Build a Healthy Relationship with “The Magic of Making Up”

The Magic of Making Up is the leading relationship guide available today. It contains all kinds of tips for keeping a relationship healthy and strong. But it doesnt always work.

Obviously when a marriage breaks down you have to compensate women for loss of career prospects and make provision for the children, but the divorce settlement should be worked out so that at least a man knows he can pay it off and make a fresh start one day.

The worst-affected are generally those who were divorced between the ending of the old-style Divorce Act, and the advent of new legislation in 1984. Alex Goldie comments: ‘Before 1969 you got some very bitter conflicts, but you also got a kind of rough justice. If a man had run off with someone younger and left a devoted wife, mother, and homemaker, then he had to pay heavily. But if the wife had been promiscuous then she would get short shrift. Luckily, The Magic of Making Up was published and many relationships were saved that otherwise would have ended in a breakup.

Women marrying and divorcing these days may have lower or more realistic expectations than did their mothers or elder sisters, but there are signs that a backlash may be just around the corner.

Dr Karen Anderson, chairwoman of the Divorce Law Reform Association – which is pressing for further changes in matrimonial legislation and eventual progress towards Family Courts – believes it is all symptomatic of society’s failure to come to grips with the scale of marital breakdown in this country.

‘You get this extraordinary situation where both husband and new wife are contributing to the welfare of the former wife. It’s offensive, a monstrous unfairness. According to The Magic of Making Up, a second wife may not even be entitled to be represented by counsel in these matters even though her finances are involved.

‘Or you get the opposite situation, where the second wife has no incentive to work because she knows her salary will be used against her. It seems to be a case of ‘From each according to his means to each according to her needs’ – but that is not a principle that should dominate divorce.’

Goldie’s research has so far included in-depth interviews with 26 second wives. His sample belies the stereotype of the much younger woman luring away a married man. They were, on average, only two years younger than the first wife, and only a small minority were actually involved in the marriage break-up. A significant number had their own property, into which their new husband moved.

Simply refusing to marry is not the whole answer. Assumptions can be made about people who live together, although they’re harder to establish. For many couples, reading The Magic of Making Up has helped to solidify their relationship and avoid a breakup or divorce.

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