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Holidays Apart After a Divorce

Divorce. I have been there and done that, along with 19 million other adults in this country. Although it has lost some of its stigma over the years, divorce hasn’t lost any of its heartache. As a divorced parent, nothing is more heart breaking than watching the impact of divorce on your children. They are usually the last to know and the most affected.

But even more painful is the first time you have to spend a holiday apart from your children. As busy professionals, a holiday is one of the few times we can break the routine and spend significant quality time with our loved ones. Having to forfeit this time with my children was, for me, strange and empty (sad is an understatement).

What’s a working parent to do?

So how can we minimize the pain and make the holidays most enjoyable for our children and ourselves? As a corporate strategist, my success comes from knowing how to see issues from my client’s perspective. As a parent, I needed to do the same thing for my children. Having observed both healthy and unhealthy post-divorce families, my suggestions are derived from seeing divorce from a child’s point of view. The key thing to remember is that we divorced our spouses but not our children. Efforts should be made to ensure their happiness, which in turn will help ensure our own. Click here to continue reading.

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Tips for Divorcing Parents

What’s the best way to help your family get through a divorce? Every situation — and every family — is different. But some stress reducing guidelines might make the adjustment a bit easier.

These suggestions can make the process less painful for kids, teens, and families. Parents will need to interpret them in their own ways; honesty, sensitivity, self-control, and time itself will help the healing process. Be patient — not everyone’s timetable is the same.

Click here to read this article from Kids Health by D’Arcy Lyness, PhD.

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Social Security Decisons After Divorce

The average length of a marriage in the United States is about eight years, but longer-term marriages are not immune from breakups. For this latter group, divorce can have an even more profound impact on long-term financial plans as the split comes just at the point when income is highest and retirement planning comes squarely into focus.

While there has been a trend toward greater income equality among married couples, in many cases the income disparity between husbands and wives can be a key source of financial stress that leads to a breakup. This leaves the couple, and the courts, in the difficult position of determining a division of financial resources that is equitable for the long term. Often, couples focus exclusively on dividing their current property without giving enough consideration to the impact this division will have on their retirement prospects.

Decisions regarding Social Security retirement benefits should play a key role in determining the fairness of any divorce settlement. For couples contemplating divorce, or already divorced and approaching retirement age, it is important to understand the rules regarding how divorce can impact the size of this important guaranteed retirement income stream.

Click here to continue reading this article from seacoastonline by David T. Mayes.