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Plan Your Happily Ever After

How does a couple increase their chance of a successful remarriage? By consciously and intentionally creating their new life together just as they did their wedding-day guest list. Couples Coach Laura Cannon shows you how to create a Remarriage Manifesto to turn your dreams into reality.

by Laura Cannon

Would you be surprised to learn that planning a wedding takes an average of 250 hours? What’s even more shocking is that, for all those hours logged, not one is dedicated to mapping out a future together.

When it comes to remarried couples, the time invested in planning your new married life is even more important. Although the national divorce rate for first marriages is around 40 percent, for couples heading down the aisle for the second time, that rate is much higher.

Consciously Address Lingering Issues

Sit down together and think about what has brought you to the moment you are in now. This is the getting-conscious part — just becoming consciously aware of unresolved issues or concerns is the first step toward creating something different. For many of us, it is easier to say what we don’t want than what we do want. That’s a great place to start. Begin by asking yourself some questions:

• What issues were concerns for me in my previous relationships that I don’t want to be of concern any longer?
• What is most important to me this time around?
• What things do I really want to see happen in my new relationship and family?
• How am I going to make it happen?

Recently, while coaching “Anne,” a bride-to-be, I asked her what major issues she had in her first marriage that she feared might reoccur the second time around. “My ex-husband frequently made major life decisions without consulting me,” Anne replied. “I felt that my opinion didn’t matter and that we were frequently on different pages. I am afraid the same thing might happen again.”

Unfortunately just saying, “I don’t want [Name] in my life anymore” will not actually create something new. You have to continue on to the second step: Become intentional about what you do want. In Anne’s case, she wanted to feel that her partner was really her partner. She wanted to know that they would make decisions together as a team and that he would value her input. Together they went through this questioning process until they came up with a decent sized list of goals they had for their marriage and the creation of their new blended family.

Goal setting, particularly goals that have strong intention and emotion behind them, are not just valuable in business but in the creation of new marriages and blended families. According to Edwin Locke, author of Goal Setting: A Motivational Technique That Works!, 90 percent of more than 110 studies on goal setting showed positive results using this approach. The key to effective goal setting is to make your objectives SMART ones. specific, meaningful, attainable, realistic, and trackable. For Anne, her SMART goal was this: “My husband and I work as a team to make all major decisions. We provide equal input into family decisions, and on the third Sunday of each month, we have a ’state of the team’ meeting to check in with each other about how things are going.”

Empower Your Remarriage Using a Manifesto

I encouraged Anne and her fiancé to bring the power of creating goals to their marriage by creating a Remarriage Manifesto. Through this manifesto, a couple — side by side — takes their list of goals and declares a set of intentions for their married life together. For those also blending families, preparing the manifesto can be an activity for all members. Get the kids’ input as to what they want their new family to be. Children often come up with great suggestions, such as Pizza Fridays or Make-Your-Own-Dinner Night. One family established Team Night, where members take turns choosing a fun activity everyone to enjoy as a new “team.”

You can help ensure your Remarriage Manifesto is successful by following these tips:

• Choose a team name. With all the name confusion that comes with remarrying and blending, choose an original name that represents your new team. It can be something silly, a color, or anything that fits for all of you. When there is dissension among the ranks, draw on this team name by just calling out a quick, “Hey, Team Green!” You’ll be reminding everyone to come out of their own corner and regroup as a family.
• Create your foundation. Set aside time with your partner to discuss what you both feel are the foundational elements of your marriage and family. You may create intentions for a moral or spiritual base, communication rules, financial decision making, lifestyle, and parenting methods. You will use these elements — the pillars for your new team — as headings in your manifesto to help guide the rest of the Remarriage Manifesto process.
• Get everyone on board. Have a team meeting with the entire family to talk about what your foundational pillars are. Ask members what they want for the family. Children may offer suggestions on educational goals, recreational activities, hobbies, and use of family time. Parents may help their children feel involved in various activities, such as the planning of family vacations. For example, they might give the kids a list of three destination options. The children, as a team, decide which option they would choose, and why, and then present their choice to their parents.
• Honor your manifesto. You’d be hard pressed to find a couple who doesn’t have a prominently placed keepsake album commemorating their wedding day. Make your manifesto just as special: Type it up and keep it in a place where you and your family can revisit it often. Realize that your goals may change, and that is okay. Your Remarriage Manifesto is a living document open to reevaluation. Anniversaries and New Year’s celebrations provide excellent opportunities to revisit and revamp your intentions.

