90 Books Like The Truth about Children and Divorce

I have read this book so many times. It is a classic! For those of us who have struggled with saying yes to everything, I was so thankful that I found this book. 

A heart of compassion and care can set you up for burnout, resentment, and going in directions that God doesn’t want you to go. The authors are brilliant, and they help Christians learn that it is okay to say No and that is actually good for us and others. Saying No when appropriate is a sign of good mental health.

There’s a reason this book has sold over 1 million copies. All of us, divorced or not, benefit when we learn how to recognize damaging thoughts and keep them from coloring our lives. This is especially true when dealing with the negative and haunting thoughts that can come with divorce.

Your thoughts can determine whether you grieve forever or find a new life full of peace and joy. Like Chapter 6 in my book, Peace after Divorce, this book embraces the concept of Proverbs 23:7; “For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Learning to win the battles in your mind represents one component of healing from divorce.

I often see people who believe they need someone else to make them whole. This is especially true when someone has been emotionally or spiritually abused. Emotional abuse is when someone consistently belittles and dominates you dismissing your value and making you feel less than. In addition to addressing emotional abuse, Don’t Call it Love also delves into the issues of spiritual abuse, something I have seen all too often in my ministry. It’s a travesty when your mate distorts scripture to manipulate and control you or to make you feel less than. If you have experienced emotional or spiritual abuse this book can help you understand your true value in the eyes of God and give you insight into how to avoid continuing to land in abusive relationships.

So many women have silently suffered abuse for years in the name of trying to do what they believe God would have them do. Sadly, their well-meaning efforts, and at times misunderstanding of the Scriptures, can actually feed the destructive cycle in their marriages. In this book, Leslie Vernick reaches out to the reader with practical strategies for recognizing emotional abuse and taking steps to break free of its bondage. She outlines what needs to happen for hope to be restored in a marriage and shares how to leave if the cycle of destruction continues. Many women I’ve worked with through my groups and Peace after Divorce Workshops have cited that this book literally saved their lives.

Divorcing someone with a personality disorder can be one of the most stressful things one can face. Bill Eddy is a family lawyer and therapist who understands the complexities of divorcing a high conflict person and has mastered ways to communicate and co-parent with them. This book is a must-read for anyone facing high conflict divorce as it is filled with practical tips and suggestions.

This first book gave me the necessary perspective to consider the impact of divorce on my children’s entire lifespan, not just their childhoods.

It lays the groundwork for what legacy we’re breaking, since hopefully your children are young and you’re still married. I never once thought about how divorce when my three children were small would influence the nature of their adult intimate relationships and ability to navigate marriage in their future, even though I had direct experience with it influencing mine.

This is the spell breaker of all the divorce books. It will snap you out of any trance you’re in that might be preventing you from factoring in your children’s lives. It was the first time an author spelled out to me how divorce impacted me as a child and young adult, and it explained so many reasons for my behavior in relationships, especially fear of commitment.

I… show more.

Divorce is a devastating experience, especially where ending a marriage is viewed as a separation, not only from your spouse, but from your church as well. In God, the Devil and Divorce, Linda M. Kurth shares her personal divorce journey in spite of the opposition of her community of faith to escape the pain of an abusive marriage. She emerges triumphantly as a trailblazer for Christian women enduring spousal abuse, offering hope and reassuring them that life goes on—and happily. 

This is the story of a divorced mom who rents her downstairs apartment to a Catholic monk whose spiritual well has run dry twenty-three years into his vocation, leading him to walk away. I love disgruntled, disillusioned Mike, who can’t help being a stand-up guy, and whose ongoing, sometimes combative correspondence with a former colleague tracks the vagaries of his spiritual life. I love Rebecca and the way she handles insane emotional and practical responsibilities and somehow keeps on going. Most of all, I enjoy the understated, wry way these two fall in love. Farrington’s prose style is beautifully transparent, and he’s intelligent and funny about Christian belief and practice and about romance. There is also a good sequel, The Monk Upstairs.

I have to include the best-selling book of all time, the Holy Bible, in my toolkit for breaking divorce legacy because the Word of God is so powerful. Choose any Bible, but I chose this version because it’s aimed at the 12-step recovery movement.

Addictions ruin intimacy, and in today’s world, we can be addicted to anything, and it won’t appear problematic. Reading romance novels can be an escape from your marriage, especially if they suck up your actual sex life like a vacuum. But this Bible connecting 12-step recovery to Scripture provides the power necessary to carry out the will of God in family life and break all chains, not just the divorce legacy. 

I’m on my third round of book study using this Bible and in a monthly club with it now, and it’s a deeper experience of God every time. I can say with conviction that as… show more.

This book is jam-packed with the maturity I lacked, so I felt it was handed to me like a desperately needed meal. In fact, when reading it, I felt I was growing up chapter by chapter. Perhaps it was because I was so ready to be made new.

The timing when reading this book came after the understanding of the legacy I wanted to break, and then learning more about commitment, so this one made me want to rise to the challenge.

I think this book gives the courage and fortitude required to stay married. If you get just one of the good qualities of a marriage going, you’re in the game and ready to play more. 

This book is so easy to apply to real life because of the way it’s written. It clearly spells out the objectives as well as the steps to take to really engage with… show more.