The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The 25 Year Landmark Study

This compelling New York Times bestseller will fundamentally change the way children of divorce cope, and how their parents can support them—updated with a new preface by the author.

"A wise and profoundly compassionate book." —Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of When the Bough Breaks; Founder and Chair, National Parenting Association

Divorce is at once a widespread reality and a painful decision, so it is no surprise that this landmark study of its long-term effects should both spark debate and find a large audience.

In this thought-provoking book, Judith Wallerstein explains that, while children do learn to cope with divorce, it in fact takes its greatest toll in adulthood, when the sons and daughters of divorced parents embark on romantic relationships of their own. Wallerstein sensitively illustrates how children of divorce often feel that their relationships are doomed, seek to avoid conflict, and fear commitment. Failure in their loving relationships often seems to them preordained, even when things are going smoothly. 

As Wallerstein checks in on the adults she first encountered as youngsters more than twenty-five years ago, she finds that their experiences mesh with those of the millions of other children of divorce, who will find themselves on every page.

"Remarkable, sobering ... must reading for anyone concerned about divorce and children." —Nancy J. Chodorow, psychoanalyst and author of The Power of Feelings: Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender and Culture

Judith S. Wallerstein is widely considered the world's foremost authority on the effects of divorce on children. The founder of the Judith Wallerstein Center for the Family in Transition, she is a senior lecturer emerita at the School of Social Welfare at the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author, with Sandra Blakeslee, of the national bestsellers The Good Marriage and Second Chances, and with Dr. Joan Berlin Kelly of Surviving the Breakup.

Julia M. Lewis is a professor of Psychology at San Francisco State University, where she is Director of the Psychology Clinic and Coordinator of the Clinical Pyschology graduate program. She is co-principal investigator of the 25-year Children of Divorce Project.

Sandra Blakeslee is an award-winning science correspondent for The New York Times.