#divorice

[annoyingthemesong]

SUBLIME CINEMA #611 - GETT: THE TRIAL OF VIVIANE AMSALEM

Ronit Elkabetz co-directed and starred in this stunning Israeli film, then died of cancer soon after it was released. The film is claustrophobic, metaphorically and physically; perfectly staged, we barely leave the courtroom where the divorce, or the gett in question takes place. It is a complete takedown of an intensely religious, male dominated system and she’s brilliant in it. 

Elkabetz won in Venice and Cannes, and was one of the best of all Israeli filmmakers.

[1yearofsingle]

2018. Time to get a hobby.

2018. Time to get a hobby.

A few days ago my 11-year-old son told me I should think about getting a hobby. If I wasn’t so shocked, I would have LOL. “Honey,” I said, “In the last few years, we’ve moved in with my boyfriend, I’ve broken up with myself*, then moved out from my boyfriend’s. I’ve had two major surgeries, you’ve moved schools twice, my job moved to another state, then I changed jobs. I’m exhausted.” Then I…

View On WordPress

[thesilverlakechorus-blog]

Finding The Best Family Lawyer

Thanks to the family dramatization serials on television, problems within the family and also following courts browse through are not unknown for any person. Indeed, family law lawyers are the very best persons to lead your significant family troubles or any kind of type of legal family matters, to the most effective service. I got this idea from this site.Family legislation attorneys deal primarily in the complying with areas:

Marriage as well as collaboration associated issues Surrogacy and also fostering of youngster All issues relating to youngster abuse Matters like separation, spousal support, guardianship of kids etc . Paternity associated issues

On lawful issues relating to any of these above pointed out locations, you can seek counseling from a family regulation attorney or even file a situation with their help. There could be many family regulation lawyers practicing in your area, however, going through the following actions will certainly help you to pick the most effective one for you.

Determine your situation kind as well as severity

The primarily step prior to you contact any family regulation legal representative is to determine just how important your case is or whether taking a legal step is a must. If the response is yes, then you should make sure that your situation comes under any one of the above pointed out categories i.e., family legislation.

Figure out your neighborhood court as well as local lawyers

In cases like divorce, kid adoption and so on the instance comes under the territory of the court of your suburb. There are exceptions in other kinds of instances.

When you select the local court, look for the family legislation legal representatives operating in the area. You could take help from sites of bar organizations or various other lawyer directories or perhaps browse in the yellow web pages. You could additionally request for recommendations.

Do research and make a short list

Currently use all your available means to learn the experience, success and track record of the family legislation attorneys in your region and also make a short list. It is constantly much better to have 2 to 3 selections as your finest chosen legal representative may not be readily available.

Call for first discussions

Utilize their get in touch with information, ideally telephone numbers or e-mail addresses for contacting them. Most of the family law legal representatives do the very first session free and also charge from subsequent assessments on a per hour basis. Yet billing the very first conference is also not unexpected.

Very first conference is definitive

The very first discussion between you as well as your family regulation attorney is costing likely to decide whether you will employ him or whether he will occupy your instance. So prepare all your concerns to ask him as well as be ready to respond to all his inquiries. If required, reveal him sustained files.

Make the best option

Now you should remain in a position to determine whether this lawyer meets your demands as well as understands your instance. You will most likely additionally obtain a hint whether the attorney has an interest in your instance or otherwise. If free, as well as various other matters, are agreed currently, you should not think twice to assign him for your situation.

If you are not sure, you have to make a number of such attorneys browse through till you find a good family law attorney for you.

[positivemag]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TN95k1HENI)

[themomsandthecity]

