Just in time for the holidays, a few tips for you, Mr. and Mrs. Married in San Diego. If your union is strong and healthy, toast your good fortune and prepare for some quality mistletoe time. You deserve it.
And if your marriage is shaky, take heart. You might be embarking on the Most Miserable Time of the Year, but at least you’re not alone out there.
“The second the Christmas tree comes down, our phones are ringing,” said Nancy Fagan, founder of The Divorce Help Clinic LLC in Carmel Valley. “A lot of times, people think, ‘I want to try through the holidays.’ But once the holidays are over, it’s like, ‘I tried, but I just can’t do it anymore.’ ”
In her years as a divorce mediator, Fagan has learned many things about getting unmarried in San Diego. She has learned that we spend more time mulling over our divorces than the cut-to-the-chase clients she had when she worked in Boston. Our extended-family safety net is not as strong as it is on the East Coast, and the issue of pet custody comes up a lot more often than you’d think.
Now that Fagan is the new divorce columnist for the Huffington Post website, her frame of reference is bigger, but her findings can be distilled into one sentence: It’s a marital jungle out there.
“A lot of the responses I’ve gotten have surprised me by their emotionality and anger and denial,” Fagan said of the feedback she has gotten from the popular website’s readers. “It’s like I’m an enemy for posting these things.”
Which is ironic, because as an expert in divorce- and marriage-mediation, Fagan is very much a woman of peace.
Marriage mediation helps couples find solutions to ongoing conflicts before they lead to divorce. In a divorce mediation, couples reach a divorce agreement without using a lawyer or going to court. Mediation is an alternative to what can be a long and painful legal process, but that doesn’t make it easy.
“Let me put it this way,” the 48-year-old Fagan said, sliding a full tissue box across the desk in her sunny office. “We go through a box of these a week.”
In the latest U.S. Census, 8 percent of men and 12 percent of women in San Diego County listed their marital status as “divorced,” almost the same as the national average. And what does a San Diego divorce look like? Fagan sees a lot of baby boomers who want to escape a tired marriage while there is still time to find a soul mate. She gets marriages crumbling under the stress of military service.
Because relationship challenges are not limited to heterosexual couples, Fagan has added a mediator specializing in LGBT matters and domestic partnership mediation. And while San Diego is full of people, she sees a lot of clients who feel totally isolated.
“People move here for their careers or for school,” said Fagan, who was amicably divorced from her first husband 17 years ago (they have a son who is 22) and has been married to her current husband for 10 years. “Then during a divorce, they look around and think, ‘I don’t have anyone.’ ”
Fagan’s columns — which started running in September at huffingtonpost.com/nancy-fagan — are filled with no-nonsense advice designed to keep marriages from ending in divorce and to stop divorces from ending in flames.
How do you cut the emotional cord attaching you to your ex? (The sooner, the better.) What does your spouse’s choice of Halloween costume say about the future of your marriage? (Beware of a sudden interest in the sexy.) And after a divorce, who gets custody of the friends? (Men keep the male friends, women keep the female friends, and married friends run for the hills.)
And what can a San Diego marriage and divorce expert learn from strangers from the great Web universe?
After writing a column expressing her concerns about the married hosts of the Discovery Channel’s “Man, Woman, Wild,” Fagan learned that loyal TV fans have thin skins and creative imaginations. (“She’s nothing but a coconut crab,” one fan posted.) She has learned that people do not always read her columns all the way through before firing off a furious response.
She has also learned that there are a lot of sad people out there, and just because she can’t hand them a tissue doesn’t mean she can’t throw them a lifeline.
“I try to do what I do here. I try to make it personal,” said Fagan, who tries to respond to all of the online comments. “You can’t grasp the level of despair with divorce until you’re going through it. I’m just trying to take what I have learned and use that to help people through it.”
karla.peterson@uniontrib.com (619) 293-1275 Twitter@karla_peterson
Social Security encourages people to apply for spousal benefits even with uncertainties. The Social Security Administration announced today that is has begun processing and paying spousal retirement benefits to some married same-sex couples.
