One of the most profound injuries of divorce and the end of a marriage is the loss of a sense of place. Marriage touches on our deepest sense of belonging, and without that grounded experience of knowing we are in our rightful place, we may feel terrified and alone. The feeling of being adrift without a “due north” can trigger a sense of panic that can only be felt when you feel no earth beneath your feet.

Several years ago, when my mom was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she was often disoriented and lost. Never feeling solid in where she was, she would express a desire to go “home” even when she was already there. This was heartbreaking and hard to hear, but it made me aware of how our sense of place is not always about the external environment in which we live. I came to understand that feeling at home is as much an internal experience as it is a concrete manifestation of a place in time.

We all need a place in the world where we can go to feel safe. For most people, the first thing that usually comes to mind when asked where they feel the most safe is home. We associate our homes as being places of refuge, and it’s in our homes that we feel the most comfortable. This makes perfect sense, particularly since we feel the most at peace when we experience a sense of belonging and connection to where we are. Like you, perhaps, I spend a lot of time working on my home and trying to make it a place I can feel proud of and connected to. This is an important practice particularly when we’re coming off of an experience where our sense of place has been fragmented, as with divorce.

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When my marriage ended, I was both emotionally and physically displaced from what I had considered to be my home. As the years pass, I have moments of homesickness where I long for the feeling I had when I was married with an intact family life. I catch myself getting sad and longing for something other than what I have in the present moment. I have learned to name this as homesickness because it helps me to remind myself that I belong where I am now, not in a life that no longer exists.

Coping with homesickness after a divorce is an essential piece of the healing process. When we feel like we don’t belong anywhere, we’re at risk of depression and other mental health issues. Feeling connected to a place is part of our human condition, and sometimes we need to create that when we feel lost and disconnected from what we know or knew.

Here are four ways to begin healing your homesickness post-divorce:

1. Name the feeling: Homesickness manifests in many forms, and it doesn’t always present clearly. Homesickness can feel like depression, nostalgia, regret, grief, and apathy. If you think back to being homesick as a child while at camp or somewhere else away from your family, you’ll likely remember it was a very sad experience. It was clear, however, what you were missing because you had a place you were supposed to go back to eventually. With divorce there is no going back, so it’s a harder experience to identify because it doesn’t really make sense. Naming your feeling as homesickness may ease the suffering, and then you can take steps toward healing that loss in the moment.
2. Establish a sit spot: A sit spot is a place one goes to often and regularly to look, listen, feel, smell, and even taste the surrounding landscape. A sit spot creates a feeling of consistency and routine, and it trains the mind and heart to seek out a particular place for relief. Knowing you have a particular spot in your garden or near your home that you can go to when you feel homesick will offer an active step and a way to feel some relief. You can also create a sit spot inside your home if going outside feels uncomfortable. The idea is about consistency and a deep trust that this is a place you belong.
3. Make nature a second home: I have also extended my internal sense of home into the bigger landscape of nature. I have asked many people where they felt safest as a child, and the answer is often “in nature.” There is something about the trees, plants, and earth that welcomes us home and embraces us in a loving hug. This is a particularly great alternative to finding a home post-divorce when the actual structure in which you reside isn’t pleasant. Often, our homes become challenging spaces when a divorce is happening due to toxicity or bad memories. Nature provides relief and a clean space for healing and grounding into a place of belonging.
4. Create an image: Imagery is as powerful as reality because it’s what surfaces from our dreams and deep beneath our consciousness. Activating an image of home can come from drawing or painting what you see as home. It doesn’t have to be a literal representation, just an image of what you see as this place. Allow yourself the space to dream and imagine your home will trickle into your nighttime dreams and a vision of what this means will take shape. If you’re an intimidated artist, you can cut pictures out of magazines and create a collage of home.

Know that whatever path you take, you have the right to both an internal and external home. Remembering that you can go inside or outside to create this sense of belonging and place may help you through the moments when you feel adrift and alone.

Earlier this year, a Michigan judge incarcerated three children after they refused to see their father. The children say their father is abusive, but the father claims the mother has initiated a campaign to alienate him from his children. After swift public outcry, the judge released the children, ordering instead that they participate in parental reunification therapy.

Divorced parents often engage in acrimonious custody fights, and some parents may launch extended campaigns to destroy their children’s relationship with the other parent. Parental alienation syndrome, originally coined in the 1980s, remains a controversial diagnosis and is not listed in the DSM-5.

A broken relationship with one parent can be destructive to children, but so can spending time with an abusive parent the child fears. Parental reunification therapy requires children to spend extended periods of time with the alienated parent, often without contact from the other parent. The theory is that this is the only way to break the cycle of parental alienation, but controversy swirls around the practice. Critics say the therapy could be used to force contact with abusive parents, and the treatment may amount to “deprogramming” that can be traumatizing.

