Darn Divorce

Trevor tells his class about the problems between his Mom and Dad.

By STEPHANIE OBLEY 
A new therapeutic tool for helping children deal with divorce may appeal to kids in a way nothing else will – as a computer video game. Earthquake in Zipland debuted last year and is a quest-style game that follows the struggles of Moose, the son of the King and Queen of Zipland, a small paradise island held together by a zipper. An earthquake rips the island in two, leaving the king and queen on separate islands, and Moose sets out to build a new zipper to bring the islands – and his parents – back together. He also has a journal to record his thoughts and feelings throughout the game.  
 
The game – designed for ages 7 to 13 – doesn’t mention divorce directly but Moose’s struggles parallel those experienced by children during and after a divorce. The game reaches children on their level, said Chaya Harash, President and CEO of Zipland Interactive and also a family therapist for the past 25 years. “The main concern is how to reduce the pain of the children as much as possible,” she said. “That’s their language, playing video games. It was a challenge to combine a serious issue like divorce with a video game.”  
 
Research from fields like psychology, and family and child therapy, were incorporated into the game, Harash said. First, problems faced by children going through divorce were considered – guilt that they caused the divorce, anger, fear, loss, loyalty to their parents. Then episodes of the game were built around those issues. “There is such a need,” she said. “When I see the effect the game has on children, I think there are so many more that need it.”              
 
The game works best when parents play with the children, Harash said, adding that the ending of the game was a challenge to work out. “On the one hand, Moose has to finish the game, and on the other, he can’t bring his parents back together,” she said. “I think we came up with a very nice solution.”   
 
 
A SAFE PLACE                
 
Elizabeth Einstein, a marriage and family therapist in New York and author of several books, including “Strengthening Your Stepfamily,” said she has used the game in sessions, sent it home with families and also taken it with her to national workshops to share with other professionals. It offers a place for kids to feel safe and express their feelings, she said.              
 
“Zipland provides a safe place for kids to work through some of their feelings in a subversive atmosphere that is fun,” she said. “Most kids like video games and here’s a very healthy, useful one. The children felt safe practicing in the journal until they had the courage and skills to transfer them to the parents directly.”              
 
She recalled one situation with a 9-year-old boy who had problems with anger after his parents’ divorce and his father’s decision to move in with his girlfriend. Einstein said the boy acted out at school and also with his 3-year-old sister.              
 
“In one emotionally powerful session, he admitted he was scared because he feared he might not be able to stop hurting her and would kill her,” she said. “When we used the Zipland game, he stayed with the journal lots and mostly wrote angry, angry, angry and we processed that intense anger and brought in his father for several sessions too.”              
 
Through the game, the boy learned to talk openly about his feelings, Einstein said, and work through them with his father. The game should also be used in conjunction with other therapy techniques, Einstein said. “Children need to eventually learn skills to speak directly about their feelings,” she said. “My work generally, and ideally, involves various family members together. The game can be used in advance of that touchy work to prepare children who always fear their parents will be mad at them if they tell them how angry they are that their family has changed forever.”    
 
 
OPENING THE DOOR 
                
Lee Rosen, president and founder of Rosen Law Firm in North Carolina, is always looking for tools to help clients and their children get through divorce. When he learned about Earthquake in Zipland, it seemed natural to start giving it to clients with children in the game’s age range. 
 
It seems to reach children on their level, he said, moreso than books. “If it feels like homework to them they’re more likely to resist,” he said. “With a computer game, it’s something they want to do.”              
 
Rosen said he has heard from parents that the game allows them to broach difficult topics they might not otherwise get their kids to talk about. “It helps to open the door to conversation,” he said. “That seems to be the most appealing part of using the game.”  
 
Harash herself went through divorce more than 18 years ago. She has two children, one who she said was open to discussing the divorce and one who was reluctant. Since the game has been developed, she and her now-grown daughter have been able to talk about things they never did before. “It gives us an opportunity to talk about issues we didn’t talk about at 14,” she said. “It was worth it just for that.”  
 