Whether your team has 2 members or 10, creating a Remarriage Manifesto is not only fun, but will increase your likelihood of happily ever after!

Laura Cannon is a nondenominational ordained minister and couples coach in Ellicott City, Maryland. She is currently working on Creationships, a book designed to assist couples in using their marriage as a tool for growth and transformation. You can learn more about Laura’s services and read her blog at www.divinetransformation.com .

Making the Grade Between Two Houses

Two houses, lost homework, quarreling parents-no wonder Johnny’s failing.

by Dawn Miller

Kristen and Megan had just moved in with Mom’s new husband and his four kids. They went to visit Dad regularly, but they were so happy to play with their brother there and with their rambunctious stepbrothers in the new household that they rarely had time for homework. No surprise their grades took a dive.

At first, both parents were willing to allow some academic slippage in the name of adjustment. But when Megan started acting out, their dad called school officials. He ran head first into a school culture that seemed annoyed by a noncustodial father’s inquiry and uninterested in repeating information already relayed to her mother.

Sadly, this scenario is not unfamiliar to stepfamilies. But it doesn’t stop there.

A Simple Form-Not!

The trouble often begins even before the first day of school with a simple but painful culprit: those pesky contact forms every school requires for ease of communication. In the case of multiple parents and dual houses, it stops everyone dead in their tracks.

“School registration forms don’t allow for proper contact information to be given. There isn’t ‘the other house’ and the ‘stepparent’ spot,” says Shannon, mom of three and stepmom to one, with six adults in her blended parenting mix.

“They don’t notify all parents of events and conferences. Whomever the kid is with the night he brings home the flyer is who gets the information. I know there is a cost in notifying every parent, but in cases where they don’t live together and both want to have an active involvement, they really need to find a way to keep us all in the loop,” she says.

Cary encountered the same ironclad “one household” mentality in the nation’s largest school district–New York City-where a blue form offers space for only one parent’s address. “The school system acted as if we were living in the 1950s and every family was like the Cleavers,” he says. He recounts his struggle (for naught) to get his daughter a Metro farecard so she could get to school easily from both his home and her mother’s. In a school that regularly supplies a set of books for home to avoid the heavy lugging, he was more successful in lobbying the department heads for an additional set of textbooks to keep at his apartment. Fortunately for this noncustodial dad, his ex-wife shares information with him about their daughter’s school activities and academics. But it’s not that way for many other stepfamilies.

After his divorce, Paul cut back on business travel and became more involved with his two sons and their homework. He was horrified to discover his seventh-grader could not write legibly and was failing two classes. Teachers at the private school had given glowing progress reports to both parents, but then it got to the point where they were considering expelling one of the boys for acting out.

When Paul tried to withdraw his sons and place them in public school, his ex-wife made their continuation at the private school a requirement for a modified separation agreement. After an ugly legal battle, the school admitted it had failed to communicate properly with both parents. The boys moved to public school.

Poor school communication can intensify problems between households and within stepfamilies. “Some teachers and administrators are insensitive to the delicate balance that needs to be maintained between the two households,” said Yaffa Balsam, a marriage and family therapist who has worked with stepfamilies for 25 years in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, California. She has seen situations in which fathers have had to take a court order to school to get copies of a school calendar so they could plan to attend back-to-school night. Other stories abound, from a dad hollering at the coach for not sending basketball schedules to the mom who never got the weekly e-mail and missed a major event.

Further muddying the waters are stepparents. Because they do not have any legal rights related to their stepchildren, they are often cut out of the school communication loop, even though they may be heavily involved in the day-to-day tasks of raising the children. Unfortunately, sometimes a biological parent will go as far as insisting to school officials that they not release academic information to a stepparent.

“This situation causes much heartache and a great deal of agony for the children, since they are exposed to the hostility expressed toward their stepparent, whom they often actually like,” says Balsam. And of course, it also affects the child’s academic performance.

