Category: After Separation

Recovery beyond separation

On By BarryIn After Separation, Parents

Where are you on road to recovery? What does the choice to separate feel like? Does it feel like a necessary, but difficult choice? Does it feel like a weight has been taken off your shoulders now that your unhappiness is in the open? Are you feeling overwhelmed or paralyzed by the decisions that have to be made? Do you feel like a failure as a parent, intimate partner and provider? Are you surprised by your partner’s reaction? How did the children react to the news? Did each child react very differently and as such display different parenting issues? Are your extended family and friends supportive or judgmental?

The questions are never ending.

A personal story: I thought that I was prepared for the separation. My children’s mother and I had a civil conversation about the separating process and telling parents and friends in a no-fault explanation. I had agreed (for no reason other than caretaking) to leave the matrimonial home- for a room in a friend’s parents’ home.

As soon as I started the 30-minute drive to my new place, I became desperate, lonely and overwhelmed with grief and loss.

I would describe myself normally as a rock, but the next day as I drove past a swamp on my left it took everything not to swerve off the road. It was the first time in my life that I had such dark thoughts. That troubled moment has remained in my memory for 30 years.

Separating and separating by leaving your children and family home is an experience that we are ill-prepared for no matter our gender or our position on separating.

 I offer this anecdote because situational depression is a common experience.

It is important that a plan is in place for future, sharing/spending time with your children before leaving the home. DO NOT ASSUME that it will all be worked out…eventually.

Recovery is more difficult for a parent who is not seeing or assured that they will be with their children on a predictable, regular schedule, sooner than later. Consider a mediator or another suitable professional to work out an interim parenting plan prior to anyone leaving the family home, if possible.

In the Resource Hub, there are readings that may meet where you are in the separating process. Dealing with the different stages of grief-similar to the death of a loved one- may be the best starting point. Many authors focus on the journey that most separated parents go through in some way.

Read our post about Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee’s book What about the Kids – a good place to start re: the personal impact of a separation.

Try to find readings that provide spiritual renewal and pragmatic, self-help steps. Moving toward recovery can be slow moving. There are always unexpected, unprepared for triggering events that set us back; recovery is about acquiring the tools that make you more resilient.

Your resiliency is perhaps the most important gift that you can showcase to your children. Resiliency will serve you well.

Included in the Resource Hub is research on the prevalence of depression for fathers and mothers going through a separation. Remember, for many parents the separation often follows many months, even years, of feeling low or worse. Many parents experience what is called situational depression– depression directly triggered by the separation and the many negative outcomes that are directly related.

The most significant of these outcomes are almost always connected to the challenges faced in every important relationship.

Please read the articles related to depression for they have direct consequences upon your children and your workplace.

Many of the readings offered are intended to inspire or to awaken us to the changes taking place in every intimate, family relationship. There is going to be a great deal on your plate for some time, and many will be parenting, or relationship problems never encountered.

I found in 2 or 3 key books an understanding of what was going on in the chaos of my family’s life. I considered those books to be lifesaving for they provided insight that cut through the chaos and restored some form of equilibrium.

I found comfort that what I thought was happening, had happened to many others. It didn’t always solve the specific issues, but it removed doubt about my own sanity and what I was facing going forward. That was very important!

The Resource Hub includes recommended books and personal stories that our 800+ clients found to be supportive in their journey to personal survival and even family renewal.

My New Complicated Family Turns 25: December 2018

On By BarryIn After Separation

Almost 28 years ago on my last night in the family home, I chose to fall asleep on the floor beside my youngest daughter’s (just turned 12) bed, hoping that somehow, she would know that I loved her forever. I feared that her age placed her at the most vulnerable age.

The next morning would be my last in the intact, family home. There was no single, triggering event, simply two people who had grown apart and failed to take care of each other over the latter years.

It was all done in a ‘civilized’ manner. Neither parent understood really what their reaction would be; nor the devastating way in which every family relationship would be at risk.

 Immediately on leaving the matrimonial home, I was overwhelmed by the possibility of the loss of my children (19, 16, and 12). The first night absent from my home brought dark thoughts. I returned to ‘my’ home the next morning to explain my unrest; the conversation was difficult and unsuccessful.

My 16-year-old daughter chose to join me and returned to the one bedroom, where I had arranged to live in the short term. Now, my new status included my oldest daughter. It is probably an overstatement that it was lifesaving, but at the time, her choice reaffirmed that I was still dad.

 Thankfully, the darkest of thoughts never returned.