 
Stephanie Obley worked for several years as an award-winning journalist in Kansas, Florida and Utah, covering everything from crime to the environment. She now lives in South Carolina with her family and writes freelance articles. 

SOURCE

 UPDATE: In light of the ongoing popularity of this article and the passionate opinions of my readers, I have dug up this post from the archives and re-published it. Thank you all for your comments.

I found the following article at AskMen and thought that it was time the Man’s voice was heard:

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Nothing can dishonor a knight like divorce. Just look at Sir Paul McCartney, a man whose iconic name has been flung in the mud over his recent marital collapse, with accusations of abuse sullying his reputation. He was fooled by the honeymoon phase and now he can really say, “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.” But hey, he’s not the only one. It’s no wonder chivalry is dead. Supposedly seven out of 10 divorces are initiated by women. While there are no hard statistics, wouldn’t you agree that maybe nine out of 10 marriage proposals are also initiated by women? A study done by two men named Kuhn and Guidubaldi found that a “gender bias” in the court system makes divorce an inviting idea to the ladies. Why wouldn’t it? Women tend to keep the kids, the house, the dog, the car, and half the property. They get to keep the rock, too. This suggests that not only are men getting screwed by the marketing of the De Beers diamond corporation during the engagement, but the actual judicial system is also stacked against guys during the divorce. Everyone suffers during a divorce, but men have a few special issues to deal with, including fallout from emotional investment, lame-duck custody battles, clashes over property, tarnished reputations, and the depressing aftermath. Marriage is not a bad thing, but divorce is like a 10-car pileup in the middle of a man’s life. Here are some of the great life experiences newly divorced men have to look forward to.

• Betrayal

Obviously, women don’t set out to be gold diggers, but divorce - like death - can turn otherwise good people into bloodthirsty wolves. Perhaps a few sharks go into marriage thinking of money, but for most women, marriage only becomes a business investment once it has failed emotionally. At first, love is honest, and it comes easy when a man only has his dreams. By the time he owns a German automobile, the thrill is gone. Perhaps she’s laying the landscaper like sod when she has her epiphany: “I could make a lot of money from this sucker. And I deserve it.” In hindsight, taking initiative and working hard — let’s say you wrote a ditty called “Hey Jude” that did quite well — was a mistake. Motivation is like an open sore that invites mosquitoes through the window and into the bedroom. From the kids to the house, men leave a marriage with nothing. In some ways, her feeling of entitlement is a result of propaganda, starting with fantasies that promise an emotionally perfect life. Alas, reality cannot live up to cartoons. Women are trained to find a man with motivation from the beginning, starting with Disney classics like Cinderella (poor rag lures wealth under false pretences), Lady and the Tramp (uppity b*tch-hound hopes to make over motivated mutt) and Sleeping Beauty (catatonic do-nothing wakes up to unearned riches). Thank you very much, Walt.

• Custody

The term for fathers who are shouldered out of their kids’ lives is “throwaway dads.” A century ago, kids were considered the father’s property, but the historical shift in child-custody cases has turned Dad into a villain. According to Divorce-Lawyer-Source.com, 70% of divorces involving children result in the mother getting custody. Read that again: seven out of 10. If the odds in Vegas were as good as a woman’s odds in court, men could quit their jobs and enjoy a never-ending bender at the Mirage casino. This “throwaway” idea impacts the kids and society. It leads to an increasing number of single-parent households, and if you’ve ever watched the TV show Cops, you’ve seen how it also leads to plenty of wasted government resources when Mother calls in the uniformed men to tell “Junior” to stop sassing her. Since when did the police become daddy to the masses? The answer: Since daddy lost his shirt in court.

• The House

Common sense states that the one who made the payments should get the house and car. But this is the 21st century, and common sense has joined the likes of Zeus and Bigfoot as a lovable myth of the past. Sentimental value and emotional attachment have more sway with the judge than a mere 20 years of mortgage payments. Open up Excel, and check to see if Microsoft has programmed a wizard for “sentiment and emotion.” It can’t be calculated. Therefore, overreacting in court and going into histrionics akin to the ending of Hamlet is the best way to plead. Literally, the best supplication wins the heart of the biased black robe. Even if a man isn’t a fan of country music, after he loses his house, he will suddenly understand those depressing ballads dedicated to “Big D” misery. But certain statistics are bigger tearjerkers than music, such as the fact that the average divorcé sees his net worth drop 77%. On a positive note, the wife will probably let the man keep his depreciated pool table, and he’ll certainly have time to brush up on his nineball skills.