Alzheimer’s Disease Consists of 3 Distinct Subtypes, According to UCLA Study

A UCLA study has identified three potential subtypes of Alzheimer’s. Though more research will be necessary, the subtypes could shed light on Alzheimer’s causes as well as potential treatment. Inflammatory Alzheimer’s is characterized by an increase in C-reactive proteins, as well as an increase in serum albumin and globulin levels. Non-inflammatory Alzheimer’s does not produce the same increases, but does lead to other metabolic abnormalities. Cortical Alzheimer’s—which often affects relatively young individuals—affects language first and produces effects that are more widely distributed across the brain.

The Sinister Science of Addiction

Research has long suggested that addiction is a disease rather than a personal failing, and measurable differences in brain chemistry account for much of the behavior associated with addiction. A new video in the Reaction series—a group of videos produced by the American Chemical Society—shows how addiction functions in the brain.

Criminals Acquire Guns Through Social Connections

[fat_widget_right]Popular myths suggest most guns used in crimes are stolen, but new research suggests that friends and family are a more likely option for acquiring guns. Research on the Cook County Jail in Chicago about how jail inmates obtained guns suggests that 60% of the guns were purchased or the product of a trade. Chicago gun laws prohibit selling guns to people with criminal records, so many former inmates are unable to acquire guns at gun stores or through other traditional avenues.

Trial Review Confirms Common Antidepressant is ‘Unsafe and Ineffective’ for Teens

Paroxetine—better known under its brand name of Paxil—has been prescribed to teens to treat depression since 2001, but new research argues the practice should end. Not only was the drug no better than a placebo; it was also potentially dangerous. In 2012, GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical company that markets the drug, was fined $3 billion for failing to report drug safety information to the Food and Drug Administration and for illegally marketing some of its drugs.

The Psychology of Why People Like Steve Rannazzisi Lie About Having Survived 9/11

A handful of people have been accused of lying about being present at the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This week, comedian Steve Rannazzisi came clean, admitting he had been lying about his presence at the World Trade Center that day. Experts are unsure why some people feel compelled to lie about a history of trauma. Theories include a need to feel involved, a craving for attention, serious mental health issues, and false memories.

More Time Outside Tied to Less Nearsightedness in Children

According to a study of Chinese schoolchildren, spending time outside could reduce the rate of nearsightedness. As many as 90% of Chinese high school graduates are nearsighted. But the study, which followed almost 2,000 schoolchildren for three years, suggests that as little as 45 minutes outside each day could reduce the country’s rate of nearsightedness.

Eating a Lot of Fish May Help Curb Depression Risk—at Least in Europe

A number of studies have tied Omega-3 fatty acids—present in high quantities of fish—to a potential treatment for depression. A pooled analysis of 26 studies involving 150,278 participants suggests that Europeans who consume fish can reduce their depression risk by as much as 17%. This correlation was found only in European studies. The reduction in depression risk as a result of high fish consumption was higher among men, who saw a 20% reduction. Women’s risk of depression dropped by about 16%.

Amid or following divorce or separation, some families face the issue of one or more children refusing to be in contact with one of the parents. While the dynamics of any family experiencing this can be quite complicated, children may behave in this way for a variety of reasons.

Here are some examples (for the purposes of this article, one parent is referred to as the preferred parent, the other the resisted parent):

• There may be conflict between the parents, and the child does not want to remain caught in the middle.
• The child may have been closer to one parent than the other when everyone lived together.
• The child may be in a developmental phase where alignment with one parent over the other is age- and/or gender-related.
• One parent may be involved with a new partner before the child is ready and/or comfortable with the situation.
• The preferred parent is more financially secure or otherwise stable than the resisted parent.
• The child chooses who he or she believes most needs to be taken care of based on the circumstances.
• There is ongoing litigation (even if the children do not know the details, they often see the effects of the stress).
• Both the preferred parent and the child believe the resisted parent is not safe.

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In these situations, it is often the favored parent’s belief that the resisted parent caused the resistance; meanwhile, the resisted parent often believes that the favored parent is responsible for the child’s refusal to see him or her. While either of these scenarios can certainly be the case, families are complicated systems in which many behaviors and relationships impact what everyone experiences.

There are two important options, which are not mutually exclusive, to consider here: (1) Improve both the favored and resisted parents’ relationships with the child, or (2) improve the co-parenting relationship. As complicated as the family system may be, individual relationships within the system can be addressed. Both parents have responsibility for their part in the family dynamic, including the favored parent.

When children can see their parents having civil and respectful interactions and making it a mutual priority to offer safety, this often leads to a relaxation of the need to push one parent away.

The favored parent may have a difficult time seeing or appreciating how he or she responded when the child did not want to see the other parent. When a child tells you about something negative that happened with the other parent, for example, it can feel natural to sympathize with the child and build a case against or undermine the connection between the child and the resisted parent. This isn’t fair to the other parent or the child. When a child provides negative information, contacting the other parent and asking what he or she knows about it is a good place to start. Secondly, it’s important to help your child understand that he or she can talk to the other parent about it and not have you be his or her voice.