She often sees deeper underlying factors when stepfamilies encounter school problems. “Communication-or the lack of it-over school issues for stepfamilies are symbolic of the power and control issues between the biological parents,” she says. “When one or both parents have not let go emotionally of their marriage, they attempt to stay connected, even if it’s through anger.”

According to Balsam, the remarriage of a parent can reactivate this anger, and it’s expressed through a refusal to cooperate on issues such as school. Newly formed stepfamilies may see an increase in hostility from a former spouse, which, unfortunately, often places the school and children in the cross fire.

The View From the Inside

School administrators frequently are confused and frustrated as well about how to deal with stepfamilies, says Renae Lapin, marriage and family therapist and author of School Daze & the Divorce Maze: A Complete Guide for Joint Custody Parents in Managing Your Child’s Successful School Career. “By the time a school communication problem occurs,” says Lapin, “a child may have suffered unavoidable traumatic school experiences.” All of this contributes to the child’s discomfort with school. She advises parents to remain in constant contact with the school throughout the year, not just when problems arise.

One mother Lapin met was very distraught when she discovered her husband’s new wife was getting information from the school about her child’s behavioral problem. “The school was interested in any and all collaboration with family members to help the student improve,” says Lapin. The family entered counseling to resolve the problem and help all of the adults work together in the best interest of the child.

Special education teacher Mary Ann Lowry in California, who has 20 years of experience in the classroom, says that getting homework completed and medication administered can be even more challenging when a child is shuttling between homes. But Lowry notes it’s not these day-to-day logistics that affect the child’s academic performance the most-it’s the attitude of the parents. Too often those attitudes are simply not focused on doing what is best for the child.

School systems are also scrambling to adjust to the multifaceted communication required to stay in touch with stepfamilies. In Making Parent Communication Effective and Easy, Rich Bagin, executive director of the National School Public Relations Association, advises teachers to have more than one handout per family available at back-to-school night and to prepare enough materials so stepparents can have one too.

Legal restrictions also affect what information school districts can give out. In Fairfax County, Virginia, biological parents, whether they have shared custody or not, have access to their child’s records and can request that information on public school events be provided to them. “As far as stepparents are concerned, we require that the actual parent give written consent for information to be given directly to a stepparent. This requirement complies with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which governs how confidential information on students must be handled,” says Ellie Barnes, director of student services for the Fairfax County Public Schools.

Many school counselors are trying to help children adjust to stepfamilies and remarriage. School counselor Carita Carlyle of West Friendship Elementary School in Maryland holds small group sessions for children going through family changes. The focus is on helping the kids develop coping skills. They practice using “I feel” statements, create a book about their feelings and dreams, and use a board game designed to help them. Children attending the group develop better coping skills and learn that they are not the only ones dealing with these types of changes.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, support services for children facing family changes and other issues are provided at every school. “We have counselors, psychologists, and social workers at every school who are trained to handle situations such as these,” says Barnes. “These professionals can intervene with the child individually or with the parents and family, depending on the circumstances.”

Schools, though, can only go so far. “All children deserve nurturing and structured support from home,” Lowry says. “In situations where parents can’t get along, the child always suffers academically.”

School tests our children in the best of circumstances, with increased pressure for grades and college prep. When we add the layers of stepfamily issues, it can kick the good student off the dean’s list to a path of despair. Communication with the school is the first step toward a child’s success, empowering him or her emotionally and academically.

“I have found that my child’s education is the thing that generates the widest range of emotion and the most passion within me,” says Paul. “It is probably the most tangible aspect of their lives that I can help to guide them into becoming responsible and dependable adults. Now they are thriving, and I take pride in helping them there. It’s a terrific feeling!”

Dawn Miller writes a blog for blended families and maintains an extensive website of stepfamily resources at www.TheStepfamilyLife.com.

It’s Never Too Late

They’re off on their Harleys or to a dancing lesson on Saturday night. The fun isn’t over for these young-as-you-feel couples who’ve found a new lease on life – and romance.

by  Patricia J. Lasher

Debbie had only been divorced a few months, but after 25 years of marriage, she wasn’t used to dating. The slightly-past-middle-age mother of three let herself rush into a relationship.

