I'm so glad I found this book! For a long time I have been trying to figure out how my parents' divorce 25 years ago has affected me. The stories in this book and the author's insight gave me a comforting "legitimacy" for my feelings and helped me to verbalize them. It made me realize that I'm not alone. Staal discusses many issues that arise during and after parents divorce, like how money is often equated with love, how all family relationships change, how the history of a family is revised. She describes why many adult children of divorce usually show three different types of behavior in their romantic relationships: "the nester," "the wary investor" and the "commitment-phobe." Immediately after finishing the last page, I ordered copies for my mother, my father, and my sister with the hope that we can start to talk more openly about what happened in our family. I don't usually buy self-help books, but this book isn't like that. It's beautifully written. The author includes her own emotions and personal experiences from her parents' divorce, and some of her memories were so sad, I cried. I never felt like she was preaching or telling me there was something wrong with me. Rather, I felt like I was talking to a good friend who could understand where I was coming from. Within the pages of this book, I read passages that could have come from my own journal. I heard my own voice. It is a must read for all adult children of divorce - or anyone whose life has been touched by divorce.

I bought this book as a divorcing mother trying to help my children through this as easily as possible. Seeing the results and lasting effects of some of mine and my ex's actions has helped me hold onto my resolve to avoid subjecting them to constant conflict as much as possible.

I highly recommend this book to divorcing parents as well as children of divorce. It's like having a crystal ball and being able to see some of the effect you might be having on your children while going through this difficult time. It also gave me insight into what my kids might be going through but not willing or able to share.

This book is truly a one of a kind. I have long searched for something, anything that I can relate to about divorce and I was so happy to find The Love They Lost. Stephanie Staal has written a honest and insightful account of what it feels like to be a child of divorce from separation to remarriages. She uses her own experiences to take us in the world too many of us are familiar with, and then shares with us the findings of her numerous interviews with adults that grew up in divorced families. Yet the book is much more then sharing stories, it provides comprehensive thoughts on how being a child of divorce affects more then just your childhood. It ends on the thought that no matter what happened in your past, your future is up to you. This book opened my eyes and it gave me the language to express my feelings towards my parents divorce. I am so thankful I read this book for what it has done and continues to do for me.