The Good Divorce

by Constance Ahrons

Book Overview

It's never too late to have a good divorce

Based on two decades of groundbreaking research, The Good Divorce presents the surprising finding that in more than fifty percent of divorces couples end their marriages, yet preserve their families. Dr. Ahrons shows couples how they can move beyond the confusing, even terrifying early stages of breakup and learn to deal with the transition from a nuclear to a "binuclear" family--one that spans two...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060926341
• ISBN13: 9780060926342
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Moving on

This book helped me move from being stuck in fear of living without my marriage to seeing possibility for my future. Change is always difficult. This book made me see this family change in a new and healthy way. I recommend The Good Divorce to anyone who is having a hard time accepting the end of a marriage.

our first step as intelligent coparents

I found this book in the esteemed Bank Street educational bookstore in Manhattan and it became the first ray of hope during the dark early months of separation. My coparent and I started experiencing our disentangling as an organic shift in our ONGOING relationship, and expressing our continued commitment to each other in affirmative and reaffirming terms. This allowed us to give our son the language and story-telling he needed to feel has HAS a family -- it's simply a differently shaped one. In the intervening two years, our friendship as coparents has continued to thrive as we began tentative steps into new relationships, and as we set up rules and rituals in two households. Ahrons got us started.This book explains the sampling issues relevant to debunking Wallenstein. And as a person with an A.B. in anthropology from Harvard, I can tell you that Ahrons sampling methods look pretty good. And her use of positive applicable metaphors to create constructive problem-solving is innovatively brilliant. This is the nice, smart-peoples' divorce book. Forward-looking. Our family relationships today ARE (societally-speaking) often "differently shaped." Ahrons helps us start to deal with that and grow from that base. For our childrens' sake AND our own. Families where one person is dying don't work.

A "must" for divorcing with children...amicably.

My first concern during our divorce was how to make it as painless as possible for our children ages spanning from pre-teen to young adults. With "The Good Divorce" I was able to present these goals to my husband. It was a tremendous help in guiding us through our divorce amicably and I am pleased to say that my ex and I are on very good terms today as a result of looking at divorce issues from such a positive point of view.

If divorce is inevitable, get this book

This book helped me through my divorce, helping to understand the feelings I was having, and how others have dealt with them. But even more importantly, it presents case studies that can provide pointers on a "successful" divorce that doesn't ruin you--or the kids--emotionally.

This is a great book for pre-/post-divorce parents

I found some this book to be both helpful and comforting to read. I learned SO much about divorce while reading this book - the feelings and thoughts that lead to it, what happens to both the leaver and the levee after the separation and the legal stuff about divorces. The words that Constance wrote provided a lot of comfort to me when I read this book. She puts her own experiences and feelings in this book and I felt like I got close to her when I read this. She gives inspiration and hope to all of us divorced parents. I highly recommend this book to ANYONE separated, divorced, or even thinking of doing it