I was not prepared for the day I was told that my daughter had cancer. I froze as the words came out of her doctors ' mouth. I went numb and suddenly felt as if I were beside myself. At first, I did not believe the doctor and assumed he was mistakenly reading the papers of another patient. I wanted to pretend like the doctor had not mentioned anything at all. But, after a few minutes of letting the news sink in, I knew that I was going to have to suck it up and get through it, whatever the end results. But I was worried and stressed the diagnosis and what it meant for my daughter to go through treatment. l worried that she would suffer and that your family life was going to be turned upside down. I worried that my daughter was going to die.
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We did not look at our divorce as a means to gain financially, but rather as a way to separate ourselves from each other and go our own way. I believe the stress of my daughter’s health, my excessive workload to cover the bills, and the fighting over where we should cut back financially all took its toll on both of us. These life events and economic decisions changed the nature of our relationship between one another. However, our relationship with our other children and how we raised them still remained the same. It would seem as if we were the couple Tess Wilkinson-Ryan and Deborah Small were discussing in their paper titled, Negotiating Divorce: Gender and the Behavioral Economics of Divorce Bargaining. While considering divorce they state, “It is possible that this general gendered pattern is less applicable to the divorce context because motives to maintain a good relationship. In many cases the relationship is not completely terminated; the divorce may be amicable or the couple may have children for whom it is important to remain on good terms. It may appear foolish for women to have these goals at the expense of maximizing their financial welfare, but relational goals make good sense if both parties have them because cooperation typically increases joint gain” (Wilkinson-Ryan & Small, 2008). We were both concerned about the future of our children and for the health of my daughter who was fighting cancer. We jointly made the decision to focus our divorce proceeding around the best interests of the children, rather than our own self-interest of financial gain. Our separation of assets was simple. As Wilkinson-Ryan and Small state, most people can figure out how much money they need to make in a month or even in a year in order to get by or live normally. Thus, a wife who needs a total of $3,000 per month in order to maintain a modest lifestyle, and
We did not look at our divorce as a means to gain financially, but rather as a way to separate ourselves from each other and go our own way. I believe the stress of my daughter’s health, my excessive workload to cover the bills, and the fighting over where we should cut back financially all took its toll on both of us. These life events and economic decisions changed the nature of our relationship between one another. However, our relationship with our other children and how we raised them still remained the same. It would seem as if we were the couple Tess Wilkinson-Ryan and Deborah Small were discussing in their paper titled, Negotiating Divorce: Gender and the Behavioral Economics of Divorce Bargaining. While considering divorce they state, “It is possible that this general gendered pattern is less applicable to the divorce context because motives to maintain a good relationship. In many cases the relationship is not completely terminated; the divorce may be amicable or the couple may have children for whom it is important to remain on good terms. It may appear foolish for women to have these goals at the expense of maximizing their financial welfare, but relational goals make good sense if both parties have them because cooperation typically increases joint gain” (Wilkinson-Ryan & Small, 2008). We were both concerned about the future of our children and for the health of my daughter who was fighting cancer. We jointly made the decision to focus our divorce proceeding around the best interests of the children, rather than our own self-interest of financial gain. Our separation of assets was simple. As Wilkinson-Ryan and Small state, most people can figure out how much money they need to make in a month or even in a year in order to get by or live normally. Thus, a wife who needs a total of $3,000 per month in order to maintain a modest lifestyle, and