“The recent Supreme Court decision on Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), made just over a month ago, helps to ensure that all Americans are treated fairly and equally, with the dignity and respect they deserve,” acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin said in a written statement.
Ms. Colvin said the agency is now processing “some” retirement spouse claims for same-sex couples and paying benefits “where they are due.”
Social Security spokesperson Kia Anderson confirmed that the agency is paying benefits in cases where the worker was married in a state that permits same-sex marriage and is living in one of those 13 states or the District of Columbia where gay marriage is legal.
Those states include California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, plus the District of Columbia.
“For all other claims that do not meet this criteria, we are holding these claims until we receive further guidance from the Department of Justice,” Ms. Anderson said in an e-mail responding to my questions.
In response to my question whether benefits would be paid retroactively to the date of the landmark Supreme Court decision on June 26, 2013, Ms. Anderson said no. “We do not consider or use the date of the [Supreme Court decision] to determine the date or month of entitlement” to Social Security benefits,” she said.
Ms. Anderson explained that the agency is following its standard procedure for processing new and pending claims. “The month of entitlement is based on the date the application was filed,” she said. “We encourage individuals who believe they may be eligible for Social Security benefits to apply now to protect against the loss of any potential benefits,” Ms. Anderson said.
The agency expects to develop and implement additional policy and processing instructions in the coming weeks and months as it receives further guidance from the Justice Department.
I asked Social Security how many people have applied for spousal benefits under the newly approved gay marriage guidelines and how many of those applications have been approved. I’ll let you know when I get an answer.
The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling striking down DOMA on June 26, 2013, opened the door for married same-sex couples to reap the same Social Security benefits afforded traditional couples.
That means gay couples in states where marriage is legal would be entitled to spousal benefits during marriage and survivor benefits after the death of one spouse. If they have minor dependent children at the time one spouse claims benefits, the children may also be entitled to benefits.
And if one or both spouses wait until at least their full retirement age to claim benefits, they would be able to engage in creative claiming strategies as traditional married couples such as filing a restricted claim for spousal benefits or filing and suspending benefits. These strategies can be used to allow one spouse to collect benefits while the other continues to accrue delayed retirement credits in order to maximize lifetime income.
Getting back into the dating world after a divorce comes with more than a few surprises. One of the most common, not to mention hurtful issues is when your new partner’s kids don’t have a fondness for you. No need to fret. Below are some tips to try the next time you’re around the kids. With a little understanding and new behavior, the problem might just go away as quickly as it came.
Don’t take it personally. Kids’ not liking the new partner is common so expect it to happen. And remember, their dislike for you has nothing to do with you personally. How can it? The kids don’t even know you. You could be a famous celebrity and the kids would still not like you. This is because you represent a threat to their ultimate fantasy of reuniting their parents. To make things better, have some compassion for the pain the kids are experiencing over losing the their family.
Don’t act like their mother and don’t try to be their best friend. You are a stranger to them and you have to earn their friendship and respect. To do this, develop the relationship slowly. Get to know each one of them individually and find things you have in common.
Don’t bad-mouth their mom. No matter how you feel about her, bite your tongue. If anything, say positive things about her such as, “It sounds like you’re mom is a smart woman or is a fun mom.” But don’t go overboard or they will suspect you’re up to something.
Limit physical affection. Even if it’s nearly impossible to keep your hands off your partner, it’s important that you do when the kids are around. Seeing their parent with someone being affectionate other than their other parent can be very upsetting to kids. So refrain until the children have accepted you. And even then, proceed slowly.
Set boundaries. Being careful not to upset the kids is important but you don’t want to go so far that you let them dictate your relationship. In private, discuss concerns that you have and how your partner can help to lessen the problems by speaking up when they step over the boundaries and act disrespectful, mean, or rude toward you. Practice with your partner what he might say and when to say it. Boundary setting works best when it’s prepared for in advance.
Pre-Marital-Mediation: The children from past relationships are one of the leading causes of divorce in second marriages. Learn how to make it work by gettting all the people involved to mediate an arrangement everyone can accept.
