Divorce is not easy. It can wreak emotional, financial and physical havoc on you and your family. But in Divorce Made Easier, Carol Delzer shows you how divorce can be done differently. Your divorce doesn't need to be the traumatic, expensive and difficult process you've seen others go through. In this book, you'll find the tools you need to make your divorce empowering, respectful and transformative, setting you up for a positive future. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists will tell you that divorce is one of life's greatest stressors. Psychological studies put divorce right up there with death of a loved one or a critical illness in terms of the havoc it can wreak emotionally, financially and physically. But you probably already know that or you wouldn't have picked up this book. After over twenty years in practice where I have worked with countless divorcing couples, I can tell you that divorce does not have to be as traumatic and difficult as so many divorces turn out to be. I won't tell you that dissolving your marriage will be a walk in the park. That would be dishonest. But I will tell you that, with the right tools and the right approach, your divorce can be a positive launching pad for what's next in your life. You may not believe me just yet. You may just be praying that you make it through your divorce without devastating your financial security, traumatizing the children and losing your own sanity in the process. Divorce as "a positive launching pad" might feel like an impossibility, the stuff of fairy tales. But can you at least entertain the possibility that your divorce doesn't have to be horrendous and painfully contentious? That maybe you and your soon-to-be ex can work together to create a more positive outcome for the two of you and your children? That you all can come out on the other side of this feeling okay about yourself and each other? Depending on where you are, even that may seem a stretch. So I'll ask you to just keep reading. Why should you trust me? I've been there and done that-and even got the t-shirt! It was my own divorce many years ago that inspired me to find less brutal ways to dissolve a marriage both legally and emotionally. I became a family law attorney with a specialty in divorce mediation and collaborative practice. And, knowing that the psychological or emotional side of divorce is equally as important as the legal side, I earned my LMFT as a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist. (My website www.FamilyLawCenter.US contains a detailed Curriculum Vitae.) I have helped over a thousand couples divorce and have witnessed the full gamut of financial circumstances, personality types, and causes for the separation, clients of all ages and ethnicities, and family dynamics. In 90% of these cases we were able to create a mutually acceptable dissolution through a process that was respectful, non-adversarial and much less expensive than so-called "normal" divorce proceedings. Usually in the beginning of the process, these clients were anxious and uncertain, struggling to figure out just how life would look after divorce. But by the time everything was finalized, the vast majority of them felt confident and empowered. You can too. Like my professional background, this book will focus on the emotional and psychological aspects of divorce as well as your options for the legal process. Why? Because, if you're in a rotten place emotionally, you cannot make good decisions. And if you make bad decisions, it will be tough for you to recover emotionally and financially from the dissolution. The two go hand in hand.
Carol Delzer is a family law mediator and collaborative attorney with more than twenty years of experience working with divorcing couples and teaching co-parenting skills. In addition to being a Certified Family Law Specialist, certified by the State Bar of California, Delzer is a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist licensed by the California State Board of Behavioral Science. She has been a licensed California Real Estate Broker for over thirty years and is an experienced mindful negotiator. Carol is President of Family Law Center in Sacramento, California, with a mission of providing a sensible, fair, compassionate, effective and affordable alternative to divorcing families. Where the motto is: "Divorce Done Differently." It was through her divorce and being a single parent that Carol learned the importance of this work-divorce can be easier when couples are made aware of the options. Delzer was one of the founding members of the Sacramento Collaborative Practice Group. She helped design, run and serve as a volunteer mediator for the California Superior Court Volunteer Mediation Program. Carol has served on numerous nonprofit boards and contributed countless volunteer hours to her community. This is the third book she has written or co-authored. Her previous books are Collaborative Co-parenting published in 2009 and Positive Discipline for Single Parents which she co-authored with Jane Nelsen in 1995, now in its third edition. To learn more about Carol, visit her websites, www.DivorceDoneEasier.com, www.FamilyLawCenter.US and www.CollaborativeCoParenting.com
