost, child support is always available. Once the biological father is determined (outside of marriage), which is often done either through admission or DNA testing, if contested, the child support award can be established. This is certainly true if the married, nonbiological father is not put on the birth certificate.

Child Support Is Biological

Child support amounts generally aren’t fought over, as Child Support Guidelines are in effect.

Essentially, the earnings of each party (or earning capacities) are put into a formula, and a number is given as the calculation. There are other numbers that are factored in, such as necessary day care costs, other children for which each, respective party is responsible, and a few other facts. (There are also mechanisms from deviating from the standard amount).

In this context, it generally doesn’t matter if the father is married to another woman; if the biological mother establishes he is the father, and she has custody, child support will generally be available. Also, because he is the biological father, he will have a constitutional right to his child, and could attempt to get custody, or at least visitation. When the role is reversed, with the married woman having the affair with the biological father, though, the rights of the biological father can be harder to establish and effectuate, especially if the non-biological father wants to be on the birth certificate.

The rights of the children, though, would not change.

Establishing Child Custody

In most cases, the standard for custody and visitation between parties is “best interest of the minor child,” and the courts look to a number of factors to determine custody, be it medical, emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, and so on. Before this however, this issue of who is the “legal father” must be resolved.

Sometimes, the legal father is clearly not the biological father. If the married, but non-biological, father doesn’t want the biological father involved, or if the biological mother doesn’t want the biological father involved, the biological father may have little recourse to see the child.

The law is constantly attempting to play “catch up” with the varying and evolving definitions of “family.” Initial changes wanted (and needed) to adapt to family members, other than the biological mother and father, raising children; that spread to non-family members (non-blood related). Then the law had to address those instances where a couple was married, but one of the members of the marriage had a child with a third-party.

The end result is that the law is not black and white and that’s a positive. It gives courts the flexibility to handle the complexities of today’s families and to do what is in the best interests of a child. However, that flexibility can also make it difficult to navigate through the system and why it becomes essential to work with a competent family law attorney who has experience with situations similar to yours.

T. Brandon Jaynes is an associate with King Law Offices, North Carolina. Jaynes specializes in family law, civil litigation, courtroom defense and estate planning.

Photo Credit: 2013© Jupiter Images Corporation

Sex started changing, he was angry a lot more, very impatient, short-tempered and instead of dealing with that, I started drinking more. We still went to parties and were entertaining so it was one of those marriages that had the outside facade that everything was good but I was confused on the inside and didn’t understand what was going on.

Debbi Dickinson got married at 28 to a man who was twelve years older. Debbie had a successful career and her life was a whirlwind of social events and entertaining. Her drinking developed in alcoholism. After she hit rock bottom, she started on her journey to sobriety and the facade crumbled.