Getting back into the dating world after a divorce comes with more than a few surprises. One of the most common, not to mention hurtful issues is when your new partner’s kids don’t have a fondness for you. No need to fret. Below are some tips to try the next time you’re around the kids. With a little understanding and new behavior, the problem might just go away as quickly as it came.
Don’t take it personally. Kids’ not liking the new partner is common so expect it to happen. And remember, their dislike for you has nothing to do with you personally. How can it? The kids don’t even know you. You could be a famous celebrity and the kids would still not like you. This is because you represent a threat to their ultimate fantasy of reuniting their parents. To make things better, have some compassion for the pain the kids are experiencing over losing the their family.
Don’t act like their mother and don’t try to be their best friend. You are a stranger to them and you have to earn their friendship and respect. To do this, develop the relationship slowly. Get to know each one of them individually and find things you have in common.
Don’t bad-mouth their mom. No matter how you feel about her, bite your tongue. If anything, say positive things about her such as, “It sounds like you’re mom is a smart woman or is a fun mom.” But don’t go overboard or they will suspect you’re up to something.
Limit physical affection. Even if it’s nearly impossible to keep your hands off your partner, it’s important that you do when the kids are around. Seeing their parent with someone being affectionate other than their other parent can be very upsetting to kids. So refrain until the children have accepted you. And even then, proceed slowly.
Set boundaries. Being careful not to upset the kids is important but you don’t want to go so far that you let them dictate your relationship. In private, discuss concerns that you have and how your partner can help to lessen the problems by speaking up when they step over the boundaries and act disrespectful, mean, or rude toward you. Practice with your partner what he might say and when to say it. Boundary setting works best when it’s prepared for in advance.
Pre-Marital-Mediation: The children from past relationships are one of the leading causes of divorce in second marriages. Learn how to make it work by gettting all the people involved to mediate an arrangement everyone can accept.
By nature, women are nesters and work hard to make their house a home. When divorce happens, the process of dismantling personal effects, carefully gathered and arranged through the years can be heart wrenching.
Packing stirs up feelings of loss surrounding the dreams of a life together that have ended. This can be a traumatic experience not only for you, but also for everyone in the family. Not only is the home being lost, all the items of familiar comfort are being divided. In its place, shattered dreams and the lack of emotional safety and security fill the space. Packing under these conditions requires thoughtful and deliberate steps. Following the tips below will make the process a little easier.
Inventory Agreement. Prior to packing, generate a list of household items that you plan to take. Have your husband review the list and sign the bottom of the page to show that he is in agreement. If there is any thing under question, now is the time to discuss it. When the time comes to do the physical move, emotions will run high enough so having this laid out in advance will make it easier to get through this delicate step.
A Life in Pictures. Pictures have a way of flooding women with emotion. To minimize the impact they bring, you will want to do a clean sweep of your house and organize them systematically. To start, gather the framed photos, collect the albums and grab two boxes (one for you and one for the kids). This is the time to let your pictures tell a new family story. For each child’s room, replace frames with photos of the kids and their father. This will communicate that, although the marital relationship ended, the one with their father continues.
Children usually have a secret hope that you and your husband will reconcile. To avoid giving them false hope, replace the remaining frames with photos that do not include your husband. This will let the kids know the family still exits; it’s just different now.
Marital Momentums. Marital Momentums. Just because the marriage is over does not mean you should throw out keepsakes from that phase of your life. Remember, as much as your momentums are shared tokens from your days as a couple, they also represent your life experiences as an individual. For now, while you heal, box your things up and put them away. There will come a day when you will want to look back and appreciate that part of your life.
With moving day upon you the message is simple—be prepared. Boxing up your married life will be an emotional experience. But if you follow these tips, the overall experience will be more manageable and help you avoid and emotional meltdown.
Bio: Nancy Fagan is the founder of The Divorce Help Clinic LLC™ (divorce planning & divorce mediation services), a Huffington Post divorce writer and author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Romance” (Macmillan Publishing) and “Desirable Men: How to Find Them” (Prima Publishing). As a nationally recognized divorce and relationship expert, dubbed “The Divorce Reporter,” she has appeared on countless television and radio shows, and quoted in national magazines and popular On-line publications since 1997. In addition, she is considered a pioneer in the field of pre- divorce planning and frequently sought out to speak on the topic. Nancy holds a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology with extensive training in divorce mediation and alternative dispute resolution. To learn more, visitTheDivorceHelpClinic.com.