When you enter the separating environment, the only certainty is the lack of certainty. Every family relationship and every other, significant relationship feels as if it is under scrutiny and judgment. An intimate relationship with children that was happy has now been exposed as a ‘failure’ with all the questions that come with the territory.

Each parent needs a supporting thought to hold on to during the initial days, weeks and months.

I would suggest the following as a guiding principle.

Remember. You are still a parent. You still have a family! (Isolina Ricci: Mom’s House, Dad’s House).

The bedroom that my daughter and I shared for that first week didn’t feel like a new single parent home; it felt like and looked like failure! After that first week, I found a basement apartment, maybe fit for a poor student. The only real room had a divider for privacy and a shower in the hallway. For a middle-class teacher and daughter, it too felt and looked like failure! This was followed by a more traditional apartment furnished in Spartan style.

 I lived in that ‘style’ for close to 3 years.

As you can tell, I had not read or implemented Ricci’s counsel that I was a new family. It contributed to my sense of failure as father, provider and intimate partner.

Barbara Coloroso describes single parent and blended families as ‘families born of loss and hope’. For many separating parents and children, the journey going forward is a tug of war between loss and hope. For many dads, a separation is initially dominated by loss of children and the family home. So, the initial experience of being pulled toward the darkness is common. When the separating process becomes chaotic through parenting loss, hope is difficult to imagine.

  ‘Stepfamilies, foster families are all as real as the traditional family.’

– Barbara Coloroso: Parenting Through Crisis

The concept of being a ‘legitimate family’ in a separation is almost always with the parent with majority parenting time (usually mothers). There are so many forces – legal system, family law, social service bias and even family and couple friends- who see you living without the children most of the time. The family as they knew it resides elsewhere. It feels like failure, too.

To be heard by the different bodies above requires patience, civility, relentlessness, resiliency and commitment to be a parent… through whatever.

In My New, Complicated Family Turns 20, many of you in blended, second, reconstituted, subsequent, etc. families found something to take away for your own journey together. I have also included an amazing essay by one of our stepmothers about their incomprehensible, but too common journey. Please read: My New Family Matters Too!

Another 5 years has passed and our 25th anniversary is a milestone to be celebrated. Elaine and I have reflected on the early chaos and the naiveté that love and caring for each other won the day. While they are essential ingredients, they did not provide the certainty of an enduring intimate relationship or the successful creation of a complicated, new family with children.

‘But in the remarried family, the stepparent-child relationship begins much later. It’s rooted not in the child’s birth but in the early days of the second marriage, which means it begins differently and runs a separate course… It’s a relationship that starts midstream, it’s more challenging for both of you. And it’s a triumph for everyone in the family when you, the stepparent, become a really important person in your stepchild’s inner world.’

– Judith Wallerstein: What About The Kids

The ‘triumph’ never seems to be complete; but that I believe is the consequence of the obstacles that were so formidable during the early weeks, months and even years. One is often reminded of those early days at special occasions for children/stepchildren as they pass through different stages of their lives. There will be hurtful moments, hopefully unintentional, in each relationship as they build toward understanding, respect and trust.

New, complicated families are about acknowledging everyone’s past; but not being stuck’ by the past. Every new couple must take control of their own destiny and their future.

To that end I did a miserable job …for some time. I have lapses even decades later. Elaine made sacrifices and choices, waiting for me to recognize my errors. There are times, when a separated dad with children, has little room except for the fear that they are losing their child… perhaps forever. That continuing fear is perhaps the greatest threat to new relationships with children.

Our 25th anniversary is about honouring Elaine for sacrifices too often undervalued or even loss to the chaos that destroys so many loving, new families. It is for being a partner in building and rebuilding relationships with each of my children. It is for becoming a co-grandparent to now 6 grandchildren who fill our lives with love, joy and good chaos. It is for honouring me with her love and support as a person as well as a life partner. It is for pulling back when I was blinded by the past.

Thank you for finding my hand through it all; and allowing me to find your hand… always.

25 years ago, the children barely knew you. They were wounded by the chaos and struggles of life at that time. You built a loving and caring relationship with each, day by day, so that they care and respect you for what you have brought to their lives. Most of all, they recognize your gifts of love and support to their wounded dad.

 Hope began 25 years ago and is found in every family relationship that now includes 6 grandchildren.

School Days Can Be About Opportunity

On By BarryIn After Separation, Parents

As a former teacher (it seems so long ago), I still see the approach of Labour Day through the perspective of gearing up for ‘life’s about to change’. As a parent and grandparent, the return to predictability and certainty offers a promise of order to day-to day life.