How Having Another Baby Changed My (Blended) Family for the Better

My daughter was fourteen and my son was almost eight when their half-brother was born. So I completely understand the concerns of remarried moms like Michelle M., who wonders aloud: "Should we have a baby "together" in our blended family?" For a long time, my husband and I weren't sure having another child was such a good idea. Many of our reasons to not have another child revolved around the other kids, but some of the issues were mine alone. Would A New Baby Create a New Divide? We didn't want the other kids to feel like they were going to be loved less, especially the youngest, to whom my husband has been like a father since he was a toddler. We didn't know how we would explain having two children go visit another house and one stay behind. And we were worried that the age gaps between kids would be so significant. But more than that, I wasn't sure how I felt about being a woman who had children with two different fathers, and who would be so far apart in age.  Circle of Moms member Amanda M. (not me even though our names are similar), echoed my biggest hesitation when she said, "Now that both of my kids are in middle school and relatively self-sufficient, I don't know if I am prepared to go back to diapers and sleepless nights." The list of cons went on and on, but in the end, wanting to have a baby together tipped the scales.   In 2009, when I got pregnant, we wanted to wait awhile to tell the kids. But then I got sick. Really sick.  As with all my pregnancies, right from the start I had hyperemesis gravidarum. It's an extreme form of "morning sickness," which left me, like many members of the Circle of Moms "Moms With Hyperemesis" community, debilitated and dependent on IV rehydration and Zofran, a powerful anti-nausea drug often given to chemotherapy patients. It was time to tell the kids. "Remember last February we went to Disney World?" was how we bumbled into the conversation. "Well, next February you'll have a baby brother or sister." Like others in our situation, we anticipated problems - jealousy on the part of the seven-year-old and disgust on the part of the teenager - but we were only right about the disgust. Since this baby was going to be a half-sibling, being half right seemed about reasonable. Once our son was born we were amazed by the reception. He was immediately adored and protected by his brother and sister.  Overall this little person is the best thing that could have happened to our family.   In some ways the road has been bumpy. My husband and I had to learn how to baby proof our marriage. Since he'd never raised a baby and I'd never really had help, it was a little hard to get used to. Our eight-year-old had to learn how to share attention, and I had a bout of postpartum anxiety. An Unexpected Outcome The concept of "half-brother" never comes up. Nothing about him is half. If anything, with his siblings around, he gets double or triple the love and attention. In a strange way, having a half-brother has brought my teenager closer to her stepfather. He's no longer just my husband, he's her brother's father.  He is as close a blood-relation to her baby brother as she is, which somehow defines their relationship in a totally different way. We're more of a family now, too. The older kids love their brother so much that most of the need to balance their loyalties between our house and their biological father's has disappeared. Our house is clearly home now, not the semantically safer "mom's house." After all, it's where their brother lives. Image Source: Courtesy of Amanda Morin The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, POPSUGAR. http://bit.ly/1L26sQg

[breaking-open]

I got naked in front of a group of strangers and experienced true love

Okay, that's a completely clickbait title, but it's pretty much what happened metaphorically speaking... I've been going through a lot lately. Jon told me earlier this week that he was filing for divorce. After being separated for the past year, it wasn't a shock, but I had been doing everything in my power in the hope that things would go the other way. I still love him. 

So, I was kind of a mess. I cried so much that I gave myself an ear infection (mucus is the nemesis of my hereditarily bad ears). One of the worst things though, has been telling people the tragic news. Much of this ongoing saga has been kept under wraps. I was hoping we would have a happy ending and would be able to sweep it under the rug so to speak. And, I was also concerned with protecting Jon's reputation through all of this.

Now that those concerns are no longer valid, I'm left with the task of filling in our families and friends with the devastating news. I'm the first person in my entire extended family, going really far back, to ever get divorced. It has been unpleasant. 

Not to mention, he sent us away from any sort of community we had in Germany, and now we're in Nebraska trying to make a fresh start. Building a life from the ground up is exhausting. I have very few friends left in the area, but I've learned how essential a good support network can be, so I've been trying to put myself out there. 

Meeting friends as a mother is kind of like dating, with the facade of arranging a "play date" in front of it. Sure you get together in a kid friendly, public environment, but you're really checking each other out and sizing up whether or not you're compatible as friends. Now on top of looking like a loving mother and interesting person, I have to offer a disclaimer to these would-be-friends that I'm actually a hot mess who's on the brink of falling apart, but really needs a friend who will dive in to my mess with me without flinching (too much). That's hard stuff right there.

So anyways, back to my clickbait title. I arranged a meet up with a gal via a Facebook group for local military spouses. We get together and everything looks like it's going pretty well. We have kids the same age, we're both Christian, she likes to read! So, I take the plunge, and when she asks me about my husband, I tell her the truth. 

He's in Germany, he's leaving me, I'm kind of a hot mess. Thankfully, she seems to be a very caring and supportive lady, and invites me to her church's Bible study the following night. We already have a church, but it's a bit of a drive, so I had been looking for a local study to get involved with. I decide to check it out...

It's not at her house, so I knock on the door of a complete stranger, am invited in and served a wonderful potluck meal and a slew of introductions. It was great, but it also kind of gave me the shakes... Fifteen new people, one gal I talked with for an hour yesterday, I'm on a social island and really just want to start swimming away as fast as humanly possible, but I'm pretty sure that's how you drown. If you want to succeed socially, fake it till you make it. 

I've had to practice this a lot as I'm no true extrovert. Myers Briggs tells me I'm 50/50 I to E, but situations like this are kind of terrifying. But so is everything in my life, so I force the small talk and try to ignore my chest cavity collapsing in on itself. 

After dinner, the kids stay at the house with two parents who rotate each week, and the rest of us head to another nearby house for Bible study. After getting settled in with a cup of coffee and the weeks handouts, we begin talking about spiritual disciplines and where we need to keep working. The small group members are all very honest and vulnerable, so I get a little courage and share the nutshell version of my story as I confess the need for more "peace" (one of the disciplines) in my life.

The group is amazingly supportive and immediately stops the planned discussion to pray and talk with me... for the remainder of the night! Several times I tried to steer the conversation back on topic. I definitely did not want to be that girl who on her first night of coming monopolizes the entire conversation! But, that's how it happened anyway. They keep asking questions and I kept meeting the opportunity to process out loud for the first time about some things. 