Nancy Fagan Interview with The Associated Press
During the week, Joseph Hausmann leads a fairly typical single guy’s life. The 32-year-old engineer lives in a small, rented apartment above a garage, relying heavily on microwavable dinners and an exercise regime that fends off his less than stellar diet.
But Hausmann isn’t a typical single guy. On Friday afternoons, he piles into his car and makes the four to five hour trip (if he’s lucky enough to avoid New York City rush hour) to Newark, Del., back to his house, wife and life as he used to know it before taking a job near Hartford, Conn., in February.
“I liken my experience to going back to college and living in a dorm room,” said Hausmann, who started commuting long distance after being laid off, and a subsequent job search that reaped no leads closer to home. “It’s literally going back to microwave and hotpot cooking.”
It’s a situation that, while becoming oddly routine, is hardly ideal for Hausmann and his wife, Jennifer Adams, who continues to work and live in their Delaware, which has been on the market, garnering very little interest, since June.
The difficult job market let alone the uncertainties of buying and selling housing has given rise in recent years to the number of people in commuter marriages, where couples live in different cities, states or even countries to make ends meet while trying to weather the economic storm.
“I see it all the time,” said Nancy Fagan, a San Diego divorce-mediator who herself lives thousands of miles from her husband in Boston.
WATCH VIDEO, “Commuter Marriages” (Fox National News, 2011)
Not wanting to transplant kids while one parent seeks work elsewhere is a big motivator, she said.
According to 2006 U.S. Census data, the most recent available, about 3.6 million married individuals lived apart, not including people who were separated. Just what kind of challenges and in some cases, benefits living apart poses are as varied as the millions of couples in commuter relationships.
On one hand, there’s a certain sense of independence, self-reliance and control, though reconnecting on weekends can be that much harder. That, couples said, is especially true when it comes to parenting or making household decisions.
It’s not unusual for the at-home spouse to take on the role of decision maker, disrupting the flow of married life.
As Adams, Hausmann’s wife, put it: “I don’t sleep well during the week when he’s not here, and I’m not sleeping well on the weekends because I’m not used to having anyone else in the bed.”
Commuter marriages have other pricetags.
“It’s very expensive,” said Jennifer Dickson, who three years ago left her house and husband in Austin, Texas, to move to Washington, D.C. She’s now moving to Denver, where her husband plans to eventually join her.
In addition to rent for a Washington apartment and a car, Dickson a communications expert for an environmental group, said airfare and travel budgets have taken a toll. The couple, who have gone from one to two weeks without seeing each other, now make a hobby of jockeying for cheap airfares and building up mileage points to take the edge off.
“It was to the point where my husband switched his credit card so we could get points for more home expenses, even a new roof,” she said.
It’s that kind of planning that often separates the successful commuter marriages from the ones that don’t work out, Fagan said.
“About three-quarters of the time it works but you have to have concrete plans on how to make it work,” she said.
That means commuter couples should map out specifics for everything from phone calls to each other to how conflicts with kids are going to be handled, she said. And they should make the most of the time they have together.
Lee Igel, a New York University assistant professor and psychologist, said it’s also incumbent upon employers to realize and accommodate the growing phenomenon by giving employees in commuter relationships options like telecommuting and flexible schedules.
“Not all of them know how to deal with it well,” Igel said. “It challenges our assumption of how married people live and what a ‘normal’ household is.”
That’s a challenge that has arisen for Amelia Frahm, who, after moving multiple times for her husband Randy’s job, has opted to stay in their Raleigh, N.C.-area home while he works on contract in Alabama.
Despite owning a house, and two college-age kids living at home to cut costs, Frahm said she’s gotten some grief from relatives who have more conventional beliefs about marriage. She has no easy answers for them. “Its just stressful,” she said.
In Fagan’s experience, the majority of commuter couples can weather complex feelings when they know the separation is relatively short term, even if that means several years.
