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How to have an affair in 5 easy steps
Sex scandals are cultural catnip. We feed on them like drugs; perpetually jonesing for the next hit, then reminded of the foul taste, we just as passionately spew them out. The most titillating of...
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Marriage counseling is for married couples
I’ve only bought one brand new car in my life. I had graduated college three years earlier and my ’88 Chevy Cavalier, with the aftermarket spoiler and rear window sticker that read ‘Ultra Cool’ didn’t...
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Our chemical romance
“Better living through chemistry.” Those were the words she used; hijacked from a Madison Avenue attempt at touting the benefits of modern science and big business, she oversold the phrase the same way...
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I’m glad to be a single dad
Being a single parent has roughly the appeal of syphilis. A lifetime of bitterness, anger, and guilt isn’t a top contender when the genie asks for three wishes; and little boys and girls don’t dream...
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The conquering fool: why men change after marriage
There isn’t a great deal I remember from my wedding. The ceremony was held at a quaint hotel in Central Jersey and included an open bar, gourmet menu, adequate DJ, and a hundred or so family and close...
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Infidelity, it really is that simple
As the Supreme Court is expected to rule on same sex marriage this week, my sister recently asked what I felt would be the next cultural lightning rod. At the time I rattled off a number of social...
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When the one you love doesn’t love your kids.
I divorced about 2 years ago and have been dating a woman from about a year ago. She does not like my child and hates when I spend time with him and refuses to share a time and activities together, so...
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Giving the kids enough runway for your next marriage
I’m astonished that second marriages fail at such high rates. It’s proof that evolution remains a theory; natural selection hasn’t eradicated our capacity to repeat stupid mistakes. God knows I’m a...
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The resurrection of a deadbeat dad
I’m beside myself with anger, frustration and fear. My ex was an abusive man – emotionally, verbally, physically, and financially ruined both our one son and myself. The courts deemed him unfit to see...
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Does divorce mean we failed our kids?
I’ve given much thought to this shackle of regret that exists between divorce and parenthood, predictably missing in childless couples, trying to pinpoint what exactly causes so much grief and sorrow....
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Perfecting the art of co-parenting
I have been dating a man for 2 years, I’ll call him Jim. Jim is actively involved in his 7 yr old daughter’s life, which is a quality I find attractive. However, Jim always checks with his ex to see...
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The necessity of RE-marriage?
It remains my gravest worry, much more than my anxiety around their emotional wellbeing or their predicted academic fallout. What keeps me awake at night is thinking how divorce will affect my...
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Why Monogamy Still Matters
The basis for trust within any marriage is the promise of exclusivity; one person wholly devoted to another. It is this fundamental belief that has helped sell scores of Hollywood romantic movies –...
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Blood is thicker than a marriage certificate
As the Queen and I move another step towards our second, and God willing, last marriage, I can’t help but reflect on the couple we’ve become and consider the changes that will inevitably follow after...
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What Sandy Hook should teach divorced parents
The State of Connecticut’s report into the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School should be mandatory reading for every divorced parent. While it doesn’t explain the motive for Adam Lanza’s rampage...
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Why He Became The Perfect Man – After Your Relationship Ended
There are generally two ways to get someone’s attention, tickle them with a feather or drop an anvil on their head. The biggest factor in which method to use isn’t our gender, age, or intellect – it’s...
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Trading gold for dust – thoughts on the decision to divorce
I was recently asked to offer a few words of encouragement for an old friend considering a new direction. She wants to leave her husband; her reasons are justifiable yet she hesitates to take the...
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Commitment Is Overrated
As the cultural war on marriage continues, barrages of white-hot contempt are released with every new celebrity divorce and Beltway sex scandal. Yet the critics of marriage, those considering it a...
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The Necessity of Regret
Regret, it may be said, is one unavoidable we spend our lives trying to avoid. We’re not very good at it; an industry of pills, potions, and prescriptions has risen from the ash heap of those consumed...
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Before you can find the right one you must be the right one.
It’s ridiculous at how little I once knew about relationships. Aside from one brief and very embarrassing sex monologue by my mother, neither she nor my dad ever talked about the art of relationships...
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Divorce, dating, and sleepovers, things that don’t go good together
The pitfalls of dating as divorced parents are well documented. But how to date as a one is regularly ignored. We get so caught up in attempting to find the who, looking for the right mix of partner...
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Everyone hits the wall, eventually
A recent chat with the Queen got me thinking back on those first weeks and months after the last nail was hammered into the coffin of my marriage. Divorce brings an overwhelming sense of freedom when a...
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In Memoriam to a Former Father-In-Law
Divorce divides everything. It divides relationships, families, friendships, and hearts. Divorce is a knife that cuts away love. Divorce demands sides. It doesn’t only affect the immediate couple and...
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Your Phone And Your Future Relationship Happiness
I have a cousin who believes it’s his inalienable right to pilfer any unprotected cell phone and using the closest social media app wreak havoc in the owner’s life. He once announced his sister’s...
