Divorce

When spouses legally dissolve a marriage, their experiences before, during and after are often shaped by gender.

It’s Not ‘Divorce Month.’ It’s ‘Starting to Think About Divorce Month.’

For years, many have nicknamed January “Divorce Month” and the first working Monday as “Divorce Day,” as if floods of filings hit courthouses across the country right after the ball drops. But that’s not the case.

March is a bigger month for the D-word. August is nothing to sneeze at either, according to a study by the University of Washington. So what’s the big deal with January? You could say the first of the year pushes sideline spectators, who’ve watched others split, to start dipping their toes in the divorce waters. In the end, nearly 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women.

‘When Power Curdles Into Violence’: Escaping the Tradwife Lifestyle

Brides shouldn’t be thinking about homework just before their wedding day. But when I entered into an arranged marriage with a 28-year-old stranger, I was still just a 17-year-old girl who loved her private British school and her books and cricket—and so I found myself thinking about a creative-writing assignment I had recently finished. I’d written a story about a young woman who wore jewelry in the shapes of snakes. I wrote that they suddenly came to life and they slithered up to her throat, strangling her. 

As someone who was forced into a life I never chose, I am appalled that women, who are more empowered than ever, are effectively choosing a life without choice—putting themselves in a prison of their own making.

Could You Be ‘Framed’? New Book Exposes How Domestic Abuse Victims Are Set Up in Family Court

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In their groundbreaking new book, Framed: Women in the Family Court Underworld, Dr. Christine M. Cocchiola and Amy Polacko expose the gender biased injustice in family courts. Through the stories of 22 real women from the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia the authors shine a light on how women are accused, arrested, abused and can even lose custody of their children—to their abusers. 

“Most people have no idea what really happens when you get divorced—until they find themselves entering the world of family court. It is an abuser’s playground,” said Polacko.

Surprised a Colorado Mom Was Jailed for Protecting Her Kids? Don’t Be.

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Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins was jailed for objecting to court ordered “reunification therapy” that sought to mend the relationship between her children and their father, a man charged with sexually assaulting three of their daughters and physically abusing their son.

As a divorce coach and coercive control expert, who are both domestic abuse survivors, we see these mind boggling, trauma-inducing decisions by family courts every day. This Colorado mom could be any mom. That’s why it’s time that America deals with our family court crisis head on.

If Conservatives Want Stronger Marriages, They Should Look to Liberal Solutions

Conservative politicians are complaining about childless cat ladies, declining marriage rates, unstable families and single-parent households. Their strategy so far has been to ban abortion, offer families no real support, do nothing to help struggling Americans find greater financial stability, promote a deeply misogynistic worldview to young men, and then yell at young women that they need to get married and have babies. Shockingly, this is not working very well.

On the other side, liberals have de-emphasized marriage and the nuclear family as the primary organizing unit for society, while offering women and men alike more choices about when, how, and if to start families, and more support if they do. And while marriage and childbearing rates are down generally, the prototypical Democratic voter—the college-educated woman working for pay in or near a large city in a blue state—is more likely to find herself in a happy, stable marriage than the prototypical Republican voter.

This isn’t a coincidence.

It’s Been a Year Since Catherine Kassenoff’s Assisted Suicide. Has Anything Changed in Family Court?

After she lost custody of her three daughters in a divorce proceeding that labeled her behavior “harmful” and unhinged, Catherine Kassenoff decided to end her life in a Swiss assisted suicide facility on May 27, 2023.

“She couldn’t live without her children and the court was saying she couldn’t live with her children,” said Wayne Baker, the executor of Kassenoff’s estate, “so where did that leave her?”

Many in the family court reform movement thought the dramatic death of an astute legal mind like Catherine—who still couldn’t win in our backward system—would finally mark a watershed for reform. One year later, what has changed?

Texas Supreme Court Considers Taking Up Question of Whether Frozen Embryos Are People

The Texas Supreme Court is considering whether to take up a case that could have Alabama-esque impacts on in vitro fertilization in Texas.

What began as a Denton divorce has grown into a larger battle over whether a frozen embryo can be defined as a person. The court has not yet said whether it will take up the case, which centers on three frozen embryos created by Caroline and Gaby Antoun.

Earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos qualify as people under the state’s wrongful death statute, leading fertility clinics to halt their work until the legislature stepped in and granted temporary protections. While the details are different, legal experts and fertility doctors say the results of this Texas case could be similar.