Some time ago, I read an article in the Washington Post entitled, “My Parents Divorced Yet Continued to Live Together.” The author, Mekita Rivas, whose divorced parents lived together for 10 years post-divorce, wrote about the confusion and complications of their choices and the impact on her as a child.
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When a marriage ends, all parties grieve differently. The healing process for the divorcing couple often looks and feels very different from the children’s process. The myriad changes following divorce really impact the children. Parents who have been in painful relationships can be very eager to form a new relationship, and for their children to meet the new significant other in their lives. They may feel that their children need to see them in a healthy and happy relationship that they didn’t see during the marriage. Parents may also feel that they don’t have enough time with their new partner and with their children, and seek to maximize the time by spending time altogether. Unfortunately, many parents have a hard time seeing this experience through the eyes of their children and its impact on them.
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I recently had one of the most moving and powerful experiences of my career with a high-conflict divorced couple and their 7-year-old child (identifying information has been changed). Filled with tremendous gratitude, I want to share it as an example of why it is so important to be intentional, careful, and collaborative when explaining divorce to children.
In this case, the parents have been living separately for almost 2 years. The initial separation immediately followed a violent episode that involved the police. As a result, an order of protection was in place precluding the parents from being in the same room, emailing, or calling each other. Read More
Divorce is challenging and difficult to recover from — often because parents become stuck in battles of A vs. B. An A vs. B mentality inherently creates a scenario of right vs. wrong. In other words, if A is right, then B must be wrong. Read More
When we think of the ripple effects of divorce, we tend to think about the effects on the immediate family — the children of the divorcing couple in particular.
Divorce not only affects the nuclear family, but extends from generation to generation. In this article, I will share a colleague’s story about the profound and devastating effects of divorce on her and her family. Her hope in sharing this, as is ours at My Divorce Recovery, is that parents can focus their energies on progress and teamwork — rather than conflict. Read More
During this past Halloween, I was reminded that this holiday is often a flashpoint for conflict between parents who are divorcing or have already divorced. In many of the families that I work with, there were issues around the timing and act of trick-or-treating, costumes, dinner, etc. Read More
The holidays are stressful for families—and stress does not discriminate. It applies to families of all shapes and sizes including those that are intact, separated, or divorced.
For families that have the additional challenge of recent divorce or separation, the first holiday season can be very difficult to navigate—there can, and probably will be, significant differences from what the children, and their parents, are used to (especially if the holidays are not celebrated together). Read More
My Divorce Recovery
Jeffrey Zimmerman, Ph.D., ABPP
JeffZimmermanPhD@MyDivorceRecovery.com
212-485-0033
Lauren Behrman, Ph.D.
LaurenBehrmanPhD@MyDivorceRecovery.com
212-799-7921
When the college-age children of divorced families begin their journey out of the nest and onto the quad, the best gift to give them is the peace of mind that comes in knowing their foundation is still there. The last thing they want—as they’re preparing for their SATs, ACTs and writing their essays—is to worry about the conflict between mom and dad regarding which colleges they can think about, because mom and dad have not come to an agreement in advance.
Last spring, Jeff and I conducted a series of workshops and seminars for professionals in Wuhan, China. In one of the workshops, we asked the participants to write letters as if they were children caught in the middle of divorcing parents. Read More