Many courts still order a one-size-fits-all custody arrangement in which fathers see their children every other weekend, and mothers assume parenting duty the rest of the time.

However, psychological research suggests families fare better with individualized custody plans tailored to fit children’s developmental stage and individual circumstances, as well as the particular relationship between children and their parents. To learn how Divorce Without War® can help you create a co-parenting plan tailored to your family’s needs, click here.

That research shows that children experience cookie-cutter plans as confusing and arbitrary, notes clinical psychologist and divorce expert Joan B. Kelly, PhD. Especially affected are children who have good relationships with their fathers and those so young they “have no cognitive capacity to understand why this abrupt decrease in their contact with the object of their affection occurred,” she notes.

Other research she cites in a paper in press at the Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers finds that:

• About half of children want more contact with their noncustodial fathers than they have.
• Children are rarely asked about living arrangements, but when they are and their input is used, they report high levels of satisfaction with post-divorce living arrangements.
• Children whose fathers are more involved with them postdivorce generally do better socially, behaviorally and academically than those whose fathers are less involved.
• Children in joint-custody arrangements have better emotional, behavioral and general adjustment than those living only with their mother, according to a 2002 meta-analysis of 33 studies.

Click here to continue reading this article by T. DeAngelis from apa.org.

It’s been well noted that divorce among the over-50-crowd is on the rise, spreading like crow’s feet even as the overall divorce rate has dipped. Financial headaches related to health care can loom large in later-life divorces, experts say. Yet if the Affordable Care Act works as intended, the law could prove to be a game-changer, by easing the financial burden of health insurance for divorced people who get dropped from their spouses’ plans.

About 115,000 women lose their private health insurance every year in the wake of divorce, according to a study last year out of the University of Michigan, and many don’t regain coverage quickly. Many of these women either don’t have jobs outside the home or work at jobs that don’t provide insurance, and some women with employer-sponsored coverage can no longer afford the premiums. Many former spouses qualify for post-divorce COBRA health benefits under their ex-spouse’s plan, but this coverage is both prohibitively expensive and limited in duration, typically to 36 months, advisers say.

Click here to continue reading this article from marketwatch.com by Elizabeth O’Brien.

The slow housing market and tight lending requirements represent a major obstacle for couples who want to untie the knot these days. Before the market crashed, divorcing couples could easily sell their homes, split the equity and purchase other homes for themselves. But times have changed.

Usually, the mortgage is the biggest liability the couple has to split. And divorcing your mortgage isn’t easy.

In the eyes of the mortgage lender, you remain married and liable for the mortgage unless you sell the house or refinance. For those who can’t do either, there are options that should be explored carefully.Click here to continue reading this article by Polyana da Costa from bankrate.com.

I received an email this week from a divorced mom in San Diego who was confused about which parent should file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which is required to get a college loans. Her confusion was understandable because the financial aid rules are different for divorced families seeking help to send their children to college.

In this case, the dad claimed the teenager on his taxes, but the boy lived with the mother 95 percent of the time. Sometimes children of divorced families will benefit from special rules, and other times their chances for financial aid will be hurt.

Here are six things that you need to know about divorce and financial aid:

1.Who the child lives with matters. The parent who completes the FAFSA should be the one who has taken care of the child for most of the year. So if the child lives with the dad for seven months and the mom for five months, the mom’s income will be irrelevant for financial aid purposes. The dad would complete the FAFSA and only include his income.

To illustrate how this can be a boon for some families, let’s assume that the mother is a physician making $200,000 a year and the father is a school teacher making $50,000. If the child lived with the dad most of the year, he would declare his father’s lower income, and his mom’s large salary wouldn’t figure in the aid application.

Click here to continue reading this article from CBS news by Lynn O’Shaughnessy.

Jean True had been married for 38 years in 2008 when her husband announced he was leaving her. “He said he wanted to be on his own,” she recalls. She was 61, with three grown sons and four granddaughters.

True knew she’d have to be “a lot more savvy about spending and saving” after the divorce. Her ex-husband, a retired schoolteacher, had always taken care of their finances. So True had to learn quickly how to manage accounts and handle bills and taxes along with selling the Wisconsin house where the couple had planned to retire. “It was wearing and stressful,” says True, who now lives near her sons in a condo in Winfield, Ill.

True and her ex are part of a striking trend in America: the stunning rise in divorces among people 50 and older. Between 1990 and 2009, the divorce rate nearly doubled for this group, even as the overall divorce rate dropped, according to the National Center for Family and Marriage at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University. In 1990, just 1 in 10 people who got divorced was over 50; today, it’s 1 in 4. With people living longer, healthier lives and the stigma of divorce easing, a growing number of men and women are bailing out of marriages their parents’ generation might have reluctantly clung to.

Click here to continue reading this article from nextavenue.org.

The decision to end a relationship can be traumatic, chaotic, and filled with contradictory emotions. There are also specific feelings, attitudes, and dynamics associated with whether one is in the role of the initiator or the receiver of the decision to breakup. For example, it is not unusual for the initiator to experience fear, relief, distance, impatience, resentment, doubt, and guilt. Likewise, when a party has not initiated the divorce, they may feel shock, betrayal, loss of control, victimization, decreased self esteem, insecurity, anger, a desire to “get even,” and wishes to reconcile.

To normalize experiences during this time, it may be helpful to know that typical emotional stages have been identified with ending a relationship. It may also be helpful to understand that marriages do not breakdown overnight; the breakup is not the result of one incident; nor is the breakup the entire fault of one party. The emotional breaking up process typically extends over several years and is confounded by each party being at different stages in the emotional process while in the same stage of the physical (or legal) process.

Click here to continue reading this article from mediate.com.

Emotional Stages of Divorce. Mediate.com. Retrieved on October 16, 2013, from http://www.mediate.com/divorce/pg62.cfm.