For newly separating and separated families the struggles can be difficult as new parenting patterns may not yet be established. Some parents and grandparents may suddenly face loss in their day-to-day, relationship with their child and grandchild.

The return to school should be viewed as an opportunity to build enduring, supportive relationships for parents and grandparents.

PA Days and school day trips provide additional opportunities for a parent or grandparent to have ‘special time’ with their child or grandchild. For a parent (often a dad), the opportunity for a child to see their father in a different setting is rewarding and builds ‘integral’ relationships between parent and child.

Recently I went to see a film called 8th Grade. It was about a young girl in her last week before graduating to high school i.e. a transition to an entirely different space. She is being raised by her dad- and we observe, through the dad’s painful efforts, that they are unable to talk about anything meaningful.

 The film has an understated father-daughter theme. But in truth it is a universal, parent-daughter or parent-son theme.

 Near the film’s end is a conversation between daughter (in crisis) and her dad that is a ‘must be viewed and heard’ as they struggle to make each other understand how they feel about each other.

It is words and/or deeds that build enduring relationships, that too often go missing because of the way families separate. Kids n Dad suggests that parents and grandparents plan to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new school year to build a more enduring, supportive relationship.

 I guarantee that during the school year you will have the opportunity to be the parent that you wish to be- just like the dad in 8th Grade.

School Days Are (Soon) Here Again                                

Summer is still with us and I am trying to focus your attention on the upcoming school year. A new school year often presents change upon change for newly separating and separated families. What was once viewed as joyful changes in an intact family are now challenges that make parenting more complicated e.g. a family moves to a new home in a new school district? For our children of every age change has serious implications- making new friends/losing old friends; etc.

Kids ‘n’ Dad tries to focus separated parents on the new school year. We believe in limiting surprises in the school year that may lead to unwanted parenting conflict that impacts your children. The school year is an opportunity for separating parents to restore some order/predictability and calm to their children’s lives and to their own lives.

The new school year may be especially difficult emotionally for newly separating families. It can be like the first Christmas with its emotional connections, good memories and now the loneliness of being a parent absent from the excitement of the actual event. It is a clarifying moment for everyone that family life has changed…forever. 

It is also an expensive time with new activities beginning and schools often asking for additional fees for this or that. Many of our parents continue to face economic difficulties that are part of the current economic environment. Separated families rarely have enough income to support a dad’s home and a mom’s home and it often comes down to hard choices about your children’s activities in the upcoming year.

The Globe and Mail published an essay (After my parents divorced, my childhood was no longer mine. It belonged to them. -June 5 2013) by a young woman who wrote about the aloneness of being a child of divorce.

She grew up feeling like an outsider in her parents’ homes and later in their subsequent families. Her letter stopped me in my tracks. I thought about my own children and the children of our clients, who are struggling with that same loneliness and lack of belonging. My point is that doing this school thing right is part of overcoming what happened to this young woman as she grew up.

 ‘As parents we have a responsibility to ensure that our children feel included in each home and that each home is participating in their daily life. School is an integral part of that life.’  (KND)

Ideas to consider for the upcoming school year

Compile a personal list for your family. Each family has their own unique set of challenges, but a common set of desired outcomes!

