A special description from our Executive Director, Dr. Marianna Orlandi, about this reading group:

"Adult Children of Divorce (ACOD) are full of wounds, scars, and relational issues. Of course, they can grow up to be amazing mothers, fathers, and professionals. But as therapists, counselors, and social scientists know and document, there is a radical difference in a child's life (and mindset) when one of the parents is not in the picture.

As a child of divorce myself, I can testify that it took me almost forty years to fully understand the extent to which the things I had-and had not-witnessed and experienced in my family life have affected my personality. For this reason, I decided to start a group open to all. First, it is open to people like me, who think they may have figured it all out, but who are instead still victims of something that went wrong in their past. At the same time, the group welcomes and encourages people from all family backgrounds, and of all ages. Today, we all need to redisocver and understand the beauty of marriage and committed love, living as we are in a time and age where nothing seems to matter more than our momentary pleasure, desires, and self-satisfaction.  It is open to parents who are considering divorce, or who are already navigating raising children on their own, as well as to anyone willing to counsel or accompany friends struggling with difficult family realtionships.

We know that divorce may sometimes be inevitable. What is not inevitable, though, is to believe in the lie of "good divorce." 

A copy of the book will be provided for everyone who RSVPs for this event. This group will meet monthly.

About the Author:

Is there really such a thing as a “good divorce”? Determined to uncover the truth, Elizabeth Marquardt—herself a child of divorce—conducted, with Professor Norval Glenn, a pioneering national study of children of divorce, surveying 1,500 young adults from both divorced and intact families between 2001 and 2003. In Between Two Worlds, she weaves the findings of that study together with powerful, unsentimental stories of the childhoods of young people from divorced families.  The hard truth, she says, is that while divorce is sometimes necessary, even amicable divorces sow lasting inner conflict in the lives of children. When a family breaks in two, children who stay in touch with both parents must travel between two worlds, trying alone to reconcile their parents’ often strikingly different beliefs, values, and ways of living. Authoritative, beautifully written, and alive with the voices of men and women whose lives were changed by divorce, Marquardt’s book is essential reading for anyone who grew up “between two worlds.”