Category: Doing Divorce

He is free-spirited.  He is spontaneous.  He doesn’t use his calendar to track activities.  He lives his life with confidence that the next step forward will take him where he needs to be – wherever that may be.  His thoughts are mostly the after kind. She is organized.  She is predictable.  She is meticulous in her planning and preparation. Her life is well-managed in all its details.  She has already started filling out her 2018 planner along with an outline of goals. You know the story – opposites attract.  They fall in love.  Wed.  Then divorce.  Now they find themselves

“He is a well-known athlete.  He came to every meeting with a complete entourage of bodyguards, accountants, and managers.  I advised him that he would need to leave said entourage at home for the child support hearing in front of the judge.   The day of the hearing, he arrived with his entourage and finally agreed to leave them in the hallway – out of the courtroom.  I then eyed the diamond encrusted watch on his thick wrist.  I told him he would need to take off the $75,000 watch if I was going to proceed with advocating for a lowered

The day of the custody trial arrived.  Nervous and feigning politeness to the opposing lawyers, they sat parallel to each other at their respective counsel’s tables.  Plaintiff and Defendant. Also known by two, 5 and 7 year old children, as Mom and Dad. Evidence Round #1:  She testified that the children were adjusting fairly well since they had separated households.  She said that their dad had become more involved in the last year and that was a good thing.  She focused her testimony on her children rather than their rocky past. Evidence Round #2:  He testified about his increased involvement

For 13 consecutive years now on a back-to-school morning I have awakened with excitement.  In the early years I picked the perfect bow for my daughters’ hair and took my time while they let me brush and style their pretty hair.  In the latter years I have helped chose the outfit or made sure group pictures were taken with friends at school.  I am not ashamed to admit that I have cried on every single one of these days.  Every. Single. One. I am proud to say that for each of these days, their dad and I met up with

I spy the basket full of folded newspaper pages. They are the pages pulled from The Oregon Coast Today and Lincoln City News Guard – two local papers my dad picks up from the grocery store on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  In my six-month absence from a coastal visit, the accumulation is large.  Comprised only of 5 star or highest difficulty puzzles, my dad has silently offered the challenge and I feel wonderfully loved.  It takes me back to the beginning of this tradition with my dad from another spring break visit with him on the coast.  Eleven years ago, when

There is a place in the upper Northwest corner of our country that is filled with magic.  I seek annual refuge in this place to clear my mind by breathing the salt filled air and watching the ebb and flow of the ocean tide.  My favorite place on Earth is the Oregon coast.  The Pacific Ocean is lined by rocky cliffs, at the top of which the evergreens grow and down below the starfish cling to rocks in tide pools.  My temperament is most suited to the mild temperatures and rain dappled days this coast has to offer.  I find

She was troubled by her eighth grade essay assignment for school: to write about a significant challenge she had faced in life.  She would be reading this essay in front of her class.  “But I haven’t had a major challenge,” she bemoaned to her teacher.  “Anna, aren’t your parents divorced?” As she relayed this to me, privately I felt proud that she needed that reminder – that she didn’t consider having divorced parents as being a challenge.  I was scooting toward being self-congratulatory and smug until she told me she thought that would be a good topic to write about.

I will not likely ever forget the pit in my stomach.  It was in the wee hours of the morning when sleep evaded me.  After a recent break-up, my thoughts were not yet managed, nor healed.  I rolled over in bed to open my laptop and before I knew it there he was in a tuxedo looking better than ever.  A tear pricked and my stomach rolled as I tried to process something that I simply could not. How was he smiling a few weeks after our break up when I hadn’t even been able to attempt that feat?  Where

I was nervous. I carefully considered my outfit and my hair. I was being set up by a friend who cautioned me in her initial message that she did not make these introductions regularly or lightly.  I respect her a great deal, so this added to my nerves.  It was a blind date, but not the normal, romantic kind.  I was being introduced to a potential friend.  A potential new girlfriend.  The stakes felt high. We met at the new coffee shop across the street from my building.  She wore a pretty patterned dress and when I saw her through