  • Both parents must, together or independently, establish a relationship with their child’s teachers and school. If the separation is new, then a school visit is an imperative. The school is going to be a main source of information re: your child’s transition from an intact family.
  • Plan to attend school activities. Co-operate to ensure that one or both of you are available for every activity. Include supervising on a school trip as a volunteer. Establish a schedule to share your children’s activities. If the ‘together’ thing is too difficult then work out parallel arrangement that works.
  • MEET THE TEACHER NIGHT IS COMING UP! Ensure that you attend the ‘meet the teacher’ and all other parents’ nights, especially report card meetings. Do not count on the other parent to be the conveyor of information. If need be give the school postage prepaid envelopes with your mailing address for your child’s Report Card, newsletters, etc. Schools are RARELY proactive in ensuring that BOTH PARENTS receive all info. I know many separated parents who have never seen their child’s report card with all the valuable info on their child.
  • If your child’s teacher is hesitant to provide duplicate material, be courteous but also insistent and follow through. Each parent needs to be in a position to help their child with their homework, etc. Many fathers who often have less than 40% parenting time may prefer only to do ‘fun’ activities. You can do both; you should do both.
  • Make sure that you are up-to-date on your child’s school friends. If your child (ren) are of an age suitable to have a friend sleep over then these school friends form a likely pool of candidates. Your involvement in your child’s school activities allows you to meet other parents and create a comfort level for them and the children.
  • Attend extracurricular activities that are outside the school- e.g. dance, hockey, and ringette. RESPECT the other parent on those nights that are their access nights. Do not make participation by both parents a problem. Set a good example for your children.
  • Plan out a co-operative parenting schedule. Respect it! Abide by it! The schedule is the LAW UNLESS BOTH PARENTS AGREE TO A CHANGE! YOU CANNOT SIMPLY DEMAND A CHANGE!
  • If changes need to be made then consider a process to make that happen. It could be done through a mediator if you are unable to make it happen cooperatively.
  • Expenses need to be talked through and not simply a bill handed over with a demand. Dads in many cases need to know that school aged children cost money and that these expenses may be separate from the question of access and child support payments. Primary care parents need to know that denying access damages your children and is against the law.
  • I mentioned last year my concern re: the use of Facebook, Twitter, etc. to take verbal shots at a former partner. These concerns remain an alarming and disturbing development. These verbal potshots are in reality not only an attack on your child’s other parent but also upon your child. They are simply unproductive for everyone. This is absolutely unacceptable! It is embarrassing/hurtful to your child and is making public what is essentially a private family matter.  Another aspect of the use of the social media is the potential misuse and risk to our children. If we as the parents are hooked on Facebook and messaging, why wouldn’t we expect our children to model themselves in the same way? The problem is that most children are without the life experiences that we bring to social networking. This is particularly a problem for children in the tween age bracket. In separate families children of this age may rely on these friends even more and also have more time alone, etc. As such the good aspect of a child cell phone (safety, ready availability) may become lost to the negative side (vulnerability and obsession). Go on line, educate yourself on the risks to your adolescent and develop a strategy that works for your family.
  • If you are newly separated don’t be afraid to initiate a meeting(s) as necessary with a key teacher/mentor/coach to your child. They can watch over your child and encourage participation and friendships.
  • Finally, if you have a new partner during the school year, take it slow and easy. Understand possible reactions of your child; deal with your former partner in a mature, honest and sensitive manner. Read up on possible reactions. Ask your new partner to be patient as you try to work out the new family dynamics.
  • PA Days offer an opportunity for additional parenting time for some parents and could be included in Parenting Plans. Cooperating parents can reduce before and/or after school costs by sharing in providing care to their child. In addition grandparents – especially paternal grandparents who may now have reduced time with grandchildren-can also be included in school year planning. They provide a sense of belonging to grandchildren.
  • FINALLY acknowledge the other parent’s flexibility. Acknowledge each other’s flexibility. Your children will notice.

 I used to say that parenting through a separation is a marathon, not a sprint. I have adapted my thinking- separation is a series of sprints that hopefully add up to the completion of the marathon. Just when you think there is a comfortable pattern, life gets in the way. Life in the way can be a remarriage or a move or a job loss/ financial crisis or a child in crisis or…. Every separated family in every school year is likely going to face a difficult change(s) that may trigger a crisis. The challenge is to figure out a process to accommodate the crisis.

As separated parents we have an obligation to find solutions to those ‘life gets in the way’ happenings. The school year is an opportunity for parents to model for their child a cooperative relationship that demonstrates the parents’ love for their child- a love that survives all challenges on life’s journey.

My Complicated Family Turns 20: December 2013           

On By BarryIn After Separation

            

‘For me, as the woman and new wife behind the man, I have done everything asked of me to fight this battle. I love my husband and my son loves his stepfather and this is why I choose to stay; but I’m very tired…almost all the time.’

– Excerpt from My Family Matters…Too! written by a subsequent partner, mother and stepmother

Twenty years ago (Dec. 4, 1993) I took the marital plunge for the second time. It was the first marriage for my wife. 

About a month ago I turned to my wife as we were appropriately watching an episode of ‘The Good Wife’ and blurted out: “You realize this anniversary is a small miracle”.

She was silent for a moment and replied: “ A small miracle?” 

She was correct. I used to cry a lot. I could often be found rocking in my only real piece of furniture (no legs missing), facing inward toward the wall. I was a mess, a poor risk.

This past year I met many new couples struggling to build an enduring relationship following a dad’s separation.

The underlying fear (may last forever) for a separated dad is that their relationship with their children is at risk. The fear only recedes during their weekend or midweek parenting. The children’s return to mom’s house brings an eerie silence to his place. Silence has become his enemy!

It is the difficult task of a non-custodial parent to reconcile and accept the parenting inequity. They have to learn to deal with the pain…for their child’s sake… for their own sake …and for the sake of any new relationship. 

