For Better or for Worse: Divorce Reconsidered

by E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393324133
• ISBN13: 9780393324136
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

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.

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.

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.

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.

An indispensable resource

Mavis Hetherington has gathered together a veritable avalanche of information, in a most usable form. For parents who have divorced, and especially those preparing to enter into new marriages with children, this is a "must read." Numerous and very costly mistakes could be avoided, to the benefit of remarried parents and their children.- Nick Kasoff WGNU Radio - St. Louis