Writing
Write Your New Story:
A Practical Guide to Divorce Recovery
By John S. Fry, Ph.D.
I am in the last stages of editing and am beginning to seek a publisher. Here are the chapters:
- This wasn’t my plan for my life! Overcoming grief, shock, guilt and embarrassment. Understand that what you are going through is normal for divorce and that you aren’t going crazy.
- New Responsibilities: Create a different future. Get yourself moving forward despite the divorce. Tactics against procrastination, tools for self-motivation, time management, and resilience. How to increase happiness amid struggle.
- Coping with your ex and anger management. How to relate to your ex while staying mentally healthy. How to manage your anger so it doesn’t make things worse. Keeping a level head while communicating.
- Coping skills for worries, dark thoughts, and down days. Stress management techniques tailored to divorce stress. Learn how to be assertive instead of passive or aggressive. Distinguish the important difference between worry and problem solving.
- Children and Divorce. Almost half of kids whose parents divorce are left unscarred. Approaches that help your children adjust well. How to talk to your children and teens, how to set limits, and how to have a good co-parenting relationship with your ex.
- Finding and experiencing forgiveness. Your bitterness is like a poison you take, hoping it will kill someone else. How to release your resentment even when your ex accepts no responsibility for the break-up.
- Friendships that make a difference. You may not be ready to date, but you can develop good friendships. Overcoming your barriers to friendship. How to make and deepen good friendships.
- Exploring new romantic relationships. Rethinking dating from the ground up. Identifying characteristics of a good match early. Strategies for making and becoming a good pick. Navigating online dating while avoiding its risks.
- Creating relationships that go the distance. Research-based strategies for nurturing relationships with staying power. C. S. Lewis said, “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
My qualifications for writing this book:
- I went through my own divorce in 1987 and learned some things the hard way.
- I attended a divorce recovery workshop that really helped. In 1988 I began giving the fourth night talk on coping with the stress of divorce which I gave over 50 times.
- Since the late 80s, divorce recovery and working with singles have been specialties of mine.
- From 2009 until 2019 I was the principal speaker at this workshop which, since 1981, has had over 16,000 attend it.
- Every year I have scoured the research for effective approaches to divorce recovery.
- I married Elizabeth in 1995 and we have a good marriage, one that will go the distance.
If you would like to be notified when it is published, please give me your email.