I am such a verbal processor, it's not even funny. So, to have ten or so strangers spend an entire evening trying to get to know me and my situation, praying with me, and asking for physical ways to show love to my family, was just incredible! God is so good! He knew exactly what I needed during this time and provided it. Good friends are hard to come by, they're rarely ever served up on a silver platter by the dozen!

I'm so thankful that I chose to be vulnerable that night, to share the naked and raw story of what is happening in my life. In the past, I've built walls, always needing to seem in control and put together. It's really not a habit of mine to be so intimate.

But, it's something I've been praying for. The inclination towards vulnerability and authenticity. The gift of weakness. I've tried to be strong on my own, to present a front of confident perfection. It hasn't gone very well. For the past few years, all I've had were shallow friendships based around common interests. I haven't had a friend who knew my heart since college. 

I think I've been learning though. I don't know if I will ever call this trial good, but much good has come out of it. I've realized my own strength was nothing more than a farce. In fact, this current state of weakness and dependance upon God feels so much more intensely "strong" that I don't know how I ever confused the matter in the first place.

I want to trust, I want to lean, I want to wait upon the Lord for everything. This is the desire of my heart. Out of this "weakness" I'm seeing God work in wonderful ways. His provision astounds me, I see fruit forming from the mighty works he's doing in my life as this story unfolds. It's such a joy to watch. 

I'm enthralled with my own story. The emotions are all there, it's kind of odd to experience such sorrow and dejection mingled with all of this joyful hope and expectation. I cannot wait to see how He redeems this loss and uses it for His glory. I'm honored to be a part of it, and am learning to embrace the awkwardness of it and invite others to partake in this convoluted tale with me.

It's a tangled, cumbersome mess, but it's here in the filth that we're really able to experience the gospel. Why not humble myself and invite others to partake it it with me. It's ironically win-win for everyone as we all get to experience firsthand the mutual giving and receiving of Christ-like love. So, here's to delving in to the muck with strangers emerging on the other side as brothers and sisters. I could not be more thankful.

[breaking-open]

So I Almost Shaved My Head Last Night...

The pain of this situation threatens to overwhelm me. I can't care about any of the trivialities of life when my husband desires to leave me. I wish I could drop everything and truly mourn. Lay in bed for weeks, not shower and look as bad as I feel. But I can't, there are two little kids looking to me for everything. I suppose that's part of the reason I wanted to do it.

Often, in Biblical times, those mourners who were racked with grief would tear their clothes, shave their heads, wear sackcloths and cover their face in ash as an outward symbol of their pain. Job did. His ten children died and upon hearing this he immediately shaved his head and worshiped the Lord.

So partly, this decision would have been for me. But if I'm being honest, a larger part of this decision would have been for Jon. As a sign, a symbol of how great an importance our marriage is to me. I would put nothing above it and would do nearly anything to maintain it! How can he not see that already, perhaps this latest act would give him a tangible look at the heart behind the skin. Humbled, naked, vulnerable, sincere in every way.

It was settled in my mind, what is one head of hair in comparison to anything that might fix this mess. I decided to call my friend Lindsey for a bit of emotional support before proceeding. I thought that if anyone would be on board with this, maybe she would. Her own locks used to be a scant inch or two long, surely the nonconformist in her would support my stunt.

I knew I sounded ridiculous as I tried to explain my reasoning over the phone. It was so well thought out in my head. I could live with it either way, even if Jon was unswayed, I wouldn't resent him for it. My baldness would be a sign of a new beginning. I could watch the hair grow back as my life changed and grew back around me.

The words kept catching in my throat as I tried to make her understand. "I would do anything for him, Linds. I don't care about my hair, I just want my husband back" I said. "I know B, but you can't fix this. There is nothing you can do, you have no control" she said. 

I knew it to be true, I've been dragged along by this current of events for nearly a year now. I thought that I had put the entire situation in to God's hands, but I suppose I haven't. I still hold out faith that I will somehow find the perfect words to say to change his mind, that I will do the cutest thing and he'll fall back in love with me. But he doesn't.

And he won't. Not because of something I do or say. Things are between him and God now. He has turned away from his first Love, and only when he decides to mend that relationship will he find peace and the ability to love me again. I know this to be true, I've experienced this in my own repentance, and yet, I always think that God needs a little help from me.

As if the nurturing Creator, loving Father, unceasing Lover, and Redeemer of souls needed assistance in romancing the heart of one of His own. I still want to be used by Him, but in the capacity that He sees fit to do so. I can't keep on with these delusions of grandeur that some magical act will save my marriage if only I can figure out the right one. I don't think it works like that.

This isn't a movie. There are no magic buttons or special formulas. The heart is a twisted and complicated thing. Who am I to think that I could unravel the mess better or faster than God? I must learn patience, steadfastness and humility in the midst of this. How could I ever presume to "fix" him when I am so broken myself.

In the end, this story ends fairly anticlimactically. I still have dark brown hair reaching toward my shoulder blades. My heart is still heavy with a grief I cannot fully express, and God remains sovereign over it all. Instead of doing I will practice trusting, instead of grasping, I will practice letting go. Who would have thought that keeping a full head of hair would teach me more about humility than shaving it off?