Undivided Divorce
What is an empowered, loving, kid centric way to tell your kids you are separating?
I want to preface this post by sharing I am fortunate to have an incredible relationship with my soon to be ex-husband. We are best friends and support each other in many ways. We both have spent our lives dedicated to personal transformation and have a wide array of communication strategies and relationship tools to draw upon. In addition to our own knowledge, we called in an incredible support team, from a family behavioral specialist to a craniosacral therapist, to support us before, during, and after this transition. I know that many people are not in this position, and therefore the context for how they approach separation will be different. Hopefully you can still gain some gems from this post regardless of what your specific situation is.
My intention for this post is to share a way of communicating about separation with our children from a place of receptivity, inclusivity, and respect. When I began talking about my separation, most people assumed it was going to be a negative, traumatic experience for the kids. I knew in my heart that there were other possible outcomes that resulted in honesty and loving support. To achieve this, I knew it would require both parents doing what was needed to tend to their own heartbreak, fears, loss, etc. so that it wouldn’t be projected onto the children. We can experience hard things, and when held in a loving container where all emotions are welcome (without placing meaning upon them from our own assumptions), we can teach our children that they will not only be ok, but can thrive when faced with big change. As parents, this is one of the greatest gifts we can give because after all, “there is only one thing certain in life and that is change!”
It is relevant to share some highs and lows of the last few months since telling my husband I wanted to separate. As you will see, it wasn’t all polished and easy. It took a lot of self-care and presence with my own process to show up in the way I wanted to in the actual conversation with our kids. After feeling an incredible amount of liberation from finally speaking my authentic truth, a whole host of other emotions flooded forth. It seemed every time we talked about anything to do with our plan in the upcoming months, it would not go at all like I had envisioned it in my head. Instead, I would end up a hot mess, spewing my anger, resentment, and frustration all over my incredibly patient husband. It was like a dam burst and all of the emotions from my whole life poured out of me. I felt completely out of control at times, and often withdrew myself from our interaction many minutes too late. I could barely bring myself to apologize the next day because I was so emotionally charged about triggers that mostly had nothing to do with him. This happened at various points throughout the past few months. We kept a wide berth from one another for weeks at a time so I did not spill my mess out all over him. During that time, I did a lot of tending to the parts of me that had a lot of unexpressed feelings coming up. I also sought support from people other that my husband – friends, therapists, coaches – anyone but him.
The week before we planned to tell the kids, things got messy again. He finally said to me (and mind you I agreed), “if we are going to be able to talk about this transition with respect and appreciation for one another, you need to get your shit together.” He was right. I was causing a lot of unnecessary pain by projecting my emotional tidal waves onto him.
The evening before our last session with our behavioral therapist to review our plan of how we were going to tell the kids, I decided to pick up Katherine Woodward Thomas’s book Conscious Uncoupling. I had heard this phrase thrown around for a few years, and truth be told I didn’t think she would share anything I didn’t already know, so I didn’t bother to read it sooner. I immediately downloaded it and began reading. Her words spoke exactly to what was happening for me and it felt really good to know that my reactions were completely normal! She went on to say the choice between conscious and unconscious coupling is that you learn how to tend to your emotional state and create love and safety within. What a minute, this is literally what I do in my work with other women. How is it that I neglected to apply the wisdom I know so well in such a crucial moment? Serious survival, fight or flight brain, kicked in is how.
It is essential to take responsibility for our role in the challenges in our relationships. We must be willing to do the internal work to have completion with this relationship and not repeat the same unconscious patterns in our next relationship. Ideally, we will also meet our exs with compassion and understanding. You don’t have to be best friends, but you can make the choice to be a team. In order to do this, it is going to be important to clear up any stacked resentments. Some of this may be done before talking with the kids, and it may take longer to fully release and forgive yourself and your partner.
In the immediate weeks following our initial separation conversation, I felt immense amounts of rage, resentment, and anger that were tied to me making the choice for so long to not prioritize and honor my desires. I had been doing this long before my marriage. In fact, I had been doing it in every romantic relationship I ever had.
