This was written after I watched (again) a couple destroy their kids in the course of a bloody divorce. Anger usually creates casualties beyond the direct combatants.
Collaborative Divorce and Kids
Time after time I have watched teenagers, just prior to leaving home, initiate conflict or exaggerate a fight with their parents to facilitate the separation. This often leaves the parents confused and hurt at a time they are genuinely trying to connect. The tension serves to equip the child with a framework of motivation to ease the separation. Fortunately, this dynamic plays a useful and timely role in greasing this process, and dealt with productively, plays itself out in a short time frame. I am seeing that this paradigm occurs between adults at the time of divorce, and the dynamic fuels the friction with many couples. Unfortunately, it puts the kids in the family in an untenable position with the potential for elevated pain and suffering.
In divorce counseling, Rule Number One says that no matter how big a jerk your soon-to-be ex is, do not say anything negative about them to the kids. Every ounce of negativity you offer to them in this way will return later on your head with an expanded consequence. I see my clients, children of a divorce, time and time again sitting in my office working out a clearer perspective of truth about both parents. When one or both parents have been negative towards the other, the child always ends up resenting the offender. This is true if the client is 12 or 32, and it is even more heightened if one parent has been lying about the other. The truth does come out. Your not-so-significant other may now be the jerk of your life, but they are still your child’s parent. You do not have the right to manipulate that relationship. All parents deserve a primary relationship with their child, one that is not controlled by another person.
You owe it to your kids to set aside your need to inflict pain. The pain you direct towards your ex will usually take out the onlookers, including your kids. This infliction may provide you with a momentary satisfaction but it will return to haunt you when the children figure out for themselves that you did it. I guarantee it. The fact that you are divorcing is adequate expression that you are both redefining your relationship with the other. You do not have the right to make your children an additional battlefield or you will count them among the casualties. By the way, this principle remains true despite how the other is treating you. I recognize the difficulty in accepting this piece of it, but it is true nonetheless.
Check out the collaborative law process in your state. It is a refreshing approach to this redefinition of relationship we call divorce. In this process, mutually beneficial resolutions are sought and the kid’s needs take on a higher priority in the process. I have seen the process serve the children and the couple well. The process does not work for all, but it is one of the resources available to divorcing couples that can strengthen their concern for the children’s well being.
I can always find common ground with feuding parties, sometimes we just have to take a step or two back from the conflict to see it in a different light. If you begin this separation process with common ground around protecting the kids and putting their needs first you will do a better job, a healthier job, in redefining your relationship. That is after all- divorce at its simplest- a redefining of boundaries in a relationship. You will enhance your relationship with your child if you deal appropriately with them in their relationship with their other parent.
Showing posts with label divorce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label divorce. Show all posts
Friday, August 14, 2009
Divorce in the Holidays
Divorce in the Holidays
Relationships can be tough this time of year. I call it the Bermuda Triangle of holidays. For many, this will be the first set of holidays without a loved one. Broken relationships can take many forms. Most in Collin County have experienced divorce in their family. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah and New Year’s Day take on radically different meanings when it is the first time through without a spouse. In my practice I often hear the same words of loss, anger and depression as those used when we experience a loss through death as well.
I used to think grief occurred like stair steps. You moved through one stage and “stepped up” to the next one. My experience is different than this however. What I have observed with mine and other’s grief is that it is more circular (think Slinky). One day we have a level of acceptance about the loss, and the next we try to deny it. Over time however, we seem to move through all of the stages while returning to each periodically. With time, the rawness begins to dissipate. Sometimes slowly and I am not sure that it ever completely goes away. Sometimes we are given the opportunity to deal with these feelings, these “stages,” at different levels. Like the layers of the onion, we can usually go deeper.