For couples like Hausmann and Adams, and the Dicksons, the hardships of commuting are temporary, as both couples have game plans for reuniting and living under the same roof as soon as work and housing considerations allow it.
“We realize now that being apart is not something you can do permanently,” said Dave Dickson, Jennifer’s husband. “We are definitely at that stage and are going to be thinking long-term.”
Requests for advice on divorce typically start with the heavy hitters (child custody, division of assets, etc.), but not much further down the list are questions about the family pet.
Though you probably treat your pet with the same love as you would a person, in most states pets are regarded as property. (Read our related divorce article “Who Gets The Family Pet?”)
If a pet was acquired before the marriage they remain the property of the spouse who purchased him/her.
Pennsylvania is one such state that sees a dog more or less as a piece of furniture; the state does not acknowledge shared custody agreements because those arrangements are not enforceable for property.
However, not all states see family pets as just another piece of property sprinkled in amidst a laundry list of furniture.
In 2009 there was a landmark court decision in New Jersey, according to Karen Grayson-Rodgers, co-author of “Untying the Knot.”
Pets are still seen as property by the New Jersey court system, however the court decided that pets are “a unique form of property that elicit sentimental attachment and have a special subjective value.”
In order to select a pet parent or allotment of shared custody, the ruling takes into account which party provides the majority of the pet’s basic needs, vet visits and social interactions.
“Unlike personal property items like a painting or even the house, you cannot simply have one spouse keep the ferret and pay the other its purchase price,” Grayson-Rodgers said.
What about keeping things 50-50? Splitting pet time and costs in half requires both spouses to be equally responsible for care.
However, some custody arrangements call for all medical care costs as the result of an accident to be incurred by whoever had the pet in his/her care at that time.
Nancy Fagan, the owner of The Divorce Help Clinic LLC in San Diego, regularly advises clients through mediation of pet issues. The agreements are not just informal arrangements, Fagan said.
“We take their issues seriously in terms of adding language to the marital settlement agreement that gets filed at the court with their divorce paperwork,” she said.
Not all are in agreement that custody of the pet should be split 50-50. When asked about separation advice for men, Susan Elliott, the author of “Getting Past Your Breakup: How to Turn a Devastating Loss Into the Best Thing That Ever Happened to You,” recommends dropping a shared custody arrangement altogether.
“It’s not good or healthy to have visitation of pets after divorce,” Elliott said. “Most times it just prolongs the agony of moving apart and building a new and separate life.”
Not only is this in regards to the human relationship, but the pet’s best interest as well. Pets are unaware of what is really going on and changes to their routine and environment can lead to destructive behavior.
Depression and anxiety are real conditions that affect approximately 15% of dogs, which is why the pet pharmaceutical industry has burgeoned with “doggie Prozac.”
If you have to give up your beloved pet, you may consider setting up a pet trust.
A pet trust is a legally sanctioned arrangement that provides for the care and maintenance of a pet in the event of the owner’s death or disability. At least 42 states have adopted laws allowing trusts for pets.
A person called the “settlor” contributes property (usually cash) to the trust for the “trustee” to manage and expend for the pet’s benefit.
The settlor and the trustee may be the same person, and in most states the trust may continue for the animal’s life or for 21 years, whichever comes first. See, e.g., Uniform Trust Code § 408.
Tara Lynne Groth is a full-time freelance writer residing in Cary, North Carolina. Her work has appeared in places such as GO (AirTran Airways’ in-flight magazine), the Providence Journal and Chesapeake Family. Learn more about Tara by visiting her website www.taralynnegroth.com.
According to the leading researcher on marriage and divorce, John Gottman, sites the divorce rate for first marriages to be 50% and up to 68% for additional marriages. With the odds against successfully staying together long term, read the tips below to help increase your marital glue.
The odds are against you. The traditional approach to solving problems by ignoring them needs does NOT work. Instead, effort needs to be made to do something different.
A pro-active, preventative approach is the only way to strengthen your marriage. This means you can no longer wait until you have problems because it might be too late. Taking the perspective of an annual marriage check up is idea. Each year, a discussion of potential areas of on-going irritation, lack of satisfaction, anger, resentment and unmet needs should be brought out into the open.
