The December before my parents got divorced, they adopted a puppy. Dekker was my Christmas present, and I couldn’t have been happier. I wanted him to sleep in bed with me, but he was too small to go up the stairs. My parents didn’t want him on the furniture, so I slept on the living room floor to be with him overnight. As his puppiness progressed, he went from being a tiny and quiet ball of fur to an active and destructive young lad. In the Spring, he dug and chewed the linoleum floor in the kitchen. “We might not […]
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Guest Post: Familial Evolution
This guest post comes from David Williams, who is sharing this story on behalf of a family member who can offer a full picture of divorce through her parents’ divorce and her own…
Familial Evolution – Perspectives on Divorce from Child to Mother
Continue readingGina’s Diary: The Holidays
Gina’s obviously stressing about the holidays. And it’s no wonder- holidays can be tough for children with divorced parents, especially the first year of separation. She brings up a few issues that are fairly common, and I know I struggled with them…
Continue readingGina’s Diary: Dad’s Girlfriend
I’ve read that men typically recouple first in the aftermath of a divorce. That was true in my case, after my parents split up…
My dad was the one who told me about his girlfriend, after I answered the phone and heard a strange female voice asking for him. I remember feeling slightly shocked by the news. It was only a month or two after my dad moved out and I was still adjusting to the new living arrangements. I didn’t expect my parents to start dating so quickly. I’m not sure if I expected them to start dating at all.
Continue readingMy Book Is Born: Meet The D-Word
A few times over the past couple years, I’ve let it slip around these circles that I wrote a book. It started on an unsuspecting day in July 2010. Suddenly, there were words in my head that begged to be set free, and so I started typing. For the next few months I sat at the keyboard and allowed the text to pour from my fingertips. When I was finished, I’d written the story of a divorce from the perspective of a twelve-year-old girl named Gina (I posted an excerpt from her diary earlier this week).
At first, I thought I was writing for young adults in Gina’s situation. It was several pages— possibly several days— before I realized that, more than anything, I wanted adults to read Gina’s story.
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