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Ray Rice, Fifty Shades, and the morality of consent
She was attractive with a social personality, yet possessed a subtlety that led me to believe hers had been a life of frequent disappointment. I considered this a tempting quality; a challenge frankly,...
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The Sensuality of Secrets
“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” Proverbs 4:23 NLT In the next episode of Fatherhood Wide Open, I talk with author and writer Marvin James about his book,...
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Why I’m Thankful For My Divorce
It’s natural to look for silver linings. To search out the tiniest good in what seems an ocean of hopelessness is evidence of God’s handiwork in our very humanity. That is a wonderful thing; without it...
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Before We Say ‘I Do’, Again! Part 5 – Yours, Mine, And Ours
There’s a saying I routinely use on my kids and employees, ‘Perception is reality.’ In other words, how someone sees the world is how the world really is, at least to them, and whose reality everyone...
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Divorce, Custody, And The Magic Number
He is like a tree planted by steams of water that yields fruit in its season. Psalms 1:3 My separation and divorce wouldn’t make for great television. We were off a hundred or so dollars in child...
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The Price Of Lust
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love...
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The Value of Ever After
It was January ’89 and I had just completed a tumultuous week of fraternity hell sealed by oath to never reveal what happened. After twelve final hours, aptly named Hell Night, of what I sometimes...
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Turning The Page
I chose it for the right reasons. It was close enough to my children but far enough from their mother. I would never mow a lawn or lay pine straw again. The rich onyx of the granite and doors gave off...
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Secret Codes And Co-Parenting
This admission may come as a surprise for some – I don’t have a good relationship with the ex. One might think it would be better after a decade and our interwoven lives would be easing peacefully down...
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Do What You’ve Promised
“But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.” Numbers 32:23 ESV Sometimes it requires a thing so completely providential as an Internet...
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Home Is Where The Mom Is
When it finally set in that I would become another marital statistic, albeit outlier – we were educated, from intact families, and financially comfortable, any one by itself putting us,...
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Divorce And The Tension Of Faith
Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. Mark 10:1 For many the Bible is laced with...
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Christmas, Complicated
Christmas is complicated; you don’t need me telling you this. But the reasons are more meaningful than navigating traffic, fighting malls, and dreading credit card bills. Things get complicated during...
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Confessions Of A New Step Dad
In the spirit of reflection, expected this time of year, I typically look back on the most important events in my life over the last twelve months. And while this year’s list includes a new marriage,...
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Re-Life: If I Had To Do Divorce Over Again
I’ve often thought what I might do differently if I could go back ten years, to that November night when my then-wife declared, ‘This isn’t working out. I want a divorce.’ If I knew what I know today,...
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He Came To Himself
‘But when he came to himself’ Luke 15:17 I can still remember when it happened, where I was, what I wore, and what I was doing when it all went sideways. No time or distance will erase the mark left...
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All In The Family – Your Marriage Their Ex
In emails I receive with questions about dating single dads, what most have in common is a general, but often specific, frustration over his ex. In other words, coping with the fear and challenges of...
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Change Won’t Save Your Marriage
The more precise a spouse’s reasons for ending a marriage, the more genuine they tend to be. His anger or drinking problem, her drug use or emotional neglect land much nearer the truth than that tired...
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Before We Say ‘I Do’, Again! Part 6 – Child Support and Remarriage
Is there anything more explosive than that powder keg called child support? For some, it’s a right and reward, for others the monthly reminder of a biased legal system, or a bad attorney. If we open...
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Biology of A Daddy
A recent, and passionate, email from a reader reminded me of the enormous confusion that exists, predominately among men, about the definition of ‘daddy’. The email, too long for reciting here, is...
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New Pictures In Old Frames
Divorce is a blank canvas. A clean sheet of paper on which we can write a new, and hopefully better, chapter. But similar to a splendid painting or brilliant novel, it doesn’t and can’t happen by...
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The Mirage of Long Distance Love
Many years ago, in another life, long before the Queen, I met a woman during a business conference. She was blessed with black hair and hazel eyes that would bring a good man to his knees. Introduced...
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A Father Never To Be Forgotten
For over a decade, perhaps my most widespread fear, the one thought staying with me, like a vampire clinging to the soul, was how my divorce would affect the relationship with my children. How would...
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Sex, Love, and Thirsty Camels
“Let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac.” Genesis 24:14 The Queen and I first met at a bar. It’s not something we advertise. Similar stories usually end in hook ups and poorly. Ours,...
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The Larger Blessing
It’s always amazed me that second marriages end in statistically higher rates of divorce. I would think that enduring perhaps the most difficult time in a persons’ life might leave a more lasting...
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Rock And Sand – A Lesson In Relationships
And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. – Matthew 7:25 ESV Of the many beautiful and endlessly...
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