How to be a Good Divorced Dad E-Book

Jeffery M. Leving

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 289

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Positive advice for divorced dads and their families

The country's leading authority on fathers' rights Jeffery M. Leving presents a definitive how-to resource for divorced dads of any age, background, and marriage history. Leving offers targeted guidance and suggests techniques for staying connected with children and dealing with ex-wives—and in some cases a new girlfriend or the wife's new boyfriend—during the divorce and afterwards. This upbeat book offers good news for divorced dads and counters many of the myths that paint divorcing fathers as alienated, irresponsible, or absent.

• Includes advice for overcoming limited access to children with cooperative responses and legal remedies if necessary
• Reveals how to avoid depression and feelings of guilt that can cause a divorced dad to give up and lose connection with his kids
• Offers ideas for responding to an ex-wife's remarriage, moving, unfounded accusations, and other common issues
• Contains guidance for engaging in new relationships and possibly remarriage

How to Be a Good Divorced Dad is practical and down-to-earth and offers dozens of real life examples of dads who have discovered the importance of staying involved in their children's lives.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Obstacles

The Seven Obstacles to Being Fully Present in Your Children’s Lives

Question Your Rationalizations

Chapter 2: The Difference Between Good Dads and Struggling Fathers

Choice of Attorneys

Mediation

Consistency

Planning

Your Relationship with Your Ex-Wife

Financial Support

Communication

Children’s Emotional and Physical Health

Is It Easier to Be a Good Divorced Dad in Certain States?

Chapter 3: The Impact of Divorce on Children

Stressed Out at Fifteen Years Old

How Divorce Affects Four Age Groups

What to Do: Responding to Kids in Ways that Help Rather than Hurt

The Legal System and Kids: Managing the Interaction

Custody Arrangements to Suit Your Kids

Observe Your Children Closely

Turn a Negative into a Positive

Chapter 4: Romance

Be Patient and Discreet

Bringing a New Person into Your Child’s Life

What to Do Based on What You Discover

Remarriage: New Spouse, Old Problems

Chapter 5: Money Issues

Three Key Money Matters

Mistakes and Misconceptions

A House Divided: A Child-Centered Split of Marital Assets

When Financial Circumstances Change

The Deadbeat Dad Myth

Readjust Your Attitude

Chapter 6: When There’s a New Man in Your Children’s Life

From Stepfathers to Psychological Dads

Typical Reactions and Scenarios

When You Are Being Subordinated or Ignored

Engage Rather than Withdraw

Chapter 7: Therapy Isn’t for Women Only

From Family Therapy to Anger Management

What You Should Know About Therapy and Divorce

Making a Stronger Case for Yourself as a Parent

How to Find and Benefit from a Therapist

Specific Situations: Tailoring Your Tactics

Self-Assessment: Can Therapy Help You?

Chapter 8: Legal Remedies

The Joint Custody Misconception

Mediation, Negotiation, and Location

The Argument to Make to Moms or the Courts

Sole Custody Agreements that Facilitate Involvement and Connection

Legal Reality Checks

Chapter 9: Going Forward

Mom Starts Playing Visitation Games

Mom Relocates

Your Kids (Especially Adolescents) Rebel Against You

You Lose Your Job and Struggle to Make Support Payments

Mom Brings a Stepfather or Other Male Parental Figure into Your Children’s Lives

Chapter 10: Developing Trends and Changes that Still Need to Be Made

Developing Trends

Changes that Need to Be Made

Resources

Index

Copyright © 2012 by Jeffery M. Leving. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Leving, Jeffery.

How to be a good divorced dad : being the best parent you can be before, during, and after the break-up / Jeffery Leving.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-11410-0 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-22420-5 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-23750-2 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-24262-9 (ebk.)

1. Divorced fathers. 2. Parenting. I. Title.

HQ756.L475 2012

306.89’2—dc23

2011050954

For my daughter, who taught me how to be a good divorced dad and helped me write this book

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I couldn’t do what I do every single day without the finest team of attorneys assembled under one roof pursuing justice for our clients and their children so they can follow their dreams. Thank you all for your skill and knowledge.