The resisted parent, of course, has an important role to play in the relationship with the child and in behaving in a way that is inviting. Children who resist a parent sometimes feel the expression of affection, for example, as intrusive. It can be expressed, however, without the expectation of reciprocation. This gives the child room to make a choice. It sometimes happens, with time, that the child begins to respond. It is important that the resisted parent let the child know he or she is loved, without conditions.

There are many more ways for both the resisted parent and the preferred parent to alter their behaviors with the goal of improving the relationships between children and parents. The most important is to improve the co-parenting relationship. When children can see their parents having civil and respectful interactions and making it a mutual priority to offer safety, this often leads to a relaxation of the need to push one parent away.

If a child in your family is resistant toward one parent and your co-parenting strategies have been ineffective, contact a therapist in your area for help.

Most breakups are painful—not just for the couple, but also for those standing in the surrounding blast zone. We often hear about how divorce can affect the immediate family, but we rarely think about how a breakup or divorce affects a couple’s friends.

Studies have shown that divorce often negatively impacts those with up to two degrees of separation from the couple. If you’re friends with a recently divorced or broken-up pair, it is likely that your life may be impacted in one of the following ways.

1. You’re More Likely to Get Divorced

You wouldn’t necessarily think that someone else’s divorce could affect your marriage, but some studies show it can.

Divorce contagion is a social phenomenon wherein certain behaviors, feelings, and attitudes spread throughout a social network. This occurs because people tend to become more open to ideas and behaviors when they’re supported by their peers. When a married person talks with a divorced friend, he or she directly or indirectly learns the benefits and drawbacks of separation and may become more accustomed to or interested in the idea. If your significant other has been on the fence about the viability of your relationship, a divorce within your social circle can become a tipping point.

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According to prominent research, if your friend gets divorced, your marriage has a 147% greater chance of coming to an end. Even your coworker’s divorce could affect your life, increasing your probability for divorce by 55%. According to the same research, however, if you have children your marriage will likely remain unaffected by the divorce of a friend. Children have been found to counter the effects of the social divorce contagion. Research reveals that couples with children are not as susceptible and their marriages are likely to stay intact regardless of the outcome of friends’ marriages.

2. Couple Friendships May Dissolve

If you’re married or in a long-term relationship and both you and your partner are friends with parting couples, it is quite possible that many or all of the shared friendships will dissolve. The double dates to movies, dinners, and sporting events will end immediately, but it may even be difficult to remain friends with an individual within a shared friendship.

Newly single people tend to dislike spending time with couples if it reminds them of an ended marriage or relationship that didn’t pan out. Similarly, couples may feel uneasy about spending time with a newly divorced friend if they were once friends with both partners. They may feel pressured to choose sides or reveal information to one party about the other.

In one study examining the fallout effect of ended relationships, for 50% of recently split couples, the former partners also ended friendships with one or more members of another couple with whom the former partners had been friends. One in eight couples ended their friendships with both partners in a mutual friendship. Don’t be too discouraged by these findings, however. It is quite possible to maintain your friendships after a relationship has ended. In fact, about 33% of the couples in the same study reported that they were able to remain friends with both of the individuals in a shared friendship.

3. Group Outings and Events May Never Be the Same

As mentioned earlier, if a couple in your social circle splits, your group of friends could end up losing one or both individuals from the recently parted couple. If your group is able to maintain the friendships, however, there will probably still be some difficulties when planning events such as birthday parties, group dinners, or other events that bring everyone together. One partner may not wish to see the other, forcing the group to choose when making invitations. One or both members of the former couple may choose not to come to a group event out of fear of seeing the other, or they could both come and end up arguing or making the event awkward for others in attendance.

It should be stressed that this isn’t always the case. Many couples are able to maintain healthy friendships and treat each other with kindness and respect. Regardless, your group of friends will notice some changes when it comes to getting the gang together.

4. Remaining Neutral Could Be Difficult

Most people who are mutual friends with both members of a divorced or split couple will choose to remain neutral and maintain friendships with both parties. Unfortunately, this isn’t always easy. Many people feel pressured to choose between friends, and they may not know how they should act around their newly divorced pals.

For this reason, people may start to distance themselves and friendships could weaken. As a mutual friend of the couple, expect to experience some uncomfortable feelings in the months following the breakup.

Help Your Friends Reach Out for Help If They Need It

Ending a relationship or filing for divorce is tough on all involved parties, including a couple’s friends. In the days, weeks, and months following a breakup or divorce, people generally reach out to friends for support, confirmation that they did the right thing, and a shoulder to lean or cry on. Be a good friend and be aware of some of the changes within your friend’s life.

If your friend has recently ended a relationship, know that some things are going to change, especially if he or she (or they) belonged to a larger social circle that you’re a part of. Be sensitive to these changes and try to help your friend get through them. If you notice he or she is exhibiting symptoms of depression or experiencing an unusual amount of stress and anxiety, please consider helping your friend find a qualified therapist to speak with. A therapist can provide a safe, neutral space, free of judgment, to help a person understand his or her feelings and behaviors related to the ended relationship, and the shifting dynamics that will inevitably occur after the split.

