Divorce 101 &quote;For Men Only&quote; (eBook)

FORWARD

THIS IS A PARENTING PROGRAM CONSISTING OF A DIVORCE PROGRAM WITH PARENTING PLAN FOR BOTH MARRIED AND SINGLE PARENTS WITH MINOR CHILDREN. Please read and finish the Parenting Plan that is made up of the questions throughout this book. All questions need to be completed in order to have a successful Parenting Plan. Please note that this Parenting Plan may also be useful in the event of possible reconciliation. Thank you.

Excerpts from “Divorce 101, For Men Only, A Healthy Divorce,”

Through a court order, when a continual contact with the father would be “IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD” the father should be entitled to have equal treatment under the law including equal time / equal custody with their children. Children have a right and you as the father have an obligation to see to it that your child(ren) have frequent and continuing contact with both parents.

Times are changing, it should be a universal law when parent’s separate or divorce that a child’s birth right born to a natural mother and father gives both parents equal and perpetual rights and obligations to raise their children.

We will prepare you to meet the challenges that lie ahead. Everything you need to know is in this book. Not only how to change your custody agreement, but how to set up a parenting plan that would convince many judges that you are the parent that deserves to have custody, either shared or full as well as adequate visitation.

This is not the time to be weak. Try to find strength within. If you want change, you have the ability to make change happen. If you like things the way they are, then you have to reinforce; stand your ground. That position is by far easier said than done.

As the decision to divorce becomes imminent, over time couples may accept more readily they are transitioning towards divorce as an alternative to reconciliation. As their plans begin to take hold, one or both are willing to move forward, as they begin deliberation towards separation. Still, couples must remember (like it or not) relationships last forever. For that reason, if both want to participate in “A Healthy Divorce” they must always remember one component that needs to FOREVER remain intact. That component is “THE LOYALTY BOND”. This is an unspoken agreement; established years prior that still must remain in place during and after the end of a couple’s relationship.

Up until this point, both partners were still examining and considering potential ways of repairing the relationship. Even the distancing spouse hung on to some of the threads of hope. Overwhelmed, they dealt with the interplay of uncertainty and indecision; sometimes intentionally distancing oneself while leaving a safety

net for a swift retreat to restore the relationship. At times, every opportunity of hope was considered for a possible reconciliation. During this segment of time there was the experience of movement, interaction, reinforcement of loyalties towards one another, and even a sense of protection for each other and the family. Now this dance of pushing, pulling, hoping, and giving up comes to an end. Sometimes an abrupt end!

Prior to the divorce the kids were always there running around the house keeping schedules and all participants trying to maintain a normal healthy routine. Except for the emotional roller-coaster revolving around the marriage, for most, life with the children remained fairly normal.

Then without much preparedness, (even if you had prepared for the divorce for some time,) a state of confusion is now the norm. With all that is taking place (for many parents) they were never told or did not consider their lives would turn upside down once the divorce was filed and finalized. Perplexed they found they would need to adjust their days so they could now see their kids. In some cases, without even going to court one parent over the other has decided, if the other parent wants to see their child(ren) even on a special day like their birthday, the visitation schedule must be negotiated. The parent now must learn he needs to make appointments to arrange time for visitation with his children.

What is visitation? That is a term used when a person is visiting another in jail. Has he done anything wrong, is he a bad person? Still, when an agreement has been reached, some spouses find when they come to pick up the kids for visitation, the kids are either not home or the spouse changed their mind, and the children cannot go with the other spouse.

These days, if he wants to visit his children, developing a parenting plan with his spouse or partner beforehand is his responsibility. For a lot of men as well as women who do not have the children with them, it is troubling on so many levels that they can only see the kids on weekends or for a few hours or days during the week. Never did he, the father, believe he would have to fight constantly to continue to have a relationship with his children.

Normal life, what is that? Having a few friends over on a Sunday afternoon to watch a game, have a few beers? That was a long time ago. What happened to that life? A father thinks to himself, I work all week, why do I have to be the one to take the children on the weekends? I am tired too. I want a day off. I want to have my Sundays free, be with my buddies, watch football and have a good time. Why do my weekends have to be consumed each and every weekend with my children when my wife gets every weekend to herself?

Guilt, guilt, should I be thinking like this, especially if I want to have shared custody?

I feel sometimes my kids only see me as the fun parent. The dad that is only there on weekends. I want more from my relationship with my children. I want them to be with me more on weekdays as well as weekends.

Regardless, if he played a part in the decision to the end of the marriage, dealing with the grief of divorce and how it has affected the family is very difficult. During or after a divorce, what makes a man finally turn on his wife?

The legal, emotional, and financial stress is great. Dividing up the household property and then having to buy beds and dressers for the kids, when he did this once already during his marriage seems unfair.

Though he does not look at paying child support as a burden and wants to pay for his children’s support, he realizes that his wife is not as prepared (as he has had to be) to make sacrifices. She wants the house, the children to go to the same school; she wants the kids to take private lessons for reading as well as snow ski lessons.

A single father of two boys, four and eight years of age, Robert Johnson points out it is hard being a single father and trying to do the right thing. Robert continuing his story, “She wants everything to be the same, except she does not want the man she had lived with for 10years, the father of her children”. She does not want him. He has now been forced from the home and has had to maintain the lifestyle of his partner’s choosing, while trying to maintain a small apartment on his own.

He still cannot figure out this new attitude of entitlement or righteousness. Her belief that he has turned on her and became the bad guy is preposterous. What has he done to deserve this? If on trial, all he is guilty of is keeping hope that his family would stay intact and that their life would not descend to ruins.

As with Robert and others if you are also angry, confused, and fearful for your children, then you are not alone. Many fathers have searched the internet and gone to libraries trying to find ways to end the craziness. If you have been looking for a book that can teach you how to get shared custody and visitation where child support is shared, then your look is over. We have the answers. The reality is, lately some legislators, and courts recognize children need their fathers. There are now laws in place or coming into reality that state:

A child needs frequent and continuing contact with their father. Since that is what some courts and the state legislatures define as the law, in most cases you have an obligation to follow the law. The father is a factor in the equation of what defines what...