“It was too quick, too soon,” she recalls, not bitterly, but with a note of puzzlement in her otherwise animated tone. “Finally, after that relationship quickly ended, I had reached the point that I was happy, on my own, for the first time in my life, ready to have fun and ready to take my time as far as any relationship. I was happy to travel with girlfriends, do things I had never had a chance to do. . . . I wasn’t looking for anyone else to make me happy.”

And when she unexpectedly fell in love with Scott, 11 years her junior, Debbie was reluctant to tell her family and grown children. “I was worried about what others would think about me going into another relationship.” She enjoyed a year of courtship, then a romantic and surprising wedding proposal that whisked her off her feet. That family she was worried about informing came a hundred-plus strong to their 2004 wedding. Their only complaint? Now these lovebirds are often too busy to watch the grandchildren. Debbie recently bought a Harley-Davidson to match Scott’s, and, she says, “We’re off riding nearly every other weekend.”

Statistically, Debbie’s remarriage is the rule, not the exception. A study of the patterns of remarriage following divorce in this country by Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics in 2002 indicates that the odds that remarriage will occur are better than even. According to this study, 75 percent of divorced women remarry within 10 years of divorce.

Remarriage, especially after a long first (or subsequent), established marriage, adds a whole new level of complexity, from household belongings to finances.  Monies from a divorce settlement, or a survivor’s annuity, Social Security benefits, or medical insurance coverage may automatically cease. (Information  is available on the Social Security Administration website .) Alimony payments that a divorced spouse receives usually end when that person remarries; on the other hand, a paying spouse who remarries must continue his or her obligation, causing more than a few parties in the new relationship to hesitate before saying I do. In addition, marital agreements and airtight trusts often keep a spouse responsible for the long-term care of the divorced spouse, sometimes even affecting Medicaid eligibility.

For businesswoman Gloria Berthold of Elkridge, Maryland, remarriage was not even on the radar screen. Divorced for 21 years, Berthold’s life was a busy but satisfying whirl of business – she runs a company that helps others seek government contracts – and good times with a tight circle of wonderful friends.

“I had been in relationships over the years, but had really given up on the idea of remarriage,” she says. So when Berthold received a call from her broker, Patrick Larkin, she assumed he was calling “to ask me to invest some more funds.” But after that one lunch date, the couple saw each other with “different eyes,” Berthold says, and pretty soon the decision to remarry was “shockingly clear cut.” They married a year later, in May 2008, with the blessings of Patrick’s children. The biggest challenge, she says, has been that of getting used to a new last name. “When you’ve been in business or in a career and built up a reputation with a name, it is really difficult to make the switch, but I never doubted that I would use ‘Larkin’ once we were married.”

Kids at Heart

Ah, the children. Patrick Larkin’s first wife had died of breast cancer after a long and happy 39-year marriage, and his adult son and daughter welcomed someone into their dad’s life.  “The children have been so supportive,” says Gloria Larkin, who had none of her own. “I think they are pleased to see their dad happy.”

Jack and Shirley Cohen Wald met at nightly synagogue services; Jack had been a widower for several years, but Shirley’s husband had only recently died. Her children were still mourning, as was she, the loss of their father, and were reluctant to accept a new man in her life. Over the next 3 years, Jack and Shirley’s friendship grew, and they brought both sets of children and grandchildren together on holidays.

The families finally grew comfortable – then happy – about the marriage when 67-year-old Shirley married 80-year-old Jack, about 10 years ago. “Holidays are wonderful now,” Shirley said, when discussing her golden years’ marriage last fall. “Each of our children takes a holiday and everyone comes together. I think of Jack’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren as mine and he feels that way about mine.” Jack’s granddaughter, Ilene Glickman Horwitz, a family law attorney in Towson, Maryland, says, “Shirley became the matriarch of our family and took us all under her wing.”  Jack Wald died in April, 2009, and as a loving, blended family, they bid their farewells to Jack and celebrated his rich life.

Not all offspring are so accommodating. Those adult children who so vehemently spurned parental advice when diving into their own marriages are often pretty loose with unsolicited advice for their own parents who contemplate remarriage.

