Customer Reviews

For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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

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.

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.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I have recommended it to everyone I know that is thinking about divorce or going through a divorce.

Also, I teach a relationship course at the University level. I utilize information from this book and incorporate it into my lecture on divorce. The information is informative and useful.

I was assigned to read this book for my masters level special education class and I was dreading it. But the book was easy to read and it had great information on how divorce impacts children. I would recommend it to any parents who are going through a divorce and have children or anyone interested in how divorce impacts children.

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.

This book is a must read for anyone considering divorce or who has been through one. There is nothing like "the facts" to set you straight on what it is all really about. Dr Hethrington and her team have done a huge service to humankind with this 20 year study. Job superbly done.

First of all this is not a scientific study as one would believe it to be--to have a truly scientific study you would need a control group that is totally alike in every way but divorce. This ofcourse is impossible. Not sure that the investigators of the study didn't have their own agenda. As a licensed professional counselor let me tell you that divorce hurts and hurts badly and effects people for years after. Kids don't want their parents to divorce which is why many of the kids I counsel love the movies where the kids try to get their parents back together. Now sometimes one partner is so irresponsible and unsafe that there is no other choice than to divorce. Still the divorce will have consequences and that is unfortunate for the partner who has done their best. Schools across the country have divorce support groups for kids going through divorce. Why then is there not the same need for kids in intack families? It is obvious that it is not a big need although there are exceptions to every generalization. Any book that would paint a positive picture of divorce except when one spouse was unfaithful or unsafe in my opinion has an agenda to prove that the facts and common sense frankly don't support.

After Wallerstein's study, this is a relief. Why? Because Wallerstein's study was based on only 60 individuals from Marin County, California.

Having lived in Marin County for the last 7 years, I can tell you that a less heterogenious mix of people will be difficult to find. This is one of the most elite, wealthy, insular groups of individuals gathered in one geographic area. As an example of just how insular this area is, The Marin Independent Journal put a story on the front page a few years ago about an individual that had dared to put up a billboard which is against a county ordinance. If this type of news can make it to the front page, what can I tell you? To take only 60 from this rarefied group and extrapolate the findings to apply to the rest of the population... is disturbing. This just shows that Wallerstein hasn't made it out of Marin County (having been educated at UC Berkeley) and doesn't have the perspective to speak to how the US population as a whole might be affected.

It's about time we see a study based on a much broader and more representative base than Wallerstein's.