My sincerest gratitude also goes to psychologist Dr. Alan Childs and psychotherapist Dr. Leon Intrater for their insightful and empathetic contributions to this book. They are brilliant at working with divorced dads and their children, and their experience and expertise are invaluable.

Thank you, too, to private detective Wayne Halick for saving and protecting our clients’ children without fear for your own safety.

And finally, thanks to Kate Bradford and her team at Jossey-Bass/Wiley for their belief in this book and their advice and support.

INTRODUCTION

When Steven first met with the lawyer he hired to handle his divorce, he told him that he didn’t want to try for joint custody of his five-year-old son. When his lawyer asked him why, Steven responded that his wife, Joan, was a good mother and he was the one responsible for the failure of the marriage. “In fact,” he said, “I’ve pretty much failed at everything—I lost my job last year. I’m not a good role model for Joey [his son]. I don’t want him to grow up like me.”

On further inquiry, the lawyer came to learn that Steven wasn’t a failure at all: he had graduated from a top business school and had held a good corporate job until he was downsized along with hundreds of other people in the company. He also sounded as if he was a good father and husband. Steven and Joan’s financial problems were the real contributor to the end of the marriage.

“I don’t want Joey to see me like I am now,” Steven said. “Maybe in a few years, when I get my act together, then I’ll try to be more involved in his life.”

The lawyer explained the legal facts of life to Steven: that given everything that Steven had told him, joint custody would be possible if he decided to pursue it now, that he should see a therapist to deal with what sounded like depression and low self-esteem, and that once men lose the connection with their children after a sustained period of separation, it becomes more difficult to reconnect on both personal and legal levels.

“You may decide now to forfeit your custody opportunity and in a year or two file a motion for joint custody, but the courts are much more amenable to granting it at the time of a divorce than after years pass. They wonder why you didn’t want it from the beginning.”

Fortunately, Steven agreed to see a therapist. Even more fortunately, he found a good new job shortly after. He was able to think more clearly about the divorce and decided to seek joint custody, which the court granted. But not everyone is as fortunate as Steven. If you’re divorced or in the process of getting a divorce, you may know exactly what I’m talking about.

Many men won’t seek out a therapist who can help them with self-esteem issues, depression, and other emotional maladies associated with divorce. Many of these men are out of work or in financial trouble, and it may take months or longer until they get their financial house in order. Many men are so angry about the divorce that they make a series of mistakes—choosing the wrong lawyer, instructing the lawyer they hire to fight a war they can’t win, spending money that should be put away for their children’s future on expensive and unproductive litigation—that all harm their children.

The odds are that you care deeply about your children and want to do the right thing for them. You want to be the best divorced dad you can be. But the divorce process itself may make it difficult for you to fulfill this objective. You may be too emotionally distraught to make good decisions. You may be a victim of gender bias. You may pursue a legal strategy that isn’t in the best interest of your kids.

I’m writing this book to help you avoid the traps and problems that you may encounter in your quest to be a good divorced dad. Let me give you a sense of how my experiences compelled me to write this book.

A Fathers’ Rights Crusader

For over twenty-five years, I have fought for the rights of dads in divorce and custody cases. I have built a Chicago law firm that has earned the reputation of one of the premier firms in the country that represents divorcing dads and maintain a Web site, dadsrights.com, to support divorced fathers. I am the coauthor of the new Illinois Virtual Visitation, Right to DNA Testing Notice, Unlawful Visitation or Parenting Time Interference, and Joint Custody Laws, which all improve fathers’ rights. In August 2009, I was selected by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships as an expert resource to join senior White House staff and other community leaders at the first White House Community Roundtable and Town Hall Meeting on Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families in Chicago. And I’m a divorced dad.

I note all this not to brag but to impress on you that I get it. I understand what you’re going through as a divorced dad, and I have been working most of my adult life to secure you equal rights under the law—and to change the law when equal rights aren’t possible.