Accountant Kathy Becker of Columbia, Maryland, believes that when you “get married, you get married, with all that it involves.” She and her husband of 5 years each have an adult child from prior marriages. “Everyone gets along great,” she reports. As for estate planning, Becker and her spouse decided to provide by will for each other, with a level of trust between them that each would be fair to the other’s child. “Today it’s hard to be sure you have enough for retirement and long-term care,” she says, “so unless the estate is bigger than ours, there’s not enough to even think about setting aside trusts for children.” But, of course, some larger estates require separate trusts or stronger plans; many CPAs advise couples to put financial agreements into prenuptial or carefully worded postmarital agreements.

“It seems that adult children are either really in favor of the later marriage, or really against it,” says John Abosch, a CPA and personal financial specialist and estate planner with Baltimore-based KAWG&F. Dealing with sophisticated clients, Abosch says that, at minimum, parties should look at the tax consequences of marriage along with the estate ramifications. “Written agreements, where both of the parties are represented and understand their rights, can prevent some of the current extended family distrust and family disputes that often arise.”

Among the issues that clients ask matrimonial lawyers to address include support in the event of death or divorce, property brought into the marriage, disposition of personal property, life insurance trusts, real estate ownership, medical directives, powers of attorney, and living wills. Family law attorney Liz Scheffee says that almost all of her older clients who contemplate a later remarriage have premarital agreements. The Portland, Maine, matrimonial lawyer notes that it’s “usually to protect the kids, and, perhaps, assure them as well.”

“The older gentlemen are more generous in negotiating prenups than the younger men,” Scheffee adds, “most likely because they already know what their future holds…if you get my drift.” In short, “there is less future to negotiate about, and the estate is a known quantity rather than a potential one. I find the premarital agreements for older people are more about estate planning and preserving each person’s asset base for the kids. For younger couples, the prenups are more about what happens on divorce rather than death.”

Yours, Mine, or Ours

High up on the checklist of issues for these later-in-life couples is housing, whether a spouse has died or individuals are moving out of an established postdivorce situation. For the Walds, the “your place or mine” question was easily resolved: Each sold homes, and the couple moved to Leisure World, an active retirement community outside of Washington, DC. “Everything that had belonged to their mother went to Jack’s children and grandchildren before we moved,” Shirley says. “I wanted them to know that their mother’s things were theirs.” Debbie and Scott solved the question by purchasing a home together along with an RV that has them spending the occasional weekend with family in tow. Patrick moved into Gloria’s residence, and they’ve discovered a new hobby: getting Patrick’s home ready to sell. Most weekends these days, says Gloria, “we are do-it-yourselfers: painting, carpeting. We’re doing it all.”

When one spouse moves into the other’s family home without receiving legal title, big questions can arise in the event of death or subsequent divorce. Without a prior written agreement of the parties, the divorce agreement – or, as a last resort, the courts – will have to stipulate who may remain on premises. If the marriage ends in death without wills, state law may address the resolution. A few states, in some instances, do grant a surviving spouse homestead rights for the remainder of his or her life. In other states, the parties who inherit the family home can decide whether the surviving spouse may remain – and under what terms – or must vacate.

Annette and Hal Kuntz celebrated their remarriage last year by buying a penthouse apartment in Texas. “We each sold our homes and sold, stored, gave away, or incorporated some of our furniture and furnishings.” Between her beach house and his ranches, which they kept, both were ready to give up the yard and the upkeep for a home in the city. “It has also been fun to find new items that we both like, says Annette, a family court judge, “making this home truly ‘ours.’ ” The biggest excitement came when the hot tub, delivered and placed by a helicopter, was set on their patio overlooking the Houston skyline.

Going for the Gold

Although the number of cohabiting senior citizens is on the increase, marriage in the golden years is still a welcome option to many. Research holds that married seniors are more likely to eat breakfast, wear seat belts, engage in physical activity, have their blood pressure checked, and avoid smoking than widowed elderly persons. The benefits of marriage tend to be more substantial for elderly men than for elderly women, according to a 1998 study by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (now the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality).

