Divorce

Embracing The Love: The Journey Of A Co-Parent Who Adores Her Bonus Child Motherhood is a beautiful and complex journey filled with unexpected surprises, challenges, and blessings. For those of us who co-parent and have the privilege of loving bonus children, our experience is no different. In fact, the love we feel for our stepchildren is often so profound that we consider them our own biological children. In this blog post, we will dive deep into the powerful emotions that come with being a mom to not only biological but also bonus children. The Unexpected Love: As mothers who navigate the world of co-parenting, it's common to feel hesitant about forging a strong bond with our partners' children from previous relationships or...

Whether it be adoption, a custody dispute, property settlement, or a divorce, family court is normally a headache for anyone involved. I believe a big part of this headache is due to the unrealistic expectations people have going into it. Here are some of those unrealistic expectations that can be easily cleared up. It’s nothing like movies and tv portray it. Contrary to how Hollywood portrays it, you typically don’t get a climactic moment in court to tell your side of the story. In addition to this, family law cases rarely go to trial, so you’re not convincing a jury of anything. In fact, chances are, you likely won’t get to tell your story to anyone other than your lawyer. Family court...

My best friend Katelyn and I have been discussing Twilight for a couple months now. Twilight was THE teenage romance series, while we were in middle school and high school. It is also a perfect example of emotional abuse, which, by the way, sets a great stage for physical abuse. Wind Goodfriend Ph.D. does a great job of naming a few of the thousands of examples of abuse Edward displays: He stalks Bella He encourages Bella to have as little interaction as possible from anyone outside his family He preys on her low self esteem He damages her vehicle so she can’t get away Before you go on assuming he was doing this to protect Bella, I just want to point...

I’ve always been the type of person that had absolutely no idea what to do or say when a loved one was hurting. I’ve always felt absolutely useless in these situations and as if I needed to step aside and let an adult handle it. Here are some things that stuck with me during a time I needed help: Don’t try to fill the silence. My best friend once said, “There’s not anything you can say to make it better, but there’s a lot you can say to make it worse.” Just let her be sad, hurt, angry, etc. It’s kind of selfish to fill silence just because you’re uncomfortable anyway, right? Buy a houseplant. Even if a mom thinks she has...

Being raised with divorced parents, I never wanted my own child to go through the same thing. No one really wants it for their child, or for themselves. But life happens, and we make decisions that affect our circumstances. So here we are. My daughter, who is now 10 years old, has no memory of her dad and me being together. She sees photos, but he and I living apart is all she has ever really known. Since our divorce nine years ago, my ex and I have done our best to ensure our daughter is taken care of. I separated from the military two years after our divorce and moved six hours away from my ex with our daughter....