References:

1. Chen, Stephanie. (June 10, 2010). Could you be ‘infected’ by friend’s divorce? Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/06/10/divorce.contagious.gore/
2. Deal, Katherine H., and Grief, Geoffrey. (August 31, 2012). The impact of divorce on friendships with couples and individuals. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage. Vol 53, Issue 6. DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2012.682894
3. Morin, Rich. (October 21, 2013). Is divorce contagious? Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/10/21/is-divorce-contagious/
4. Moutria, Kristen. The Effect of Divorces on Mutual Friendships. Global Post. Retrieved from http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/effects-divorces-mutual-friendships-14139.html

After experiencing relationship disappointments such as breakup or divorce, it can be hard to move forward and have hope that you will find love again. In today’s online dating world, it is easy to meet many potential mates, but that makes it just as easy to experience letdowns and heartbreak when a relationship doesn’t work out. It can also feel like our dating culture is increasingly superficial, squashing our dreams of finding meaningful and committed connections.

It’s hard to pick yourself back up after heartbreak, and the more rejection you experience, the harder it may be to believe that you will be able to find the right person and relationship for you. We’ve all heard the cliché sayings—“date yourself,” “take time for you,” and “find yourself” among them—thrown out as advice, but what does that really mean, and what do we do when we feel as though we’ve lost all hope of finding a life partner?

Taking time for yourself is more about working on yourself than it is “finding” yourself. The person we are inside changes over time. We grow, learn, change, react, and respond to our environment and the people around us, so who we are isn’t necessarily something that is concrete.

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Working on ourselves consists of taking an honest look at the ways in which we have responded to hurt, anger, and loss following a breakup. It’s normal to develop walls and barriers in order to protect ourselves, and it’s also normal to feel anger. We are allowed to feel and express our feelings, and doing so speeds our recovery. However, we don’t want to bring these feelings into our next relationship or dating experience.

Hanging onto these emotions and keeping walls up gets in the way of us opening up to the possibility of allowing someone to get to know us, thus greatly reducing the chance we will find the relationship we are looking for. So, working on ourselves means identifying our feelings, expressing our feelings in healthy ways, and then releasing those feelings so that we can move on.

Breakup and divorce can be devastating, and it’s important to know it’s normal to grieve the loss of the relationship. It takes time to move through the stages of grief, and the more we can feel and release our emotions while we are moving through the stages, the quicker we can let go of the old relationship and be ready to move forward with a new one.

Relationships are built on foundations, and those foundations are made up of the things each person in the relationship brings to the table. We all have our baggage from past experiences, but in order to create the best possibility for a healthy, happy relationship, we want to bring our best selves to the table and show up for ourselves and for our potential mate.

Bringing our best selves to a relationship means forgiving ourselves for the mistakes we may have made in previous relationships. If we are harboring blame, regret, or feelings of shame, we sabotage our confidence and our chance of bringing our best selves to a new relationship.

Another way we can regain hope that we will find the relationship we are looking for is to focus on self-care. Although the term “self-care” is overused by life coaches, psychologists, and yoga teachers, the premise is possibly the most important component of healing after a breakup and regaining hope for the future.

Self-care starts with taking the time to know who you are and what you like. This may sound easy, but your preferences typically change when you are in a relationship and then change again after a breakup. There is no magic formula to getting to know yourself again, but taking time out to focus on what is important to you and the activities that make you feel good is the first step to knowing how you can nurture your true self.

When we’ve experienced hurt and heartbreak, it can seem overwhelming. We can’t always deal with it on our own, nor should we have to. Building a strong community of support helps us heal. Seeking the guidance of a compassionate therapist can help you get back on track, regain hope of finding love in the future, and empower you to bring your best self to future relationships.

You are in a tough spot. You have been married for 16 years, and of course there’s a part of you that would love to see him change and spare all of you the challenges that come with restructuring your family. That makes total sense to me. I can’t tell you what to do, but I think one of the most telling parts of your question is the presence of apparent emotional manipulation in his pleas to give him a second chance. I say “apparent” because, although his pleas feel manipulative to you and might very well be strategic, we have to leave open the possibility that the guilt trips are unintentional manifestations of the pain your husband is experiencing. You would know better than me how authentic those pleas are.

Whatever the case, though, it’s clear that he has some work to do. There are plenty of other signals in your narrative—verbal and emotional abuse, controlling/limiting/tracking behaviors, denying social connections—that should alarm you. Those signals are not consistent with a healthy relationship.

The way I see it, here are the possible scenarios: he has or has not changed and you do or do not call off the divorce. Best case, he has changed and you call off the divorce and, with the help of a marriage counselor, develop a strong and healthy relationship. Worst case, you call off the divorce and it becomes clear in the following weeks/months/years that he has not changed and he reverts to abusive behaviors.

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I can’t tell you the likelihood of either scenario in your specific situation, but in my experience, change like the kind your husband is talking about takes time and committed work. In the meantime, I would be concerned about your well-being and the well-being of your children. His intentions may be to change, but there is significant work to be done to implement those changes consistently. Has he started working with a counselor to address his behaviors? How does he react when you don’t give him answers he likes? Do you feel heard, accepted, and safe? If the answer is not a resounding “yes,” there is still work to be done.