The challenge to a serious, intimate relationship is managing these intertwined relationships: namely, to maintain/rebuild the dad-child relationship and to build a loving, enduring, new partnership through the chaos and unpredictability. 

 The shame is that many loving relationships are unable to navigate safe passage. 

Many dads almost immediately stumble into being a non-custodial (part-time) parent. A legal system that takes pride in so called ‘no fault’ divorce makes judgments and choices about parenting. A father intent on securing calm for his children is often left on the outside, his face pressed against the window to his children’s lives.

In the non-custodial parent’s life, holidays and birthdays with children are rarely celebrated on the actual date. Information (school, medical) on his children often is delivered second hand, weeks late or not at all.  A non-custodial parent may feel like an intruder in their children’s school, even in their lives. 

New partners face the same challenging complications of unpredictability only with an additional layer of angst- their views on parenting and what they need as a couple are often treated as less important, less relevant by a dad dealing with the heightened risk of parenting loss. 

‘You are important, you are a parent, you still have a family.’    

– Isolina Ricci: Mom’s House, Dad’s House

         

The Christmas season was/is a reflection of our family’s 22+-year journey through the chaos and madness to our family’s version of calm. I offer this as a tribute to my wife and the other new life partners who have helped dads find love, companionship and calm through the madness.

During my first Christmas outside the matrimonial home I agreed to return for gift opening and Christmas dinner (including my extended family). A reasonable thing to do? The reality was that it was about pretending that nothing had changed when everything had changed. It had costs for everyone.

The second Christmas was to be about a lesson learned. I would only open gifts with the children in the matrimonial home. No Christmas dinner. That meant my first Christmas dinner since forever without my children. My parents added another complication with their arrival for gifts and dinner. By that evening my thoughts kept repeating: ‘my children, my matrimonial home, my parents, and where am I again?’ Feelings of loneliness, despair and betrayal overcame me. The rocking chair became my home!

In some ways Christmas also mirrored life during our courtship. There were occasions when dating paused with no guarantees of a restart. I thought that my responsibility was to fix (end) everyone’s pain. My wife laughs now at my use of the term courtship and asks, “Did I miss it? When was it?”

My wife’s gifts during the ‘courtship’ stage were life changing! 

Her faith and constant reassurance that I was a caring man and a loving father came at a time when I questioned everything about myself. She was my partner to recovery.

By Christmas #3 we were married (just three weeks earlier). What should have been a joyful moving-on Christmas was flat and empty. My father had a stroke two months earlier and he never recovered. The chaos of the post-separation had left our family wounded and now claimed my father as a victim. 

Christmas #4 and #5 were to be our coming out party. We would have a family brunch – a Lillie tradition. We fretted that no one would show up. I insisted that everything should be the way (actually identical) the children were used to. We couldn’t risk doing something different. I can only wonder now why my wife didn’t sit me on my rocking chair with the following order: “Don’t move until you see the error of your ways.”

Recognizing my error was incredibly important. New traditions enrich your children’s lives. It was also about my acknowledging my wife’s grace, style, humour, intelligence, wisdom, etc. to my children. Just as she displayed her faith in the wounded me, it was my time to demonstrate my faith in her.

Over the years there have been even more difficult occasions when she called me out for my failure to find the balance between a dad’s ‘original fear’ (the one that never leaves) and making our relationship all it should be. Each occasion was a reminder that the journey is now our shared journey and the risks are now our shared risks.

As I look back, I realize that my children came to respect her for what she gave to me and her unique, valued contribution to their lives. They understand now as adults the difficulty of her journey and the sacrifices she made along the way. Their acknowledgment of such was an important step for her and me,

Our family will now gather for our umpteenth Xmas brunch in our no-longer-large-enough condo (with all the children and grandchildren) and all the trappings and beauty brought to our home by my wife. I will likely cry – a tradition. They will be tears of joy for our family’s miracle; and tears shed for those of you still on the uncertain path to your own complicated family.

The family home that I was at a loss to build during the early separation became dad’s house 20 years ago on December 4th, 1993.  I soon realized that ‘we might have something pretty good here’ when my children referred to our place as ‘dad and Elaine’s home’.   

A miracle?

A few weeks ago, as we left the theatre on a cold, dreary evening. My arm dropped by my side and her hand instinctively found mine. My thought was that the ‘miracle or not’ was revealed in that act – that we were able to find each other’s hand in the best of times, but even more importantly during the inevitable chaos and adversity.

My Christmas and New Year’s hope is that everyone who is part of the Kids ‘n’ Dad extended family may find their way to build a dad’s home and even more.