How to Marry a Divorced Man - Hardcover

Fram, Leslie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060090324 ISBN 13: 9780060090326

Publisher: William Morrow, 2003

Synopsis

An indispensable guide to dating and mating the divorced man of your dreams

Entering a relationship with any man is daunting. But entering one with a divorced man means navigating a host of new and complicated problems. Will remnants of his past -- his guilt, the X, their children, the financial and legal fallout -- wreak havoc on your sanity and finances and sabotage your quest for love?

Don't despair: You can overcome these challenges and enjoy a lasting and fulfilling relationship with the emotionally complex divorced man. In this reassuring book, Leslie Fram combines fundamental wisdom, guerrilla tactics, and humor to inform and empower the millions of women who are dating divorcés -- and the many who someday will.

Invaluable and encouraging, How to Marry a Divorced Man offers all the tools you need to end the agonizing guesswork and pave the way to achieving love, intimacy, and, ultimately, marriage.

Included are:

• Specific questions for gauging his emotional availability: Is he recycled goods or a keeper?
• Tips on how to deal with the X in your lives: minimize, minimize, minimize.
• Advice on coexisting peacefully, and even happily, with his children -- assuming thy acknowledge your presence.
• Practical information about the legal and financial implications of his divorce: Will your hard-earned paycheck go toward his kids' braces?
• Strategies for helping him shed his unresolved issues, rebuilding his capacity to love again -- and making him yours.

Packed with exercises, quizzes, anecdotes, and plenty of humor, How to Marry a Divorced Man is the first book for women seeking to triumph over the challenges imposed by their men's prior lives.

About this title

About the Author:

Leslie Fram has been an editor at Seventeen and Cosmopolitan, an executive at Hearst's website women.com, and a fashion designer for her own women's clothing company. She danced with the New York City Ballet before receiving her B.A. from Barnard College and her M.B.A. from Columbia University. She lives in northern California with her husband -- a divorced man -- and their child.

From Publishers Weekly:

It may sometimes read like a parody, but this book is serious about its title-and its subtitle could be "By Any Means Necessary." Once Fram had hit her mid-30s as a "senior executive at a media company" and purchased a Manhattan apartment, "it was time for me to find a husband. I approached this mission...with a clear goal, strategy, and a lot of passion." She picks her quarry ("given the paltry selection of marriage material out there, Divorced Men seemed to be the only option") and speedily nails a fine specimen (but "his psychoconstipation from his earlier marriage rudely invaded our present, and future, together"). The rest of the book (that was just the first chapter) is designed to help potential brides of divorced men manage the emotional, financial and interpersonal issues that threaten that future. There's a chapter on managing early dates (ask the "Divorced?" question on the first, then drop it 'til the fifth), and then an investigation of his probable emotional states-complete with repeated "Reeling and Dealing" explanations of their causes, cheerleading for "FateMate" seconds trying to reel him in ("He's gettable") and "Antibrooding" techniques. A chapter on sex is frank, funny, grim and expert. Discussions about his money, his "X," and his children are models of realpolitik: "Love can't always conquer the most obtrusive of inherited children, so you'll need to draw your own conclusions after giving it your best shot." Victory does not always seem assured, and Fram gives hard-won advice that is grounded in practicality. Sandbagging the kids to preserve precious closet space may not be for everyone ("Tell them foldable clothes made from synthetic materials are all the rage"), but for Fram's FateMates, the end seems to justify the means.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060090324
• ISBN 13: 9780060090326
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192