Finding Middle Ground in Your Life and Divorce

I am a divorce lawyer, a divorce survivor, and once upon a time, I was a child of divorce.   The divorce of my parents was a long time ago; I was seven to be exact, the third child of four. I remember the before, and I remember the after. My little sister was only three, maybe a bit too young to remember the before, she only knew the after. Sometimes I think that is better. I however, am "blessed" to have an excellent memory (my Husband really dislikes it). My parents were really young to be going through this huge thing with a bunch of kids and without the Internet to confirm they were doing it exactly right or exactly wrong. They each had a judgmental family to whom divorce was as foreign as it was morally unacceptable. In the end, they made their way like everyone does, through trial and error, and seemed to have raised some fairly loving and seemingly well-adjusted children. Their divorce is the foundation for much of what I know about how to do it right and how to do...

Celebrities may be consciously uncoupling, but the rest of us are just going through a crappy divorce.  They might be prettier, richer or thinner, but they are parents just the same.  They are the stars of major motion pictures or maybe just reality TV, but we are bombarded with their daily lives from the mundane, to the unbelievable.  When famous people divorce and the details emerge, which they inevitably do, they are suddenly less glamorous and become more like, well, the rest of us.  There is less money now that they’re fighting over it.  They are less pretty, as they bare the ugly realities of their lives (sometimes intentionally) in tabloids and on talk shows.  They are certainly less funny, as a divorce is never funny when children are involved.  Despite the fact that we may tune in to hear about a celebrity's latest multi-million dollar deal, or enjoy watching a good throw-down with their best socialite friend, we really don’t want to see thei...