Adult Children of Divorce: How to Overcome the Legacy of Your Parents' Break-up and Enjoy Love, Trust, and Intimacy [Paperback]

Jeffrey Zimmerman (Author), Elizabeth S. Thayer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2003

If your parents divorced when you were young, you were probably affected by the breakdown fo their marriage. Divided loyalties, secrets kept from the other parent, one life lived in two separate houses—these may have been par for the course.

With this guide, you will learn that the effects of the divorce are not permanently harmful. Find out how to forgive your parents, discover new ways to enrich your own relationships and learn that there are alternative realities available.

Divorce experts and psychologists Jeffrey Zimmerman, Ph.D., and Elizabeth S. Thayer Ph.D., show you how to recognize how your parents’ divorce influenced your life, resulting in disruptions such as relationship failures due to financial reasons, difficulties with commitment, and repeated situations that “just don’t seem to work out.” They provide techniques to help you understand and overcome these and other issues common to adult children of divorced parents. Zimmerman and Thayer focus on helping you learn how to build self-esteem, become resilient, establish healthy boundaries, communicate clearly, open up to trust, show love, believe in commitment and deal with vulnerable feelings.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The authors pool their clinical experience to raise questions aimed at increasing self-awareness and developing a healthier future, all presented as though the reader were sitting in their clinical office. The book is chock-full of wise, pithy advice regarding the management of intimacy and conflict in love, work, and parent-child relationships. This book is eminently readable and level-headed, a welcome antidote to the emotional roller coaster of parental divorce.”
—Marsha Kline Pruett, Ph.D., MS, coauthor of Your Divorce Advisor, associate professor, psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine

“Finally! A book that not only illuminates the emotional impact of parental divorce, but also provides concrete ways in which children of divorce can make sense of their painful pasts and work toward building better relationships as adults. Through poignant real-life stories and probing exercises, this book offers an invaluable road map for anyone still struggling with hurt and confusion by their parents’ divorce. A must-read for all adult children of divorce.”
—Stephanie Staal, author of The Love They Lost: Living with the Legacy of Our Parents’ Divorce

From the Publisher

The first ever step-by-step guide to teach adult children of divorce how to identify their inherited distrust of relationships and go on to have rich, fulfilling, and lasting relationships of their own.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications, Inc (November 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572243368
• ISBN-13: 978-1572243361
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #780,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what we expected, June 25, 2008

By 

Pamela J. Karr (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adult Children of Divorce: How to Overcome the Legacy of Your Parents' Break-up and Enjoy Love, Trust, and Intimacy (Paperback)

We were looking for a book about children who were adults when their parents got divorced. Instead this book is about adults who were children when their parents got divorced. So it might be a great book for the right audience, but it did not apply to the situation we were looking for.