The Ex-Wife Syndrome by Sandra S. Kahn

For any ex-wife struggling to put divorce issues to rest, Kahn offers tremendous insight and support. She outlines the warning signs that indicate a woman may be trapped in Ex-Wife Land many years after her divorce should have ceased to cause emotional turmoil in her life. Better yet, she gives some excellent tips on what to do about it: from conducting business with the ex-husband to coaching oneself through the process of creating a separate identity as an independent woman.

I found many paragraphs that seemed to be written just for me. I shared insights from this book with other divorced women I know. I recognized myself and lots of other women I know in these pages. Women are vulnerable to this “Syndrome” so much more than men because we bear the burden of our own disadvantages in society, our role as Keeper of the Marriage and Family and our financial dependence on our ex-husbands.

So before I start hacking on this book, let me say this is one of the most helpful and important self-help resources I’ve found since my divorce four years ago.

Now. Let me point out that The Ex-Wife Syndrome was published in 1990. Apparently a lot has changed since then, in divorce and family court and in respect to women’s independence and self-sufficiency. For instance, I don’t know a single divorced woman who is as dependent on her ex-husband for money as Kahn portrays women to be. She seems to think that most divorced women are destitute and most divorced men are wealthy. Since I make more money than both my ex-husbands combined, I found it hard to relate to this portrayal.

Second, she gives some shockingly bad advice to women with regard to child custody. When the ex-husband threatens to take a mother to court for custody of the kids, Kahn says, he rarely ever carries through with his threat and never wins even if he does. A mother would have to be proven certifiably insane or addicted to drugs or living a shockingly immoral life for a father to defeat the “Tender Years Doctrine” and obtain custody of the kids.

This simply is not true anymore. First of all, Fathers Rights groups have sprung up everywhere and they have become quite powerful in the family court system. Dads do very often file for custody and they sometimes win, even if the mother is not unfit. After two protracted custody battles of my own, and countless thousands of dollars wasted on attorney’s fees, I would advise a woman to take any custody threat very seriously and try to head it off if possible. Not to say she should cave in to her ex’s demands whenever he threatens to file for custody, but she must not ignore his threats.

Another stinking turd of advice Kahn gives mothers is that they have the right and the duty to withhold visitation from the ex if he does not pay child support. If little Jill wants to know why she can’t see Daddy this weekend, tell her it’s because Daddy didn’t send the money they need to buy little Jill’s food. Even if it were true that mothers have the right to do this (which it most certainly is not), this advice seems to give a horrible message to little Jill: “You’re being punished and you can’t see Daddy because he didn’t send Mommy money.” I was shocked to see this otherwise brilliant psychologist suggest such a thing. As a family court veteran I can tell you the quickest way to lose custody is to deny visitation like this. Child support and visitation are treated as totally separate matters by the courts.

I did not entirely agree with her Truth philosophy on what to tell children about divorce. Yes, as parents we owe our children a true version of what happened and why we feel the way we do about the other parent, but the children will quickly realize that each parent has a totally different idea of the “true version.” It would be silly to try and pretend that we don’t despise our ex; our children know we do. But we can find a diplomatic way of saying “I don’t love your father but it’s okay that you do; and Daddy doesn’t love me but he loves you.” We sure don’t need to tell them our version of the Truth, as Kahn indicates we should.

The general tone of this book is not only pro-woman, it's very anti-male, so do take it with a grain of salt. It is by no means a feminist point of view, however, because Kahn seems to encourage financial dependence of divorced women on their ex-husbands. She seems to regard this as a sad fact of life due to the economic disadvantages women face in society. In a book only fifteen years old I would expect to find a little more encouragement for a woman to strike out and create her own fortune instead of trying to figure out how to get her fair share of his.