If Olympic medals were awarded to the couple best suited to represent the joys and benefits of remarriage in the senior years, then Jane and Albert Schleuter, now 84 and 80, respectively, would be in the running. The couple met several years ago down the hall from their apartments in the Charlestown Retirement Community, located in a Baltimore suburb. This past July, the Schleuters celebrated their fourth anniversary, squeezing a lunch celebration with family in between plans to work on the community’s Benevolent Care Foundation Treasure Sale, crab feasts, and dinner dates with friends.

Contradictions and laughter greet my question, How did you meet? “A friend introduced us at the elevator,” says Al. “That’s not right,” Jane quickly interrupts. “I was waiting for an elevator, and you walked right up and introduced yourself.”

On almost everything else, though, they seem to agree. As they dined frequently together, each talked about the lack of desire to remarry. After a little more than a year, when friends asked them to come along on a trip to Italy, Al popped the question. Jane said yes, without hesitation. “Our friends said they knew before we did that we’d marry,” she says. “We just always, from the start, held hands.”

Like a storybook, Al picked out Jane’s lavender wedding dress and she chose his new suit for the big day. They exchanged vows in the magnificent chapel Our Lady of the Angels on the 110-acre retirement community’s grounds. More than 80 guests celebrated with the couple, including most of their families: Jane has three children, five grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren; Al, who lost a son several years ago, has a surviving daughter, two grandchildren, and a great-grandchild. Jane and her sister made the six wedding cakes offered up at the reception.

Without a backward glance, Jane moved to Al’s apartment in the 2,000-member community. “It was larger,” he says. Jane’s family antiques and other furniture went to her children. “They would have gotten it someday, anyway,” Jane adds.

When it came to family members, encouragement from both sides was strong. “I called my children to say I’d met someone. They said, ‘Mom, you don’t have to tell us what you’re doing.’ Then I called to say I was going to Italy and got the same response. Finally, I said, ‘I want you to meet Al,’ and the response was ‘It’s about time.’ ”

Reluctant to give advice to others, both do agree that being able to talk easily to each other is a major consideration in choosing a partner. “Oh, yes,” Jane adds, “and holding hands.”

Former family court associate judge, reMarriage’s legal columnist Patricia J. Lasher, shuttles back and forth between homes in Houston, Texas, and Baltimore, Maryland.

My Ex – My BFF

Love? You bet. Live together? No way. But we’re awfully good at the art of emotional rescue and nonsexual healing.

by Anne Goodfriend

Take this, Britney, Heather, Christie: My ex-husband, David, is my best friend. Forever.

No celeb-style divorce for us – as “fifth Beatle” Billy Preston sang, “Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’ …” – although it did take 5 months for David to move out after we painfully agreed to part.

And it took as many years before we started meeting for lunch occasionally. Along the way, I met Bill: We fell in love immediately and mythically, and, although we were both altar-shy at this stage of life, we finally moved in together.

Meanwhile, David was miserable; evidently, as I found out much later. He’d given up trying to meet someone. That dismayed me, because he’s a good man with a big heart who should be paired – just not with me.

Bill understood our friendship; in fact, he and David liked each other a lot. We’d go to the Dairy Godmother together for frozen custard, and Bill would cook wonderful dinners for the three of us. We often went to hear David’s band play their blues-flavored rock ‘n’ roll.

David continued to pour his heart out to me over our sporadic lunches, while I tried to boost his spirits. We often remarked on what a deep friendship we had despite our failed marriage and how we had remained the parents of our longhaired dachshunds, who probably kept us together longer than we should have been. He’d taken custody (he was better able), but I visited, and the four of us hung out happily. When Teddy, the elder dog, became severely ill, David asked me to go along to put him down. We cried together and swore we’d always be there for each other.

Many of our friends and relatives wondered at how close we grew post-divorce. They’d never heard of such an epilogue. While some exes remain civil “for the children,” how many have morphed into fast friends? Surely more than we two, but it’s rare in my experience.

I’d been jobless for 6 months when Bill, knowing that my health coverage was about to run out, gallantly proposed. Although we’d decided from the start not to marry – having been burned before – I accepted, not only for the insurance but because we were rock-solid certain that we were the loves of each other’s lives. As Bill said to Frank, his best friend since childhood, “After all, it’s not as if I don’t love her and want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

David’s happiness for both of us was clouded only by his lack of a partner.

