Endorsements
“This comprehensive study not only highlights the profound impact of later-life divorce on its adult children and their parents, it also underscores the particular life stage each generation is traversing and the interactive influence each has upon the other throughout an evolving divorce process. Kudos to Wendy House for offering thoughtful recommendations for successful adaptations to an often unforeseen family rupture and for unveiling a neglected but ever-increasing population of adult children and their later-life divorcing parents. This work will benefit all participating members of the later divorce family as well as those who teach them, those who listen to them, those who counsel them, those who love them. Clinicians and the general public will be enriched and enlightened by this timely investigation. Read it and pass it on to a friend.”
-- Barbara S. Cain, Author of Autism, The Invisible Cord, A Sibling’s Diary; Silver Medal Winner, Mom’s Choice Award.
“With compassion, evidence, and understanding, Wendy House travels the landscape of later-life parental divorce, leaving no emotional, financial, or relational stone unturned as she eloquently shatters the common belief that it is “no big deal.” For most of the parents who split up, at any age, and for their adult children, of any age, it is a very big deal indeed—though often one that is unexpected and whose consequences may not reveal themselves for years. House combines her sensitivity and skills as a psychotherapist with her training as a social psychologist, allowing her to move easily between individual stories and the larger societal framework. For adult children and their divorcing parents, this book will be revelatory and immensely helpful.”
-- Carol Tavris, Ph.D., Social Psychologist and Author of Mistakes were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts and Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion.
“Wendy House’s approach, caring tone, and desire to help readers build supportive, if revised, family relationships during and after later-life divorce makes an important contribution. The Myth of No Big Deal presents a thoughtful consideration of the issues faced by adult children at different stages of development when their parents divorce after a long marriage. It incorporates many rich case examples which help to connect readers to the real challenges facing adult children, providing clear evidence that the later life divorce of parents clearly is a “Big Deal.” Drawing on her years of clinical practice, House argues that no matter one’s stage of adulthood, parental divorce needs to be acknowledged and integrated into one’s own sense of identity, the meaning of family ties, hopes about current and/or future relationships, and a changing relationship with one’s parents. This book will undoubtedly touch the lives of all the generations involved in later life divorce—parents, adult children, their close friends and partners, and the adult children’s own children. Bringing a hopeful voice to this significant change in family ties, House encourages parents and children to find new ways to define and enact the sense of family. The Myth of No Big Deal is a major contribution to the field of family science, uncovering the many, nuanced ways that later-life divorce of parents impacts their adult children and the family system.
-- Barbara M. Newman, Ph.D., Developmental Psychologist and Philip R. Newman, Ph.D., Social and Community Psychologist, Co-authors of Development through Life: A Psychosocial Approach and Theories of Human Development.