When I facilitate divorce recovery groups (or other loss-related groups) we try to deal with the feelings in a productive manner. My experience is that the groups generally go either into the solution -or- into the problem (sometimes in spite of where I try to take them). My theory is that we must deal with the feelings in a productive way or they are going to come out sideways down the road. A constant look backwards rarely allows us to move into today, let alone tomorrow. It is clear to me that grief involves the sadness of dealing with lost hope for the present and the future. This can be true hope-lessness. With productive, solution oriented work (and time) the hope for the future and the hope for the present can be more hope-ful, but it must be a new and different hope. Grief is about reconciling these two perspectives between lost and new hopes.
Traditions often tie us to these hopes of the past. This is why it is so difficult to experience great times of tradition like Thanksgiving or Christmas. The holiday is just not the same if we all aren’t there. But a new hope-fulness would encourage us to develop a new tradition that helps us move on while still enjoying an existing tradition in a new way.
At the counseling center where I practice we used to use the Divorce Recovery Groups to allow people to vent and focus on their feelings of hope-lessness. We have changed on this. Now, we offer to walk forward with people. Perhaps we are just offering to walk a different part of the journey with people, but my observation is- people continue to grow and move forward with forward looking behavior. We even changed the title, and now call the group “Ready to Heal.”
It sounds simplistic but I have observed that the people who are happy in life are the ones who focus on what they have and the unhappy folks are the ones who constantly focus on what they don’t have. To that end a productive move through grief and loss may include some of the latter but a solution-oriented approach will continue to encourage us towards a focus on what we do (and will) have.
Relationships can be tough this time of year. I call it the Bermuda Triangle of holidays. For many, this will be the first set of holidays without a loved one. Broken relationships can take many forms. Most in Collin County have experienced divorce in their family. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah and New Year’s Day take on radically different meanings when it is the first time through without a spouse. In my practice I often hear the same words of loss, anger and depression as those used when we experience a loss through death as well.
I used to think grief occurred like stair steps. You moved through one stage and “stepped up” to the next one. My experience is different than this however. What I have observed with mine and other’s grief is that it is more circular (think Slinky). One day we have a level of acceptance about the loss, and the next we try to deny it. Over time however, we seem to move through all of the stages while returning to each periodically. With time, the rawness begins to dissipate. Sometimes slowly and I am not sure that it ever completely goes away. Sometimes we are given the opportunity to deal with these feelings, these “stages,” at different levels. Like the layers of the onion, we can usually go deeper.
When I facilitate divorce recovery groups (or other loss-related groups) we try to deal with the feelings in a productive manner. My experience is that the groups generally go either into the solution -or- into the problem (sometimes in spite of where I try to take them). My theory is that we must deal with the feelings in a productive way or they are going to come out sideways down the road. A constant look backwards rarely allows us to move into today, let alone tomorrow. It is clear to me that grief involves the sadness of dealing with lost hope for the present and the future. This can be true hope-lessness. With productive, solution oriented work (and time) the hope for the future and the hope for the present can be more hope-ful, but it must be a new and different hope. Grief is about reconciling these two perspectives between lost and new hopes.
Traditions often tie us to these hopes of the past. This is why it is so difficult to experience great times of tradition like Thanksgiving or Christmas. The holiday is just not the same if we all aren’t there. But a new hope-fulness would encourage us to develop a new tradition that helps us move on while still enjoying an existing tradition in a new way.
At the counseling center where I practice we used to use the Divorce Recovery Groups to allow people to vent and focus on their feelings of hope-lessness. We have changed on this. Now, we offer to walk forward with people. Perhaps we are just offering to walk a different part of the journey with people, but my observation is- people continue to grow and move forward with forward looking behavior. We even changed the title, and now call the group “Ready to Heal.”
It sounds simplistic but I have observed that the people who are happy in life are the ones who focus on what they have and the unhappy folks are the ones who constantly focus on what they don’t have. To that end a productive move through grief and loss may include some of the latter but a solution-oriented approach will continue to encourage us towards a focus on what we do (and will) have.
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