What concerns me is that it has become more difficult in recent years to be a good divorced dad. This is due in large part to the absent father syndrome. More so than ever before, divorced dads are becoming disconnected from their kids. Here are some statistics that alarm me and I hope also alarm you.

According to just one study from the U.S. Census Bureau, 24 million U.S. children in the United States (34 percent) live apart from their biological father.1 The United States is now the world’s leader in fatherless families. In the early 1970s, Sweden reported the highest percentage of single-parent families. By 1986, the United States had taken over first place in this category, and we have not relinquished this dubious distinction since that time. We now have millions of children growing up without full-time fathers or any father at all in their life. Now consider the following study results:

Children who live apart from their fathers experience more accidents and a higher rate of chronic asthma and speech defects.Seventy-two percent of all teenage murderers grew up without fathers.Eight percent of the adolescents in psychiatric hospitals come from fatherless homes.Three of four teen suicides occur in single-parent homes.The absence of a biological father increases by 900 percent a daughter’s vulnerability to rape and sexual abuse. Often these assaults are committed by stepfathers or the boyfriends of custodial mothers.

What’s more difficult to measure, but what the other lawyers in my firm and I have observed over and over, is the increase of emotional absence. Many divorced dads are not involved in the decision-making process that affects their kids. They often don’t see them as much as they are entitled to, and when they’re with them, some are spending much of their time with their children watching television and not communicating. A depressed dad has difficulty being a good dad, and a financially broke, out-of-work dad has trouble feeling good enough about himself to parent effectively. Divorce combined with societal gender bias exacerbates these negative feelings, but it doesn’t have to be this way. This book will help you change things for the better.

What’s In It for You . . . and Your Kids

In the following pages, you’ll find advice that will help you become a good divorced dad and stories that illustrate how others have done so and succeeded.

Some of the advice is legal, such as information about legal strategies to obtain custody, parenting, or visitation rights; the importance of language specificity for dads in divorce agreements; how to find the right lawyer for your situation; and ways in which you can make a case for sole custody if you feel your wife or the new man in her life is a danger to your children.

Some of the advice is personal. Although I’m not a psychologist, I work closely with two psychologists, and they contributed a great deal to this book. In addition, lawyers who have worked extensively with divorcing dads come to be savvy about how a client’s psychological makeup affects their legal approach. I know the dangers of both depression and anger when it comes to making smart decisions about custody, visitation, and support. So the advice here is designed to help you get in the right frame of mind to do right by yourself and your children. In some instances, this may mean exercising extreme self-control when you’re in the presence of your ex. In other instances, it may mean working with a therapist to address the emotional obstacles preventing you from being fully present in your child’s life.

The stories in this book cover both legal and personal territory. They are drawn from my experiences representing clients as well as those of my firm’s attorneys and other attorneys outside our firm. I have changed the names and some of the details because of attorney-client privilege, but the basic elements of the stories are what took place. Some of the stories offer cautionary lessons about mistakes divorcing dads make. Others will motivate you to take the steps necessary to become more involved with your kids. I think all of them will resonate with you, since they capture the hopes and frustrations of most fathers who are going through divorce.

Finally, let me impress on you my belief that just about everyone has the ability and the desire to be a good divorced dad. Perhaps a tiny percentage are just bad people and don’t care about their kids (and never should have had them in the first place), but the overwhelming majority want nothing more than to be a loving, involved parent. The first step to achieving this goal is becoming aware of and overcoming the obstacles that stand in the way—the subject of the first chapter.

Notes

1. J. Fields, The Living Arrangements of Children (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, 2001).

CHAPTER 1

The Obstacles

Identify the Factors That Can Drive a Wedge Between You and Your Children

If you’re like most other divorced dads, you want to see your children as much as possible. In an ideal world, you and your ex would split the time you spend with them fifty-fifty, and you’d make sure that every moment you have with them is quality time.