Fast forward a year, after countless job interviews. Scrolling the listings, I saw that the Pulitzer Prize-winning Virgin Islands Daily News needed an editor.

“Hey, wanna move to St. Thomas?” I called out to Bill.

“You bet! Go for it!” he yelled back, and the wheels began to spin. No doubt in Bill’s mind: All he wanted was to fish in the sun, semiretired, while copywriting for the Daily News. The day we accepted our new jobs, we celebrated our first anniversary. The next day, we flew home and prepared to report for work in 8 weeks.

David was against the move, not only because we’d be so far away but because he felt that, as a city girl with Brooklyn in her bones, I wouldn’t thrive there.

Bill and I agreed we’d get full physicals before moving to an island with decent doctors but nearly nonexistent hospital care. Bill procrastinated and had his exam just 3 weeks before we were to use our one-way tickets. Five days later, his specialist diagnosed stage IV lung cancer.

The Caribbean was no longer in our future.

It was at this point that David stepped up to the plate. Bill had no family, only friends from work and Frank. But it was David who visited at least weekly (especially for Sunday baseball games). My family and our friends dropped by once in a while, but David was the most constant companion Bill had other than me, and they grew to love each other. They even managed to bridge the gap of rooting for rival teams, the Red Sox and the Mets.

On a September afternoon 4½ months after his diagnosis, Bill died while I was out. The only comfort was the doctor’s assurance that it had been instant and painless, a sort of explosion that couldn’t have been prevented even if he had been in the hospital.

After 911, my first call was to David. He was the first by my side as I stood, in shock, answering questions from the emergency personnel who swarmed in. He held me, comforted me, cried with me. We loved and mourned Bill together in a moment more intimate than we’d ever shared as spouses.

Nearly 2 years later, I met Don, and it was David whose thumbs-up I sought.

That’s about when David met his darling Jodi. They came to our wedding reception, delighted to celebrate with us, and we hope someday to dance at theirs.

Inevitably, David and I see each other less often now. But nary a week goes by that we don’t e-mail or phone. We’re still the closest of friends; I still bear his name. We have each other’s backs and always will.

Chances are, we’ll be rocking beside each other on the nursing-home porch. Madonna, eat your heart out!

A freelance writer and editor in Arlington, Virginia, Anne Goodfriend marvels at how fortunate she is to have loved and been loved by the brave, kind men who have shared her life.

In the Name of Love

A gal by any other name smells as sweet, but some choose to remain the same. This primer on surnames IDs the basics.

by Patricia J. Lasher

Elizabeth Taylor is smart when it comes to the name business. This busy navigator on the sea of matrimony could have changed from Elizabeth Taylor, to Hilton, to Wilding, to Todd, to Fisher, to Burton (twice), to Warner, then Fortensky. But, she started with Taylor and kept it. Cher, Madonna, and Rihanna took it even one step further.

In the English tradition-primogeniture, patriarchy, the Empire, and all that – a woman took her maiden name from her father and traded it for her husband’s (from his father) upon marriage. In civil law countries – Spain and France, to name just two – married women officially keep their maiden names, but take the husband’s name for social purposes. Estimates vary, though, about the number of married American women who take their husband’s name, but most researchers agree that this practice has declined steadily in the past 15 years.

Laws and statutes regarding changing names are specific to individual states. Maryland permits hyphenation of both spouses’ names – or just about any name to be taken so long as there’s no fraud by the parties and no effort to take advantage of a celebrity. (Which means Jolie-Pitt may not be granted by the court.) Massachusetts, New York, and a handful of states permit the wife’s name to be taken by the groom upon marriage, but there has been no groundswell for this right elsewhere. Iowa permits the traditional adoption of the husband’s name, but also the husband to adopt the wife’s; or, both may change to a totally different new name. So Ms. Smith and Mr. Jones might combine to become the Smines or the Joiths, or, more likely, the Johnsons. This practice ensures that subsequent children and the parents will have the same name, while guaranteeing that college fundraising offices will rarely track down the couple.