• Reputation

A man’s reputation is easily tarnished if the woman even hints of “abuse.” Keep in mind that nothing has to be proven, but the man’s name is immediately soiled like a diaper with pureed carrots. What’s worse is that “abuse” can mean nearly anything. An argument in a relationship could be construed as “verbal abuse,” but the headline will drop the “verbal” and keep the “abuse.” On the flip side, some guys are wifebeaters and deserve to have the book thrown at them, but the allegation of “abuse” has become as loaded as the word “terrorism.” Battery is a crime (as it should be), but a shouting match between two normal angry people cannot be compared to physical abuse. You know what’s next on this slippery slope? A guy will eat some spicy chili, use the john and he’ll be in the slammer for olfactory abuse.

• Poverty

Some states, such as New York, allow the career homemaker to collect alimony for the rest of her natural life. That’s after the kids are grown up and have started their own broken families. The man still has to pay while the ex is couched, Cheeto-stained and catching a rerun of Judge Judy followed by Maury Povich (”You ain’t my baby’s daddy!”). Thankfully, most states aren’t this extreme, and many factors go into determining the proper amount on a case-by-case basis. For example, some men pay month to month, while others pay a lump sum each year. Of course, dads only become “deadbeat dads” when they don’t have the lump on time. They may have forked over a lump of $10,000 for 10 straight years, but that’s all water under the bridge. If life takes a hard turn that men aren’t prepared for, they still have to pay alimony. The horror stories associated with bankrupt men have brought about some change in how alimony works, but each state has different rules, and as such, the divorce industry thrives on the confusion. If the divorced man remarries, alimony owed takes precedence over his new family. His new life will always have a shadow over it, like Frodo and his ring. The good news is that if the ex remarries, the divorced man is freed of his duties. The bad news is that if she just shacks up with the landscaper and “cohabitates,” then the divorced man must continue to pay.

• Loneliness

In the post-divorce wasteland, a man will feel like he just crawled out of a bunker after a firebombing. His community is gone and the world is cold. When he walks into his favorite pub, he’s a foreigner. The world hasn’t changed, however — only he has. While he was saying “yes, dear” to dinner parties, he lost track of college football and can’t even remember who played in the Super Bowl last year. The wasteland phase is utterly depressing, and men are prone to making poor decisions in the aftermath. According to WebMD, divorced men are two and a half times as likely as married men to commit suicide. Although women must walk the wasteland, too, they tend to cope with the fallout in a more constructive way. Men go for flings and seek out old flames. A failed marriage is a millstone around a man’s neck, and because men tend to stifle their pain, they suffer alone. Case in point: According to a Yorkshire Building Society study, 56% of divorced men say they rue their failed marriage, while only 45% of divorced women have regret.

• Half the Man He Used to Be

Since McCartney’s separation from Heather Mills in May of this year, it has been a May to September (October, November, December) nightmare. This whole business started with the couple saying “our parting is amicable,” but sometime during the summer, the barristers and attorneys remembered that the Beatle was worth a cool $1.5 billion. Yes, McCartney was worth $1.5 billion, because after this is over, that amount will be much smaller, perhaps half. Lawyers are terrible at math and can only divide by two. Mills and her legal team didn’t write the song “Can’t Buy Me Love,” but they are working on perfecting the familiar modern tune that goes, “What Can Love Buy Me?” The tables have turned since Henry VIII. The ax no longer falls on the ex-wife’s neck, it falls on the assets. There’s no blood, but something even worse: lawyer’s ink.

A while back I wrote about an interesting new product called the Wedding Ring Coffin.

