Divorce is a stressful time for all-concerned. Depending on the personalities involved, the transition can move along on co-operative lines, via angry skirmishes or by plain suffering and doubt on all sides.
In a so-called ‘co-operative' divorce, both parents work together to restructure their own relationship and their family to allow the children as normal a relationship with each of them as possible. This means co-operating with each other as to finances, logistics and family commitments as well as actively supporting the children's emotional relationships with the other parent and the extended families. In co-operative divorces the parties consciously try not to engage in behaviour they understand to be inflammatory to the other side.
However, an angry divorce doesn't have to be an alienating one. Alienation occurs when both parents use their children to meet their own emotional needs or as innocent pawns to inflict retribution on the other side. The focus in determining whether or not there is alienation in an angry divorce must be, not on the degree of rage or loss expressed, but on the behavioural willingness to involve the children.
-
I need both of you to stay involved in my life. Please write or text me, make phone calls and ask me lots of questions. When I don't hear from either of you, I feel as if I'm not important and that neither of you really love me.
-
Please stop arguing and work hard to be friends. When you argue about me, I think that I must have done something wrong and I feel guilty.
I want to love you both and enjoy the time that I spend with each of you. I feel as if I need to take sides and love one of you more than the other.
-
Please communicate directly with each other so that I don't have to send messages back and forth.
-
When talking about my other parent, please say only nice things, or don't say anything at all. When you say horrible, unkind things about my other parent, I feel like you are expecting me to take your side against the other one.
-
Please remember that I want both of you to be a part of my life. I desperately need both of you to bring me up, to teach me what is important, and to help me when I have problems.
Most children feel angry, sad and frustrated about the prospect of their parents splitting up for good. How you deal with the situation will have an effect on your child throughout their life.
Ways to help your children
As well as reminders that they will be loved and cared for, reassure them about what they may fear. For example, "I know you are upset about moving, but we will make sure you can stay in the same school".
How many of us recognise this scenario: your partner comes home from work, makes a beeline for the drinks cabinet and then sulks off silently. You haven't had a real conversation for weeks. Lately there have been more and more arguments over money or late nights out, especially since you lost your job a few months ago, but no heart-to-hearts. Sex? What's that?
2008 was definitely a bad year, but for many couples this year has started out even worse. There seems to be no end in sight over the economy, and thousands of working people have suffered or seriously fear redundancy, with all the attendant misery and mental anguish that causes. Your relationship is on the rocks, and you both know it. But you aren't sure how to fix things - or if you really want to.
Of course, money isn't the only harbinger of doom. Illness, infidelity, sex, anger, communication problems - all can contribute to distress in marriage or other relationships. You may well be the sort of person who would rather beat yourself about the head rather than contemplate marriage counselling, thinking that that kind of thing is for other people. However, if the above scenario rings true at all, this may well be the right course of action for you. Sometimes we can be too close to a situation to think clearly, especially when it relates to something as personal as a relationship. That's where a counsellor trained in marriage counselling comes in.