Let’s look at some alternative scenarios. What if you continue with the divorce and he shows he is committed to changing? There is nothing to say you can’t let him back into your life in the future if you trust that his changes are real and you feel safe doing so.

If you continue with the divorce, however, and the negative behaviors continue or escalate, you will know that you made the right decision. It is not unusual for the angry party to try to place the blame for his or her reaction on the other person; if only you had taken him back, it would be different. Don’t buy into that. Either he will choose to operate in this world in a peaceful, kind manner, or he won’t. If his choice is dependent on getting what he wants, then that change is not likely to last.

Best of luck!
Erika

I see it all the time in my work with divorcing people: the anger, bitterness, and frustration felt when one partner betrays or deceives the other with little or no remorse for their actions.

If you’re waiting for an apology or some explicit expression of remorse from your ex, pull up a comfortable chair and get ready to sit for a while. The ability to repent for an act of betrayal requires a level of evolution that most people never aspire to reaching. Saying I’m sorry means admitting fault, as does acknowledging that the action has deeply hurt another person. Both require courage and a deep capacity for empathy and compassion.

Waiting for an apology you may never get will keep you stuck, unable to move on with your life. When the need for an apology becomes connected to healing, the focus becomes your ex as opposed to yourself. It leaves you in a powerless place because you will never be able to will your ex into giving you what you so rightly deserve.

So the work for you becomes more about how to relinquish the need for an apology, accountability, or remorse, which will enable you to move on and begin picking up the pieces of your life.

Here are five steps to relinquishing the apology you’ll never get:

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1. Acceptance: Accept that life isn’t fair, that the process of divorce is riddled with inequities. Life, love, and relationships are not about being even, and you cannot make someone do something for you even in the name of love. Start to focus on how you can live with never getting the acknowledgment you deserve instead of what it means to not get it. This is one of the hardest things to do because it feels like the other person is getting away unscathed. Remember that this is about integrity; it’s not about who wins or loses.
2. Awareness: Awaken to the truth of the person you’re dealing with. If your partner shows little or no remorse, then they may possibly be lacking empathy. Empathy is a human capacity that makes it harder to hurt other people. You may not have noticed it until now, but if you think back, it may be that a lack of compassion and empathy is not out of character for your ex. Get real with your expectations, and open your eyes to the truth of who you’re dealing with.
3. Let go: Work on detaching emotionally from the expectation of an apology. Your need for an apology or remorse is directly connected to your emotional attachment, which makes it impossible to let go of the need to be acknowledged and honored by someone who has betrayed you. When your ex’s actions don’t matter and don’t define your experience, you are well on your way to letting go. Ask yourself if you want to be emotionally attached or if you would rather be set free from that connection. Meditate on how much energy you’re expending on this issue, and then come to terms with whether getting what you are hoping for would change anything for you.
4. Self-reflect: Sometimes, focusing on your ex’s actions (or lack thereof) is a way to move away from focusing on yourself. What can you take responsibility for, and what can you learn about yourself from this experience? Inner wisdom will allow you to rise above this petty situation, and you’ll feel empowered in your own process. Reflect on why you need an apology or to see remorse, and why that has become such a determining factor in your ability to move on.
5. Reframe: Your ex’s lack of remorse does not devalue your pain and suffering. Betrayal is not measured by the act; it’s measured by the pain it causes the person being hurt. Sometimes, we think the level of remorse equals the crime, but some people have horrible regret for even the most benign acts. Reframe your ideas about remorse and apologies as things to appreciate if they happen, but not essential to your process. A lack of an apology is more a reflection of the person not giving it than of the person who was wronged.

When parents divorce, they sometimes forget that their children didn’t also get a divorce. They still have their two-parent family, even if that family occupies two households instead of one.

Sometimes, though, it seems too hard to figure out how to communicate with someone you are no longer in a relationship with. But because you have children together, you can’t just go your separate ways, hoping you do not run into each other. Perhaps you or the other parent thought you’d no longer have to have the same, old arguments about parenting that you used to have, that it would all be behind you.

What you have perhaps learned by now is that you continue to have the same disagreements about the children, only from your separate homes. You still have to figure out your parenting timeshare as well as how the children will go back and forth between your houses, get to school and to their activities, get their homework done, make medical and educational decisions, and other considerations. And you still have to learn how to interact with the other parent to help make all these things happen, and to be civil and cordial with each other while in the children’s presence.

Perhaps instead of getting easier, it has not only gotten harder, it hasn’t changed the problems that weren’t addressed when you were together. What to do now?

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Working on your co-parenting relationship may be more than you may have thought you were emotionally prepared to do. One of you may have moved out of the family home, emotions may be running high due to the pain and disappointment of the end of the relationship, and perhaps not knowing what’s next—or worse, continually anticipating that what’s next is something you won’t like—is wearing on you. You may find that every decision holds the possibility of anger and anxiety. It may be that all you want to do is stay as far away from the other parent as possible, if only to collect yourself and find a way to try again.