When divorce rears its head, states generally permit the court that issues the divorce decree to restore a prior name to a divorcing female litigant given proper request to that court. The divorce decree will spell out the resulting surname and can be used as proof of the name change (for instance, “Ms. Fortensky’s surname is restored to Taylor.”) Most will permit any prior name to be restored. Thus, a woman may return to the last name of a prior spouse with whom she bore children or to her maiden name, if she chooses. And no, the first ex-husband has no right to object, much to the chagrin of the current missus. Usually no additional fee is involved with a change of name if done during the divorce proceeding.

Some women keep a prior name to avoid embarrassing combinations of names and a late-night mention by Jay Leno. A law school friend of mine kept her first husband’s name into her second marriage because she didn’t want to be known as “Holly Hooker.”

Those, however, who decide – after the divorce is final – to restore a prior name must file a new lawsuit, meaning they’ll incur additional fees and costs. Seeking an altogether new name usually results in a search of police records plus testimony that the change is not an attempt to defraud creditors or to avoid law enforcement.

Many women who chose in a first marriage to retain maiden names simply continue with that practice into second, third, and well, additional marriages (see Elizabeth Taylor). She’s following a bright historical path: The right for American women to keep surnames was vigorously promoted by suffragette Lucy Stone in the mid-1800s; for years thereafter, such renegade women were called “Lucy Stoners” in her honor.

Other women who have achieved professional status and reputation under a name may not want to lose the public recognition associated with it; those with medical degrees, law licenses, and Pulitzer Prizes attached will likely retain the previous moniker, regardless of marital pressure. Many a bride continues to use her name in business matters and her husband’s in social situations. Under the common law, this practice works so long as there is no intent to defraud others.

For a few, inertia is simply the moving force in life. The headache of notifying all the necessary organizations can be so overwhelming that many simply ignore the matter. It may take the expiration of a driver’s license, the arrival of new voter registration forms, or the birth of a child to provoke a decision to make a new name election.

In other words, whatever works…works.

When remarriage does result in a name change, the first step is to secure a new Social Security card, which will have the old number, new name. (See instructions and form SS-5.) A marriage certificate is acceptable evidence for a change of name. In the event of divorce or annulment, the Social Security Administration requires two additional original documents, one of which may be expired, with identifying information and/or photographs.

When it comes to a passport change of name, the government requires acceptable evidence of the name change: marriage certificate, divorce decree, or court order for changing the name, along with the passport to be replaced. (For further details on passport changes, see www.travel.state.gov/passport/get/correcting/correcting_2654.html.)

The passport or Social Security card only starts the process. Changes in myriad other documents can be time-consuming and may include the driver’s license, auto registration, insurance, investments and brokerage accounts, credit cards, utility bills, medical records, voter registration, professional licensing boards, wills, trusts, real property records, post office, membership organizations, and children’s schools. Each change is a separate endeavor and may come with a fee; unfortunately, there’s no “one step changes all.”

A smart travel agent I know reminds the wedding couple, as they book flights for the perfect honeymoon, that even if the bride is trading “Ms.” for “Mrs.,” the ticketed passenger must have photo identification in the name of the traveler. That’s unlikely unless the honeymoon is delayed.

Children present a whole separate challenge. Although remarriage gives a spouse the right-and opportunity-to change surnames, only a court with jurisdiction can confer a permanent change to a child’s name. Most courts require the consent of all living parents and, lacking agreement, will look at the best interest of the child, along with factors such as the strength of the relationship of the child with each parent, the need of a child to identify with a family unit, and the length of time the father’s name has been used. Some states require a child’s consent, if age appropriate, before the minor’s name can be changed. Even when a child prefers to use a stepparent’s name, or other children in the family bear a different surname, it is difficult to convince a court to change the name of a child when a living parent is contesting that change.

With regrets to Mr. Shakespeare’s “What’s in a name?” we say, evidently to the world at large: “Quite a lot!”

A former family court associate judge in Houston, Texas, Patricia Lasher has specialized in family law for more than 20 years, and written along the way. With her own remarriage, she now divides her time between Baltimore, Maryland, and Houston.

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