Both spouses need to be involved. Historically, women have taken on the role of relationship-fixer. Because 85% of women are also initiating divorces, this approach is clearly not working. In what I have termed “The Emotional Shut Down Syndrome,” women who do not think their husband’s are participating in keeping their marriages on track, are giving up and choosing to seek new partners who do put in the effort when things don’t look good.
Recognize the potential areas of weakness in your marriage. The number on reason marriages break up is because of issues over finance. There are a number of other causes as well such as sex, affairs, children, blended families, career and personal development, role expectations…Any area of conflict needs to be dealt with as soon as issues arise.
THE FIX: According to Acceptance Theory, understanding your partner’s flaws rather than trying to change them is the first step to fix your marriage. In marriage counseling, the emphasis is typically on improving weak areas. The problem with that is that flaws can only be improved very little. Instead, in my practice, I use the technique of Marriage Mediation to help couples use their strengths to solve the problems in their marriages. Using your spouse’s strengths is highly successful.
Listening, learning, and living together: it’s the science of life.
The marriage and divorce trends of the “modern” American family have been studied for decades. In an attempt to further understand the outcomes of divorce, a team of family scholars headed by University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite studied whether unhappily married adults who divorced were any happier than unhappily married people who stayed married.
Early research on divorce concluded that, “A husband and wife would both consent to a divorce if, and only if, they both expected to be better off divorced” (Becker, 1981).
But were they? Using data from the National Survey of Family and Households, what the researchers found was that, on average, unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier than their counterparts who remained married (Waite et al., 2002).
They reported that divorce “did not typically reduce symptoms of depression, raise self- esteem, or increase a sense of mastery” (Waite et al., ¶ 4, 2002). The authors of the study explained that while eliminating some stresses found in the unhappy marriage, divorce created a new set of stressors that could deeply affect emotional well-being, such as child custody and changes in financial stability (Waite et al., 2002).
While the authors couldn’t conclude whether unhappy spouses who divorced would have become happy if they’d remained in their marriage, they did find that 2/3 of unhappy marriages had become happier five years later. They attributed a strong desire to stay married, a commitment to solving problems and a commitment to find personal happiness despite a mediocre marriage were strong predictors of “happy” marriages (Waite et al., 2002).
References
Becker, G. S. (1981). A Treatise on the Family (enl. ed). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Schoen, R., Astone, N. M., Rothert, K., Standish, N. J., & Kim, Y. J. (2002). Women’s employment, marital happiness, and divorce. Social Forces, 81(2), 643-662.
Waite, J. L., Browning, D., Doherty, W. J., Gallagher, M., Luo, Y., &
Below is a Dear Abby column that brings up a common question in people who are contemplating divorce. Do you agree with Dear Abby’s response? Share your thoughts.
Dear Abby:
My wife of 16 years, “Barb,” and I argue constantly. We have few common interests and don’t enjoy our time together. Our love life is nonexistent. We have gone to three marriage counselors, and it hasn’t helped. I think it’s time we faced the fact that we’re never going to be happy together. When I bring this up with Barb, she gets angry and says if I want a divorce I’ll have to get a lawyer. Divorce will be difficult and costly enough without having to drag lawyers into it. I’d like us to use a divorce mediator to work out the details. It will save us a lot of money and, hopefully, make the divorce less acrimonious. I don’t understand why Barb wants to stay together when she’s so unhappy and we’re unable to make things better. How can I make her see that separating will be best for us and the kids included? – “Former” Husband in Colorado
Dear “Former” Husband:
Your wife may prefer the evils she’s living with to the unknown. However, when a marriage is over, it’s over. And when it reaches the stage that yours has, what both parties need to be most concerned about is preservation of assets. I have seen both kinds of divorces – one in which the warring spouses spent so much money in litigation there was little left for each of them when it was over; and the other, in which the couple agreed their marriage was broken beyond repair and arranged their divorce with as little cost as possible. I don’t have to tell you which people are doing well now. So clip this and share it with your wife.
Share your thoughts.