From my own experience as a child of divorce and also going through a divorce myself with a young child, I feel that the most important thing to remember is not to ever put the kids in the middle of a fight between the two adults. It can also be the hardest thing to accomplish.
When emotions are running high, and especially if you see the other person telling your child things that are untrue or in any way harmful to the child or to you, it so so hard to hold your tongue and be the mature adult in the situation. But they will respect you so much more in the long run, trust me.
No matter how badly you want that child to know the "truth" about the situation, it does not help them! They don't need the truth right then, they need YOU. They don't want to know that the other parent is wrong or has done something bad or that you don't love that person anymore. They just want to know that you both love THEM and will always be their parents, no matter where you live.
The hardest part of my parents' divorce was having my mother bad-mouth my dad...a LOT. I didn't want to hear that my dad was an alcoholic, a bad person, a loser. I was nine years old for God's sake. I loved my dad. He had never done anything bad to me personally. And even if he had, I would have still loved him because he was my daddy. I wanted him in my life, no matter what. I knew he loved me...he told me so. I didn't want to hear how much he hurt my mother. That was between THEM.
Even at nine years old, I understood that they couldn't live together any longer and were getting divorced. But all I wanted to know was that they both loved me and they would both continue to be in my life forever, no matter what. That's all I needed to hear. I resented my mother for the way she talked about my dad. I still do to this day, even though I love her and have a decent relationship with her. It could have been better had she not done that.
My father died when I was 20 years old. It was terrible. I know my mother regretted that she had spoken about him the way she had, but she couldn't take it back. And now he was gone.
I tried to think about that and how it felt when I was going through my divorce. I wanted my son to continue to have a relationship with his father as much as possible, no matter how I felt about him. It sometimes took all I had not to say the things I was thinking about him or to try to protect my son from him when I knew he was saying things he should not say to our child, when he was on his visitations with him. It was something I couldn't control. I could only control how I reacted to it. Because letting my son see us fight would not have helped him at all.
I just continued to love and support him and as he got older he figured things out for himself. They have a wonderful way of doing that. As they get older and ask questions themselves, that's when they want and need the answers. He went through many ups and downs in his relationship with his dad, and still does to this day, but I know he appreciated the fact that I didn't try to interfere and let them work things out for themselves, and always always encouraged him to have a relationship with him, no matter what. Our life on this earth is never guaranteed, and when he goes, I will have no regrets.
Jeez, this is turning into a journal entry. Sorry. Maybe I should start a blog. Except nobody would read it. :roll:
|