Now, the company is having a video contest and wants you to to participate by creating a video that demonstrates what the Wedding Ring Coffin means to you. Did you purchase a WRC? What did you do with it? Did you have a memorial service? A divorce party? Did you bury your WRC? Your video can be funny or serious, happy or sad, you decide… and the winner will earn 1,000 bucks!

THE DEADLINE FOR VIDEO ENTRIES IS APRIL 7, 2008.

Here’s how to enter:

1. Create a video showing what the Wedding Ring Coffin means to you. Videos should be no more than 2 minutes and include the Wedding Ring Coffin. No purchase is necessary. There are some images available on our website’s Media page at http://www.weddingringcoffin.com/Media .

2. Upload your video to YouTube. You will need to have a YouTube account and ID. Join our group located at http://www.youtube.com/group/weddingr… , then upload your video.

3. Read the Official Rules, http://www.weddingringcoffin.com/vide… ,and complete the registration form on our Video Contest page, http://www.weddingringcoffin.com/vide… .

Good luck and I look forward to seeing your videos!

By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY
 
Divorce isn’t green, says a study being published today.

The research, led by ecologist Jianguo “Jack” Liu, a Michigan State University professor of fisheries and wildlife, looked at international data comparing utility consumption and housing space per capita in married and divorced households. He found that divorce creates more households with fewer people, using more energy and water and taking up more space.

The analysis, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, does not look at the environmental impact of singles who have never been married, but Liu says he plans to look at singles in a subsequent study.

“If you have more households as a result of divorce, then you would need more housing units, and if you need to build more houses or apartments, that means you need more land, and that will contribute to urban sprawl,” he says.

Others familiar with such issues caution that the divorce link to the environment is a bit of a stretch.

While divorce leads to smaller household size on average for a population, “it’s not just divorce,” says social demographer Ronald Rindfuss of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has studied the relationship between population and the environment for more than a decade.

“There’s a whole variety of factors that have been leading to people living in dwelling units containing smaller units of people. Divorce is just one.”

Matt Golden, founder of San Francisco home energy audit company Sustainable Spaces, says overall household space is increasing while occupancy is shrinking.

Liu acknowledges that not all people who divorce create two households; some move into existing households with friends or relatives. But the data he analyzed considered only those in which the divorced person was a head of household.

This analysis also did not compare married and divorced households with other types, such as cohabiting or those living alone. The aim was comparing married with divorced, he says.

“Environmental impacts of divorce and other lifestyles such as separation should be considered when making personal choices,” the report says.

Liu says it took four years to analyze the stats, which include international census data from the 2000 Integrated Public Use Microdata in 12 countries; data from 1970-2001 from the USA, Greece and Ecuador; and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a sample of 3,283 U.S. households from 2001 to 2005.

So what about options such as communes, where more people live under one roof?

“That’s one possibility for people to consider,” Liu says.

The court granted a divorce to a man who claims his wife lied to him about her age.

She said she was 24-years old before they got married.

After they got hitched, however, she ‘fessed up to really being 30-years old.

Darn Asian girls. Even the locals can’t tell how old they are.

A little slow on the intake, though, it took the man 10 years to figure out she wasn’t being straight with him.

Oh well, at least now she can lie about being divorced at 34 (which is waaay much better than being divorced at 40…)

source

“He said, ‘Dude, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to get the kids and all the spouses or the girlfriend together. You’ve got to show your kids it’s okay.’ It was like a light went on. Ding.”

- Bruce Willis credits Will Smith for helping him to become friends with his ex-wife’s husband, Ashton Kutcher.

I came across this really funny post on on this blog about people’s misconceptions of holiday time in divorced families. As Kristine puts it:

“I’ve heard some pretty odd misconceptions and generalizations that people make about divorced families, but by far the funniest I’ve ever heard was of a person who assumed that people in a divorced family didn’t eat a traditional Thanksgiving meal, as if the right and ability to throw a turkey in the oven was somehow written into the marriage license. Once revoked, it’s pizza and Chinese takeout, poor souls.”

Now, excuse me while I go make a funky turkey dog of my own…

Quick, somebody bake a cake!