Learning From Divorce : How to Take Responsibility, Stop the Blame, and Move On

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Summary: You REALLY can learn from divorce.
Review: All too often when people separate or divorce they see it as catastrophic and the end of everything as it has been. They allow it to hold them back and get stuck in the anger, hurt, devestation and blaming. This book, written for the person going through it, is subtitled "How to take responsibility, stop the blame, move on" and that is exactly what it teaches.
Any change can be painful; the more important the situation that is changed, the more painful it can be. One can be stymied and stagnated by that pain, or use it to learn and grow as a person. This amazing book guides you to become a better you; to understand how you got where you are and how to improve your chances in future relationships.
It is a wonderful gift to give yourself or to anyone you love who is going through, or has gone through, a separation or divorce.

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Summary: Tools to Get It Right (Life Ain't No Ground Hog Day!)
Review: Psychoanalyst Freud describes in his psychoanalytic theory of "repetition-compulsion," our tendency to re-enact earlier experiences for the mind to heal itself of trauma. Philosopher Santayana reminds us that those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. In "Learning from Divorce," divorce attorney-mediator Christie Coates and child custody and parenting evaluator-mediator Bob Lacrosse artfully provide tools for the sometimes painful, always challenging and often rewarding work of self-examination - in the aftermath of divorce. They urge the reader to: consider their role in choosing their partner and in the relationship's "breakup," discard the limiting myths of marriage, understand the divorce grieving process, shed old patterns of blame, and rediscover the authentic self.

"We don't have the luxury of Bill Murray's [wacky weatherman] character in [the movie] Ground Hog Day," the authors remind us. (There simply aren't unlimited chances in real life, to try and try again to "get it right" - to perfect our approaches to meaningful relationships.) "Learning From Divorce" provides powerful insight and practical direction in the HOW of rebuilding after, and even growing from, the often dark experience of divorce.

As a conflict resolution professional assisting couples with this life passage and having experienced firsthand divorce's challenges, I found this book a unique distillation of many earlier researchers' work and at the same time, a fresh look with new approaches and tools. Highly recommended for the layperson and professional alike!