If this is your experience, it is often helpful to work with a co-parenting therapist to help turn down the heat.

In co-parenting therapy, with the help of a third, neutral party, you will have the opportunity to:

1. Talk about the issues that you find most difficult to discuss with your ex.
2. Make decisions regarding those things which cannot be different for a child living in two households (the school your child attends, medical decisions, team sports, etc.).
3. Identify the decisions you can make separately for each of your households (bed times, food, houses of worship, etc.).
4. Address your communication styles and the interactions you have with each other as a result of the different ways you have of expressing yourselves.
5. Understand the reactions you each have to the other. The most effective tool you have to change the level of conflict in your relationship is to work on how you react to the other parent.

Co-parenting therapy can help you learn how to communicate more effectively, with the goal that you will not need the help of a third party to co-parent your children and you will be able to do so without conflict. Research has shown that when parents are able to put their differences aside and work to establish a post-divorce family that is not characterized by conflict, most children are able to adapt well to the changes in the family structure.

Co-parenting therapy is appropriate regardless of whether you still live in the same house and are preparing to live separately, have recently set up separate households, want to make adjustments to the parenting plan you’ve had in place for some time, or just need help communicating better about your child’s needs. Having a relationship with a co-parenting therapist can help you create an amicable relationship with your ex and protect your children from unnecessary conflict.

Going through a breakup is one of the most difficult experiences we can have. Heartache, grief, and confusion, mixed with feelings of powerlessness or even betrayal, can bring out the crazies in all of us. It can be hard to focus and function, making daily life overwhelming.

If you are going through a breakup, my heart goes out to you. I’ve been through it and I know how overwhelming it feels.

Here are my five top tips for moving on:

1. Cease ALL Contact

One of the biggest mistakes people make is fooling themselves into believing they can still be friends with their ex—right away. It may be possible down the road, but in order to get over someone, it’s best not to see them, speak to them, or know anything of them for a long time. You can’t simply switch off your romantic feelings toward someone and view them in a platonic or neutral way overnight. Continuing to stay in contact prolongs pain by allowing you to be hopeful. And having hope for reconciliation keeps you stuck in the transition and won’t allow you to get past the pain.

Zero contact means the obvious: no texting, talking, or getting together. But it also includes the covert: voyeurism and cyber-stalking, positioning yourself to “bump into” your ex by hanging out in places they go, communicating with his/her friends, or fabricating reasons to see each other, such as returning a toothbrush. [fat_widget_relationships_right]

2. Remember You ARE Lovable

We tend to bash ourselves after a breakup. We think of everything we believe we did wrong to drive the ex away, reminding ourselves of all our regrettable actions. We inflate our flaws and tell ourselves we aren’t good enough for the ex. This makes us feel unlovable and that we are somehow excluded or disqualified from winning in love.

It may be true that you tend toward a specific behavior that is not so appealing and it could have become the deal-breaker for the relationship—but even if that is the case, your behavior is not you and it is something you can change. YOU are still lovable. And the right person for you will appreciate all that you are.

3. Focus on the Big Picture

So often when someone breaks up with us, we tend to focus on all the positive things about the person and the relationship. This makes us pine for them even more, and we long to be with them for all those amazing qualities and times we had together. We relive the happy times and focus so vividly on the wonderful qualities of our ex.

If you allow yourself to step back, you will be able to see the whole picture. There were problems or unhealthy dynamics in the relationship, parts of your ex you didn’t like, and unpleasant feelings you had that you ignored. When you find yourself focusing on the wonderful parts, you will feel distraught, but if you shift your focus to include the unpleasant truths of your ex and the relationship, your emotional state will respond accordingly.

To solidify this, write a list of all the negative qualities of your ex, the parts of the dynamic you didn’t like, and how you often felt in the relationship. This is to help ground you in reality and not remain starry- eyed. You will soon come to understand that your ex did you a huge favor!

4. Look for the Lessons

When a relationship ends, people tend to get stuck in the idea that they wasted time. This kind of thinking puts us in a victim position, which can feel extremely powerless.

As tough as it can be to look within right now, it will help more than you can imagine if you are able to reflect on yourself in the relationship. If your ex is at fault or to blame for the relationship going wrong or ending, then you have no control in this situation and it will absolutely feel like a waste of time.

Dig in! Really try to take responsibility where you can, without condemning yourself, of course. If you can own up to your contributions that caused the relationship to sour, you will be able to learn the lessons this relationship was meant to teach you. And though it is a hard lesson to come by, it means you didn’t waste time at all. You will be more prepared and whole going into your next relationship, and both of you will benefit from those hard-earned growing pains.

If you take the time to write your findings, you may actually see a pattern emerge. You may come to see that your role in this current relationship looked very similar to previous relationships as well. Allowing yourself to see patterns of behavior means you can finally be clear about how to be healthier in the future.

