You made the choice to be married. You made the choice to have children. You are now divorced whether it was by your choice or not. You can choose now to love your children by respecting their parent – Your EX. That may sound impossible but for the sake of your children it is so important.
I hope you read through the things your child is processing. There is a good chance that you are also a child of divorced parents. Now this is what your children need from you…
The impact the relationship that my dad has had on my marriage and my brother’s marriage. My dad is in his fourth marriage. My mom was his first wife. You’ve read my story already but here is a little refresher. They were married very young – 17. They divorced very young. By the time they were 21 they were already separated. I was only three. They divorced by the time I was five. They were really both young and starting fresh but somehow even at that age they were determined to be good in front of me about the other parent. My mom was very careful to not talk poorly about my dad even though he was far away and did not visit much.
When I was 10 my dad remarried. He was better set up for me to visit regularly. As I remember it, my mom was really great about working with my new stepmom and they were good about working together. I can honestly say that for all of my major life events, high school and college graduation, getting married, and having children and now all of my children’s events, that my mom and my dad can not only be in the same room but they can still encourage each other. They put me first and I’ve seen my dad do the same thing with my first stepmom, my brother’s mom. It has totally impacted the way that we are able to do family gatherings.
Now he’s married again and because my dad, my mom, and my first stepmom, care enough to put their hurt and anger aside, we can sit down around the Thanksgiving table and enjoy one another. That has been a huge blessing and encouragement to me. It has taught me a lot about forgiveness and being forgiven, and asking for forgiveness. They are able to lay down their reasons for why they got divorced and put us first. They are showing us and our kids how to work through those things and work through their feelings and lay aside any of their own selfish motivations to love us.
Our kids don’t know any different now and think it’s weird that their friends don’t have 9 grandparents. And they really don’t mind at Christmas time when all the presents start arriving!
You may be divorcing a spouse, but unless you give up time with your children you can not divorce their parent. Which means that for as long as you are in your children’s lives (and we hope and pray that you will be) you will also be in the life of your ex-spouse – their parent. The one that you worked with to have these children likely loves your children just as you love your children.
And if you ever remarry that adds another opinion and personality into the “family”, and possibly more children or stepchildren.
I have seen so much damage from a wounded spouse speaking poorly about their ex-spouse. Your Ex is still their mom or dad. Your child wants to protect and love their parents.
Think of it this way. When someone says something negative about one of your kids you naturally want to defend that child even if you agree with the defender – because they are part of you.
So when you say those negative things about your Ex it is hurtful to your child as they are part reflection of that parent just as they are a reflection of you. When your Ex speaks poorly about you they want to defend you. It causes division when there is already so much pain. It also puts the child in the middle of your battles, not theirs.
We are all drawn to drama so this is really hard if not almost impossible. Sometimes you just need to voice your frustration and who else would understand it best than the little people living through it with you. This is where you find some friends and mentors to pray with you to hold your tongue.
I am the worst offender here so I am not pointing fingers. In fact, I am guilty of complaining about just about everyone in my family at some point. Sorry family if you are reading this but you know I can be quite critical and slow to keep my tongue. Sometimes I justify it by saying – it’s true. He/She doesn’t do this or that or I wish this was different about _______. But again who is this helping? Me, Myself and I. It may get the thoughts and feelings off my chest but in the midst of it you have wounded your children by placing doubts and hurts on them that they are not ready to carry.
What can you do with your thoughts and feelings about your spouse?
Go see a counselor.
Find a friend.
Pray and ask God to release you from the hurt anger so that it doesn’t cause your children more pain.
My first stepmom shared that early on in her divorce from my dad she was expressing anger to her counselor and her counselor helped her by saying you are not in that situation any longer so there is no reason to hold on to that anger. It will serve you better to let go, forgive and move on. The anger will continue to hurt you and your children as well as your Ex.
This is another area that my divorced parents have worked really hard on and it has shown fruits in my marriage. They are not perfect and as adults now it is much easier to look back and discuss the downfalls of different marriages. Remember I have walked through divorce 4 times as a daughter.
There were times as a teenager that my biological mom and dad fought over child support and visitation. I heard some of the arguments and I knew that they were not happy with each other. My dad was not very present in my life from the age of 3 to 10. I wanted to have a dad and family so bad that I laid down those negative conversations and tried to give my dad the benefit of the doubt and vice versa. I would fly to California from NC and TN for a summer visit or every other Christmas. We did different things in California than we did in TN. In TN, we called everything Coke and ate biscuits and cornbread with most meals. In California we steamed broccoli and ate bagels for breakfast. We used cloth napkins and called soft drinks Pop. These are some simple little things but I want you to hear a couple of things.
First – I wanted to be a part of both families and be happy with both families so negative comments about my TN habits from my CA family was painful and vice versa.
I remember more than once defending the way we did things in TN to my California family and then telling my mom all about all the things they did in California that I thought were so cool and new. I saw the hurt on her face when I would come home and thought I found a better way to do something.
One huge blessing in my life is that my first stepmom and my mom found ways to support me by supporting each other. They understood each other – maybe because they had both been married to the same man – haha. But honestly I can see now as a parent that they laid down their own feelings and agendas for my sake. Instead of being offended and saying mean things about my new found way to use cloth napkins or request for bagels for breakfast my mom and Jill listened and allowed me to process verbally without condemning the other parent and yet still living their life routines.