Over the months, these swells began to settle. The next set of giant waves that rolled in were deep feelings of grief, isolation, and fear, unintegrated from my parent’s marriage dissolving. The tools in the book helped me come back to my current day, aware self, and be able to talk with my husband from an open, loving, kid centric place.
It took a lot of emotional waves and some serious messiness for me to get to a place of calm and clarity in my heart. A few days before telling the kids, I was willing to put down my armor and stop pushing my big emotions out onto my husband. We were able to come up with a gorgeous plan that spoke of this transition as a new beginning where we were still family that loved one another. We shared that we tried many things and this was the next choice we were making so that each one of us could better thrive as individuals, and also as a family. We talked about how there were different kinds of love and that our love is more that of friends vs. husband and wife. We shared that we will be doing many activities together as a family and that they will have two homes to call their own. We encouraged them that this was a decision we made because our relationship was ready for an upgrade and that it had nothing to do with them. We then invited our son to ask any questions. The key was we kept it really simple and clear.
We told our 10-year-old son first. I was so impressed with his presence and response. He was shocked at first that we were moving out of our beloved house (a rental we had been in for 1 year.) After the initial surprise about moving, he was very receptive and understanding as we explained that our relationship was entering a new chapter. He asked a lot of clarifying questions. At a certain point, he didn’t have anymore questions and we complimented him on his openness and parted ways to allow the news to settle in. Throughout the day, my husband and I each checked in with him to gauge how he was digesting the news. He continued to be open and honest about his feelings. He did not hit a point of grief about us separating, but did have some sadness to process about moving. Two weeks have now passed since telling him and he seems to have integrated the news with a lot of grace and ease.
We sat down separately with our 2 1/2 year old daughter and simply told her we would soon be moving out of our current house and into 2 new houses. We said sometimes she will be with mama and sometimes with papa. She asked about her belongings and we told her she would have some at each house, plus some new things. Over the weeks, we have continued to have the upcoming move be mentioned in daily conversations so it would not be a surprise to her. We had already begun putting her to bed in blocks of 3 nights with one parent and then switching to the other. My husband began taking on more childcare duties so that it wasn’t such a stark contrast from me being her primary caretaker.
This is a huge transition. We are therefore moving forward with as much awareness as possible to best set us all up for success. We put a plan into motion to see one another every day for some period of time. We are going to have nightly dinners together for a month at whichever house the kids are staying. We will also both be there for the bedtime routine for the first couple of weeks. The kids will have access to calling the other parent whenever they want to. Lastly, we will both be available to take the kids on dates if either of them are really missing the other parent. To provide a united front, all of the logistical communication will take place parent to parent rather than kid to parent. As we settle into our new homes, we will begin to phase out the daily time with both parents to support each parent having autonomy and their own unique flow the children. Of course we will make any adjustments that are needed if something isn’t working well.
There is a way to do this that is expansive and nurturing to the family unit as a whole. Being conscious about the language used has a significant influence on inclusivity. For example, naming both houses “your house” vs. mom’s house and dad’s house, eliminates the confusion around “when we were all together it was our house. Now neither house is really mine.” We also chose not to use the word divorce because it has such a negative connotation. We talked with our son about how when he shares with others that his parents are moving into separate houses, he may be met with them assuming the worst. We wanted him to understand that everyone’s experience is unique and if theirs was challenging, it didn’t mean he was misunderstanding something about our choices and about to have a bomb dropped on him.
There are so many ways to have the conversation about separation with our kids. Hopefully if you arrived at the decision to separate, you did everything within yourself to conclude beyond a doubt that this was the best choice for you. If that is true, then it is the most loving choice. Your children will be understanding if approached with openness for them to express all of their feelings, ask any questions, and know there is a safe space to continue expressing. Children will thrive most when both parents are choosing lives that welcome as much joy and love as possible.
It is not an easy decision to end one version of family and step into the unknown of a different version. With commitment to tending to our own needs at the highest level, we can create options that feel inclusive and supportive for our children and both parents. No one left behind, all dancing forward, in the arms of the spirals of life.
Dare to Desire -
Kristen