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Second Time Around
by Susan Kelly and Dale Burg.
Love and marriage can succeed -- and even
improve -- the second time around with this indispensable resource
Finally some great news about remarriage: It can and does work. To help women successfully make a second union last, Susan
Kelly -- happily remarried for more than a decade herself -- now provides the essential
guidance needed to face and solve new challenges and avoid past mistakes. Filled
with expert advice from therapists and matrimonial lawyers, and based on information, anecdotes, and examples obtained from more than 1,000 happily remarried men and women, this refreshingly upbeat and
practical book offers a clear road map to marital bliss -- to make that second
"I do" fun, fulfilling, and enduring.
Why are so many remarriages happier, sexier, and more successful than the ones that preceded them? That's what Susan Kelley and Dale Burg will tell you here.
"I couldn't have imagined this kind of love before," says one remarried woman.
"My new spouse has taught me I am worthy of having the best," says another.
Comments like these are typical of those of the hundreds of remarried men and women age
twenty-five to eighty, from all over the country, who were interviewed for this book. Their anecdotes and advice, along with suggestions from professionals, will help you heal and emotionally detach from the past, clearing the way to a happy and lasting
relationship.
You will learn
- Why it may be appropriate to change partners at least once in a lifetime
- How to make positive changes in yourself and get into a remarriage frame of mind
- Where to look and what to do to find a new mate
- How to know when you've found the right person
- How to clarify your expectations about family,
finances, and fidelity
- How to cope with the surprising number one problem: the ex-spouse
This book will give you the tools to make better choices the second time around. And you will be heartened and encouraged by the testimony of those who have discovered that all the romance and fulfillment that eluded them at first can be found in remarriage.
Author
SUSAN KELLEY is the author of Real Women Send Flowers, Why Men Commit, and
Why Men Stray/Why Men Stay. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey
Show, Sally Jesse Raphael, ,The Maury Povich Show, and numerous other national television shows as a relationship expert. A former model, actress, and TV writer, she is a member of the Screen Actors
Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Writers
Guild of America, East. She has been happily remarried for more than eleven years.
DALE BURG has collaborated on or written sixteen books on subjects relevant to women and has been a
longtime columnist for Woman's Day and Family Circle. She lives in New York City.
Reviews
"'Like the first pancake, sometimes the first marriage just doesn't turn out right. The Second Time Around shows that remarriages can be the ones they write the songs about."
--GAIL PARENT, novelist and TV comedy writer
Excerpt
The following is an excerpt from the book The Second Time Around
Chapter One
Putting The Past Behind You
Many people have told me that divorce was the worst thing that ever
happened to them and it was also the best thing that ever happened because of
the changes that occurred in them. They ended up so much stronger and wiser.
-- Audrey Wentworth, family therapist
It is impossible to exaggerate the amount of trauma and the degree of
feelings of failure and loss that are associated with the end of a marriage.
Fred and I got together in college and married immediately after
graduation, then packed our few possessions and many books and went off to
graduate school. The marriage started to deteriorate very quickly.
Fred totally immersed himself in his studies, and I felt abandoned and
isolated. I wasn't looking to get involved with someone else, but shortly after
I started my second year of graduate school, I found myself swept up in a
passionate affair with Brent, a wildly attractive and charismatic colleague.
Within months, I had divorced my husband in order to marry him. One night, in
our third year together, he turned to me, said, "I don't feel well,"
and died. He had had a cerebral hemorrhage caused by a congenital problem. It's
twenty years later, and I have a new husband and children, but I can honestly
say that going through that early divorce, even though it was at my instigation,
was a lot more shocking and unsettling to me than Brent's death. I guess it made
me profoundly aware that nothing is forever.
-- Caroline, 55, university professor
Adding to the pain of divorce for many people is the feeling of being judged
by a collective external conscience that is assigning them blame. But a spouse
may also experience feelings of failure and guilt even if the marriage was
terminated by death. You may think, If I had done more -- pressured my spouse to
take better care of himself (or herself), helped with the economic burden to
reduce the stress on my spouse, spotted the signs of illness earlier, tried
harder to find new doctors -- then things might have turned out differently. In
addition, you may have other, unresolved issues stemming from the marriage,
ranging from anger that the spouse has "left" you to remorse for acts
of omission (not having been thoughtful or loving enough) or commission (having
resented the need to care for an ill spouse; having been unfaithful). Or you
might simply feel guilty for having made such a wrong choice.
A big source of stress for me is my guilt about the failure of my first
marriage. Counseling has helped me quite a bit. I'm not sure I will ever fully
overcome it, but I don't dwell on it anymore. I can now tell someone without
feeling embarrassed that I rushed into my first marriage.
-- Ruth, 25, data entry clerk
Society deems it a failure if you end a marriage after eight years because
you're supposed to stay with one person for your whole life. But who has that
kind of a plan? You have to think of it as a success if you stayed together for
eight years. It's not a failure. It just ended. But not everyone can tell
herself that.
-- Vickie, 40, music teacher
Along with a sense of failure, it is very common to feel a deep sense of loss
in the aftermath of a terminated marriage. Wanting to feel connected and
attached is a very basic human desire. For a woman, a marriage may even
represent her identity and, in certain communities, her position in the
community may be totally defined by her marriage.
Feelings of failure and loss alone may be sufficiently overwhelming to make
you want to climb into bed and pull up the covers. But in the face of this
trauma, you have to figure out a way to cope and deal with the practical matters
that need addressing, ranging from those that concern your own well-being to the
obligations you may have to others, such as children and business partners.
Though it will be little or no consolation to you at the time -- and you may even
be appalled at the notion -- the terrible feelings you experience may eventually
help you to make a happier remarriage.
"I don't think there is a person on earth who, no matter how right his
or her reasons for leaving the marriage, doesn't regard divorce as a failure," says psychotherapist Jill Muir Sukenick. "Every one of them has a
great desire not to reexperience this failure, which is the impetus for learning
what you need to learn in order to make a better choice the next time
around."
"People who are in a second marriage have learned what they value and
what is special about being married. Your willingness to preserve the
institution means you don't take it lightly," concurs therapist Judith
Siegel. "This is a life lesson, and it may make you more sensitive to a new
partner and more willing to compromise, out of respect for the institution of
marriage."
What to expect when a marriage ends
What Were The Circumstances Of The Dissolution?
If it was a mutual and relatively amicable decision that you should go your
separate ways, you will experience some pain. Your grief of course will be far
greater if your spouse died, or if the marriage broke up as the result of
serious incompatibility, anger, hostility, betrayal, or abuse.
The negative feelings associated with the breakup may catapult you back to an
earlier time in your life, specifically your adolescent years, when you began
interacting in new ways with the opposite sex and you probably experienced
typical anxieties regarding your popularity -- or lack of it. In the wake of a
divorce, you may experience the present as the past. Now becomes then. If your
spouse announces that he or she is leaving you for another person, this blow to
your self-esteem takes you right back to high school, and you may reexperience
feeling "unpopular" and insecure.
The marriage wasn't flourishing, so I filed for divorce. My ex became
vicious. He started dating immediately and got engaged before we were even
divorced. Then I started hearing about bow unfaithful he'd been all during the
marriage. Everything I had believed was crashing down on me, and it took me a
long time to recover.
-- Chloe, 50, artist
Copyright © 2000 Susan Kelly and Dale Burg
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