Would you go into a corporate partnership with someone who told you that, in order to "seal the deal," you had to sign a partnership agreement that protected mainly their interests? Would you squelch the small voice within that wanted to question their actions and their motives? Would you feel...

What do Alcoholics Anonymous, a suicide prevention hotline, and confession have in common? They all entail telling your problems to people you don't know (or know well).

But isn't that what friendships are for? Your friends turn to you and you to them in times of need? As the...

What do you do when you find yourself a divorced single mom with no income?

You go out and look for a job, of course!

In 1982, that's exactly what Bonnie Tempesta did. A native of the Bay Area, Tempesta was overwhelmed with fear and the responsibility of starting a...

Like all therapists, when I do my job well, clients go away. These people ideally feel better than when they first walked into my office because of our work together -- work that may consist of changing their relationship with themselves, seeing aspects of their lives from a different perspective,...

Last week, a client came in and told me that she was relieved to have checked two of the four year-end holidays off her list -- Halloween and Thanksgiving -- and was now bracing for Christmas and New Year's.

She expressed what many divorcing people feel this time of...

"Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow." -Swedish Proverb

People leaving drug or alcohol addiction treatment have the option to go into what's called "transitional housing." A "sober living environment (SLE)," is designed to help those who have been through in-patient treatment and away from...

Whenever a client tells me that her husband has said, "We don't need lawyers," I become wary. When he is self-employed, I become downright suspicious. If his career is in high finance, my suspicion grows twofold.

My reaction is based on years of seeing this same pattern play out....

An international news story broke recently about a woman in China who wants to give her two-month-old infant boy up for adoption -- for free -- due to her impending divorce from the boy's father.

The thirty-year-old mother, referred to simply as "Ms. Li," still has to...

Those who have contemplated divorce for a long time have been stuck in what I call the Marital Indecision Cycle™. This is the cycle wherein couples live in a relatively calm routine but, due to hurt feelings or a buried resentment resurfacing, for example, tensions begin to escalate. After a...

With attorneys charging upwards of $300 or $400 per hour, financial advisors charging thousands, and any other professionals needed adding to the long list of bills, divorce can get very expensive very quickly. I don't know anyone who likes to spend their hard-earned money on a divorce. Yet, according to...

No one knows exactly how many gay, lesbian, or transgender people there are throughout the world.

This is so partly because some of these gay folks don't know it themselves and partly because they know it, but they don't want to share this information with others (namely their family...

The holidays are the most emotionally charged time of the year; 
if you like where you are in life, it's a magical time, but if you don't
 like your life circumstances, holiday time can be quite awful.

To those of you who are divorced or divorcing, this can be an...

Not knowing if you should stay or go can keep you stuck in the marital indecision cycle for many years. This can be damaging to myriad parts of your life including self-esteem, relationships with others and productivity.

When trying to decide whether or not to end a marriage, most people...

In my experience, when a person is the leavee, they often tell me initially they would take their spouse back if he or she wanted to come back to the marriage. This is true particularly when the spouse being left didn't see it coming and didn't think the problems in...

Kate Schermerhorn is an Emmy Award winning filmmaker who contacted me after reading the "Getting Marriage-Whys" article I posted recently. She had many of the same thoughts I did about the role that marriage plays in our lives today.

Schermerhorn recently completed the documentary film, "After...

In my last Huffington Post article, I wrote about some of the reasons people get married other than love.

While most of those who responded thought the article had several good points, some told me in no uncertain terms that my ideas were not novel, and the religiously-minded...

This week in headlines, we heard that Mexico is introducing legislation that will potentially put time frames around marriage with the minimum contract lasting two years.

There are now approximately 26 countries throughout the world that recognize civil unions, domestic partnerships and same sex marriages.

While I see...

If you love an alcoholic or addict, you know how terrible the disease of addiction can be and you are indirectly impacted. If you are married to an addict or alcoholic, not only do you suffer from watching the person you love go down the tubes, you are directly affected....

Cora and John had been married for nine years and had no children. One night, they had a terrible argument over a financial issue that had been brewing for some time. John threw around the "D" word like it was nothing. They had never gone to this level of animosity...

Ten years ago, Nan (not her real name), told her then husband, Frank, that she wanted to remodel the kitchen. After over seven long months of hellish construction, Nan finally had the kitchen she'd always dreamed of.

Just when she thought life was going to return to a sense...