5. Take Care of Yourself

If taking care of yourself means reaching out to friends or family, then do it now! You may tend to isolate when going through a tough time, so staying connected to your staunch supporters is vital to your recovery. They know you may not be great company right now, and that is OK.

On the other hand, if you tend to avoid your sadness by being social, drinking too much, or working a lot, you may need to provide yourself some downtime. Time alone to fall apart and grieve will help you move through this time quicker.

Make sure you are eating well, getting enough water, sleep, and exercise, and continue engaging in the activities that bring you pleasure. It may be tempting to forego all of that in self-punishment or self-pity, but it will truly only make you feel worse.

The quickest way to the other side of a long, dark, and scary tunnel is straight through. Embrace your reality, feel the feelings (you won’t melt), fall apart, and be a mess. Such a response is natural and congruent to the situation you are in right now. If you didn’t have these feelings, I would say you didn’t much care for the ex or the relationship.

If you feel yourself trying to take the long way around the tunnel to avoid feeling the feelings, please know that it will prolong your pain and you may get stuck. You can’t drink, eat, shop, exercise, or party your way around this pain, and if you try, you may just end up with another problem on your hands.

Please know:

You will feel happy again.

These unpleasant feelings will pass.

You will experience love and connection again if you remain open.

You are worthy and deserving of love.

With compassion,

Hilary

Over the past few years since starting my private practice, I have seen and worked with numerous families where a divorce was either in progress or had already occurred and child-custody disputes were in progress. Sometimes, one parent will alienate a child from the other parent out of anger, desire for revenge, jealousy, feelings of betrayal, rejection, etc. The child becomes enmeshed with the alienating parent and believes he or she must align with the alienating parent. The child may also actively participate in the process of alienating the other parent. This phenomenon is known as parental alienation syndrome (PAS).

When I observe families struggling with this type of dynamic, it brings to my awareness the victimizing nature of parental alienation syndrome for the child and the parent being alienated. The child wants to be loyal to both parents, and when he or she feels an “invisible loyalty” to one, it creates a high level of anxiety for him or her. This is a war the child cannot win.

Often, the parent affected by PAS will say negative things about the other parent to the child, with the objective of alienating the other parent from the child. The child can become virtually brainwashed into believing that the other parent deserves to be alienated, and may actively participate in denigrating the parent being alienated. The parent being alienated often feels protective, but is unable to stop the negative impact of PAS on the child and the relationship with the child. The biggest victim in this scenario is the child, as he or she will suffer the most from the fallout.

Parental alienation syndrome steals the bond and security that the child once experienced with the parent being alienated. In addition, PAS typically involves destructive behaviors such as manipulation, lying, and deprivation. Parental alienation syndrome robs a child of the ability to trust others as well as his or her own perceptions about life. In other words, he or she begins to distrust himself/herself as well as carry guilt. Parental alienation syndrome puts a child in a position of believing that the love and bond he or she has with a parent is contingent upon sacrificing the other parent, and they actively participate in protecting the parent responsible for alienating the other.

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If PAS is successful, the long-term emotional impact on a child may severely limit his or her ability to form healthy relationships and to develop emotional attachment to others. In addition, PAS may have a negative impact on a child’s self-esteem and confidence, which affects a child’s general attitude about life.

Parents must recognize that when they decide to divorce and children are involved, their relationship is not ending; it’s changing. Despite the charged emotions that often surface between parents who are divorcing, they must still collaborate about what is in the best interest of their child. The “tug of war” that PAS creates for a child with one or both parents should be avoided at all costs.

The following are some things parents can do to successfully challenge the alienating parent in the phenomenon of PAS:

• A home-study course called Breakthrough Parenting has been known to help parents being alienated to successfully challenge the parent doing the alienating.
• Remain objective and nonreactive to the alienating parent. If the parent being alienated becomes reactive, it gives the alienating parent power to prove that the parent being alienated is unstable.
• Be willing to stay persistent in the process of challenging the parent doing the alienating in front of a judge. This process can take a significant amount of time.
• Be willing to take on the financial expense of legally challenging the parent doing the alienating.
• Seek help from a family attorney who has experience dealing with PAS.
• Get educated about how the court system works and become familiar with the law as it applies to the case at hand. Some parents have been known to represent themselves (after educating themselves on how the courts work and how the law applies to their case).
• Devise a parenting plan showing how the child will be cared for and then present it to the court.
• Always remain focused on the objective of having the child’s best interest at heart.
• Avoid taking a “victim” stance.
• Document, document, document.
• Make a conscious effort to avoid causing friction with the alienating parent.
• Focus on the present and enjoy spending time with the child without saying anything negative to the child about the alienating parent.
• Follow through on picking up the child, and/or follow through with all obligations to the child.
• Avoid violating court orders.
• Have a strong sense of character and show integrity toward the alienating parent.

Before I jump straight to the heart of your question—to divorce or to not divorce—I’d like to take a moment and encourage you to consider some intermediate steps.

What I hear you saying is that while you love your husband, have a generally positive relationship, and are companionable, you feel as if there is something missing from your relationship, something you do not want to do without for the rest of your life. I wonder if he feels the same way.

