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How to Be Vulnerable and Assertive with Your Partner
By Terry Gaspard, MSW, LICSW Being vulnerable means being authentic and being able to risk expressing your thoughts, feelings, and wishes without fear of rejection. It means you are in control of yourself, not the relationship. Many people complain that they aren’t...

8 Secrets to Success in a Second Marriage
By Terry Gaspard, MSW, LICSW Recently my husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary and we have a deep commitment to our second marriage. At our celebration several friends asked me how we’ve stayed together over two decades. Although there are many...

3 Sports Women Can Practice While Going Through a Divorce to Relieve Stress and Frustration
by Mike Jones Despite your best efforts, you signed the papers and found yourself on the other side of that nasty word; divorce. Regardless of how you got here, one thing is true of all women. It's time to move on, and sports can play a big role in that process....

Teenagers Taking Sides: A Painful Consequence of Divorce
By Rosalind Sedacca, CCT I received the following question which poses many challenges related to divorce and parenting. While there is never a one-size-fits-all answer to relationship questions, I’m sharing my response with you as a perspective worth considering....

Take Control of Your Finances After Divorce
For many people, divorce can mean financial devastation or hardship. You may lose half of what you have saved over the course of your adult life, and go into substantial debt paying lawyer’s fees and other expenses. Yet for as messy and painful as divorce can be, it...

12 Lessons Daughters Learn From Their Parents’ Divorce
By Terry Gaspard, MSW, LICSW Women, and especially daughters of divorce, can put undue pressure on themselves to find the right partner, marry, and develop a happy home life. But if they possess this goal, it can present many problems. For the most part, women from...

How My Past Relationships Led Me To The Love Of My Life
I don't think love is something you can plan or create. Love for my husband came unexpectedly, and when I had stopped looking for love. It happened when I finally had come to love myself again, and opened my heart to the possibility of finding that one person who...

Five Ways to Encourage Emotional Intimacy in Your Married Life
By Sylvia Smith When married couples think of intimacy, their first thought is often sexual intimacy. Being physically intimate is one of the great benefits of marriage, but there is another vital type of intimacy that couples need to pay attention to: emotional...

Celebrating Actively Involved Divorced Dads
As Father’s Day approaches, let’s take a moment to celebrate caring, actively involved divorced and divorcing dads: Fathers who put their children first even when their marriage is falling or apart or has ended Dads who recognize and acknowledge their ex’s strengths...

Litigation, Mediation, or Collaborative Divorce: Which is Right for You?
By Karen Covy Getting divorced isn’t what it used to be. “Back in the day” (i.e. 20 or 30 years ago) there was only one way to get divorced. You hired a lawyer, had your spouse served with divorce papers, then fought in court. Eventually, you either settled your...