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Karen Karbo is a very funny writer, and she uses her humorous outlook to lighten the discussion of this very difficult and often painful subject. Most every adult is either divorced, in a relationship with someone who is divorced or has friends that are divorced. Learning to cope with ex's and their children is a skill most of us have had to learn. Karbo's take on this is often dead-on. The most helpful advice that she gives throughout the book is that it is imperative that an ex-couple's children not be used as pawns in their parent's emotional battle. She accurately identifies all the subtle ways this is done by even the most consciously well-meaning parent. If you're newly divorced or about to divorce and worried about how to minimize the trama on the kids, read this book. I was particularly impressed by how well Karbo followed her own advice - you won't see her bashing her ex-husband in the slightest way in this book.
While Karbo's advice on how to handle children is very useful, I wasn't so taken with her advice about dating divorced men and women. Karbo tells amusing stories from her own life, particularly ones about Carol the ex-wife of her live-in-boyfriend Matthew. Carol is insane. Years after the divorce, she continues to haunt Matthew's life with constant phone calls and blatant manipulation of their child. While the stories are so outrageous they are often very funny, you can't help but feel that there is a certain pathos in poking fun at this woman's pain. Also, I couldn't help but lose some respect for Karbo's ability to give wothwhile advice on this subject since she continued to put up with episodes like having all her underwear torn up and other outlandish behavior. Note to all women dating divorced men: if he still talks to his ex-wife about anything other than congenial conversations about the welfare of their children, run for the hills. No exceptions. This is a sign that the relationship is still on-going and not likely to stop anytime soon. Even screaming fights are a sign that both parties are still way too emotionally involved, even if it's in a negative way. While it may be easy to blame the ex-wife, as Karbo does throughout most of this book, the fact is that it takes two to tango - if your boyfriend didn't reward the behavior in some way, it wouldn't still be going on.
A couple of quick issues Karbo doesn't address: When you're dating a divorced parent, you're dating the children too. If you've gotten close to the children, breaking up with the parent has emotional consequences for them. In other words, unless you're thinking there is likely a future in the relationship, watch yourself with the kids. Next point: if you do chose to marry or get seriously involved with a divorced parent, you have limited rights to complain about the kids. No matter how hostile or ill-mannered they may be, you are the one who chose to enter their world; they didn't chose you. Yes, you do get to set certain broad parameters of acceptable behavior in your home, but just remember that you're the one who asked to be there, not them.

Although most adults in the United States now know someone who has been divorced, grew up in a household where the parents divorced, or have been divorced themselves, most don't understand the full implications of that change in marital status. The divorce doesn't end the relationship. It just changes it, often for the worse, especially if children were born to the couple. When people remarry or date again, they end up being connected to all kinds of exes in the process. This book fills in the gaps for those who are still naive in this area.
Ms. Karbo has a fine comic sense, and employs it well to describe her experience with Matthew after her own divorce. He was someone she met while teaching a class for children, and she was impressed by him. While they were dating, he would avoid the subject of his ex-wife. The two of them came home one night to find Ms. Karbo's underwear cut up and to hear violent threats from Claudia, his former wife. They ended up at the Holiday Inn for the night. The rest of the book recounts how the relationship developed with Matthew and Claudia. In between, she uses historical and current examples to illuminate the points she wants to make about divorced people.
With her own divorce having been amicable, Ms. Karbo didn't know what to make of this experience. She mentioned it to others, and one woman asked, "You're not married to Ron Garber, are you? That's his ex-wife's thing." She learned that "a lot of people, an entire generation of exes, were having many of the same experiences."
In most cases, the effect of the divorce was to cause the ill feelings to fester. She discovered this when she met Adele, the crazy ex-wife, on a plane trip. Adele described catching her supervisor and her husband in the marital bed together after she came home from being fired. With the heat of her description, Ms. Karbo assumed this must have just occurred. It had been more than nine years earlier.
Basically, ex-wives either become incredibly angry towards the ex-husband, or stay attached to the ex-husband and take it out on all of the women in his life, even those who come along years later.
The book honestly recounts all of the manipulative things that the first, second, and third wives do in this escalating battle of the sexes . . . while the men tend to stay aloof if children are involved. The book also warns against the men and women who divorce, but never quite separate. They seem available, but they are still in the earlier relationship.
The historical examples range from Henry VIII (who was a bigamist with his first and second wives, and eventually chopped off the head of the second wife, Anne Boleyn), to Picasso (who never quite got around to completely leaving the last wife or girlfriend when he took a new mistress), and to Medea (who poisoned the wedding gown to deny a rival's marriage).
You will also learn about how all of this is discussed at the beauty salon, at ex-wives' dinners, at weddings, and with roommates.
Ms. Karbo takes all of this with a grain of salt until she realizes that if she stays with Matthew, she gets Claudia, too. That's more than she wants. When she was young, she had known one divorcee who was pretty, trim, and perky . . . and cried in public. To her distress, Ms. Karbo realizes that she has become Mrs. Gaspin, that divorcee.
Fortunately, the story ends up well. Ms. Karbo separates from Matthew and marries her UPS man, who also has an ex-wife. But that relationship is pretty tame. That ex-wife lives 1500 miles away, and Ms. Karbo's husband hasn't seen her since 1995.
The key lesson here is that when you are falling in love, think about what that person would be like to have as an ex-spouse. And what would the people that person is related to, or used to be married to, going to be like in that ex-spousal situation? Any personality flaws that exist now as tiny cracks in the facade will become like the Grand Canyon in a divorce.
The book is excellent for exposing the rosy assumptions that people make about their relationships, and how those assumptions make it difficult to adjust when the relationships end.
I also suggest that you read and use Relationship Rescue as a resource to develop your relationship before you move in together or get married.
If you have been divorced or are about to go through one, you will probably find this book very humorous and stress-relieving. It will help you to see yourself and your situation more clearly.
If you haven't been divorced, you will think the book is hilarious. But do treat it seriously. These are real problems that almost always show up to some degree for divorced couples.
May you have only one marriage, and may it be a terrifically happy one!

....yes, this non-fiction book about relationships after divorce surprised me. I read Ms. Karbo's other books and enjoyed them, and though not divorced, started reading this one. Initially I thought it really was awfully Erma Bombeck-like - you know, cutesy, breezy, stating the obvious cliches to invoke a laugh of recognition. Lots of divorce statistics, lots of divorce stories, an interesting chapter on Henry VIII, and Ms. Karbo's own interesting messy life with A New Man. I thought this book was aiming for a "how to live happily ever after" with stepkids, but was surprised and intrigued by how the New Man's ex-wife intruded on their lives . This ex-wife was a truly awful, disturbed, intrusive failure with a severe personality disorder who just would not let go of her ex husband. She called him with every excuse possible several times an hour. She could not hold a job. She could not handle money. And the ex husband put up with this for one reason - the child they had together. The poor child in the custody of this loon, used as a hostage and negotiating chip. Poor Ms. Karbo, watching the New Man take it and take it and take it. Poor New Man, wanting only to live his life with his new honey but forced to put up with neverending harassment for the sake of his daughter. Not physical abuse, mind you, just mental and verbal, but there was always that underlying threat of bodily harm to somebody. I was wrung out! Quite an interesting book!` The moral of the story, which cannot be repeated too many times: BEWARE of entering a relationship with a divorced parent, if the other parent is anywhere in the picture.