What might it be like to open a dialogue that celebrates the time that you’ve had together and opens up a discussion about what you each want for your remaining years? If you haven’t let your husband know that you aren’t satisfied with the status quo, you have not given him, nor you, an opportunity to see if your relationship can change. That seems unfair, and it does not honor the relationship you have shared these many years. It may be that he also feels unsatisfied and doesn’t know what to do about it. You can’t know unless you begin communicating with each other.

There are couples who work together to reignite the “spark” that has faded. There are some who stay married, yet change the expectations of their relationship so each can get their needs met. There are others who decide that separation or divorce is the best option for them. Figuring out which path is for you should be, at the very least, a conversation rather than a unilateral decision.

These conversations can be challenging, often because we are afraid to hurt those we care about. Imagine, however, the depth of hurt when one is blindsided by a request for a divorce with no indication that one’s partner is unhappy. You both deserve better than that—as does your relationship.

I encourage you to get the support you feel you need in broaching these topics with your husband. He might be hurt to learn that you are not satisfied with your relationship, but he also may be relieved to finally be talking about it. If you are hesitant to open up a dialogue on your own, you can work with a couples counselor to explore these issues. Divorce is a big step to take, with logistical, emotional, and financial ramifications, but if the two of you are open with each other, explore options together, and ultimately come to that decision together, the chances of retaining the positive spirit of your relationship are significantly greater.

Best of luck!
Erika

Is the trauma children typically experience when divorce occurs in the family due to the divorce itself or other factors that surface around the divorce between the parents?

To a marriage and family therapist, this is an important question. If mental health professionals know specifically what it is about the process of divorce in the family that is traumatic for children, the trauma can be lessened to a great degree by addressing the specific factor(s) that children who experience divorce in the family are confronted with.

Many children experience the process of divorce in their families. During the 1970s and ’80s, the pop psychology was that parents should not stay together for the sake of the children. The theory was, “If the parents aren’t happy, the children will not be happy.” While that is most likely true, research has shown that there are, in fact, traumatizing effects that divorce can have on children.

However, the divorce itself does not appear to be the only factor that is traumatic for children when the divorce process takes place. Other factors, such as not seeing one of the parents as often, the parents transitioning into new relationships, changes in the socio-economic status of the family, and the constant transition from one parent’s house to the other parent’s house can also be difficult adjustments for children who experience divorce.

[fat_widget_child_counselor_right]Generally, children are very adaptable when they have enough support. When children who experience divorce do not have an appropriate amount of support and they reflect back on the situation, they often recall experiencing difficulty that they possibly did not realize they were experiencing at the time.

Some factors for parents to consider when children experience divorce in the family:

• There should be as little conflict as possible between the parents, especially in front of children. When children witness their parents in conflict, they often attribute the cause of the conflict to something they did wrong. Each parent should avoid criticizing the other.
• Parents must be extremely careful when entering into a new relationship. They must ensure that the person they are entering the relationship with is open to accepting the extended family, including both biological parents of the children. This would also mean accepting the ex-spouses. Whether the parents and the new partners in their relationships like it or not, they are, in fact, extended family. It is in the best interest of the child(ren) that everyone involved be accepting of one another while setting and respecting clear boundaries. This also models healthy boundaries for future relationships.
• The time each parent spends with the child(ren) needs to be as equitable as possible.
• When spending time with one of the parents, children should feel free to contact the other parent if desired, and to have their privacy respected.
• Parents must recognize that their relationship is not ending when they divorce; it is changing. They will always be in a parenting relationship and must collaborate as a team.
• Each parent should have a caring attitude toward the other biological parent. Children need to know that their parents care about each other, as it reflects that the parents also care about the child(ren), which increases the child(ren)’s self-esteem.
• Both parents should attend events such as parent/teacher conferences, school plays, sports activities, and other types of activities that the children are involved in as much as possible. Children need to know both parents are invested in supporting their success.
• Parents should ensure they live close enough geographically so that they are both easily accessible to the children; that being said, it is also important to have clear boundaries and show respect for the other parent’s personal life.
• Parents must be able to communicate consistently about their child(ren)’s emotional development, health issues, academic progress, etc., and be committed to supporting one another in their role as parents.
• Parents must be careful to avoid using the child(ren) as a messenger. They should communicate directly and avoid asking the child(ren) for information about the other parent’s personal life.
• The child(ren) should know that they can turn to both parents when/if they need to problem solve.
• Parents need to ensure that they have adequate and quality one-on-one time with their child(ren) and are as present in the moment as possible … in other words, children need to have a sense that they have a parent’s undivided attention when spending quality one-on-one time together.

When parents have appropriate support systems in place for each other and the children while maintaining clear boundaries, the process of divorce is much less traumatizing for children. Ideally, in time, both parents can move forward with their lives and into healthy relationships with the outcome being extended family relationships that are loving and supportive of one another. Ideally, the children should have the perspective that they did not lose their family, but that their family changed and that the parents have the children’s best interests at heart.