I’m a divorced mom, and I am happy my kids are with their dad this weekend.
I know that’s surprising to read.
Divorce stigma is powerful and real. We divorced parents carry shame and grief and worry around on our backs like three clingy monkeys. We feel the stigma when we fill out school paperwork that doesn’t allow for two houses and hear the constant pitying refrain of “oh, I’m sorry” when we talk about our “broken home.”
The truth is: lots about shared custody is complicated and difficult and sad. But there’s a secret part of this equation that we don’t talk about. Ever. Maybe we divorced parents are afraid being honest about any positive part of sharing custody, however small, might be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back and make us social outcasts forever.
Stigma, schtigma. I’m talking about it. Without further ado, here are the ten reasons I’m glad my three angels are with their dad this weekend.
10. I’m over cooking for people who have opinions: For the last week, I’ve put healthy, balanced meals on the table so my children could look at them and ask if this is what we’re having for dinner. No, this is the display dinner before I break out the burgers and fries. Of course this is what’s for dinner! Get your face right, child, I don’t want to see or hear that you and Brussels sprouts are not a thing.
9. My house is clean and will stay that way: If my children are ever lost in the woods, we will be able to find them by the trail of hair bands, chargers, and other assorted schmutz left in their wake. When my house is clean and they’re home, the tidiness doesn’t last long enough to snap a photo, let alone revel in it. I’ve learned to adjust my routine so the house is clean the day they leave. That gives me a weekend to look at neatly stacked magazines and easy-to-find remotes stacked near the couch before Monday arrives and the hurricane hits.
8. Car pool drop offs and pick ups are the sixth circle of hell: I drove for, wait for it, four hours yesterday and never left the five miles surrounding our home. I was at the same intersection five times. Each time, I had a different kid in the back. I may not drive at all this weekend, just to give the car a much-needed rest.
6. The kids miss their dad: I love my sweeties. My husband loves my sweeties. I’m their mama and he is a terrific stepfather. That doesn’t fill the daddy space in their hearts. Dad sleeps in and makes pancakes and knows all the silly viral videos they watched this week. He’s different from Mama. They need him.
5. I’m all out of words: Seriously, fresh out. I am asked to comment on 64,000 things a day. Yesterday, my 8-year-old asked me what planet I would be if I had to choose. Mostly, I love it. I want nothing more than to be fully connected and enmeshed in their busy lives. I appreciate that they want my opinion. It’s a privilege. Also, it is exhausting.
4. No more pop-quizzes: Who was the 15th president? What’s important about the Pythagorean Theorem? What’s for dinner April 23? Nope. All done. Google and Mama are signing off for the weekend.
3. I need to tag in my partner: This parenting gig is not for the faint of heart. My 15-year-old son is pushing hard against any limit I set, which is his job as a teenager. I’ve been the bad guy most of the week. Dad is prepped and ready to take over as the Master of No. No, you can’t meet your friends when your homework’s not done. No, girls can’t “hang” upstairs in your room with the door closed. No, you can’t finance a new phone. I’m glad to pass the No baton.
2. I miss my husband: Our life is loud and busy and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Four days a month, I connect with my husband in the way we might if we were newlyweds. Just us and the dog. We eat breakfast late and nap and stay up binge-watching totally inappropriate shows. It’s glorious, and I look forward to it. Blended family couples don’t get alone time at the start of their marriages; we must capture it where we can.
and finally...
1. They’re still mine, and they’ll be back: I’m happy to see them go because I’m finally at peace with our family’s regular and predictable rhythm. I love my children and they love me. I’d rather have them full time but that isn’t our path.
They’re not any less mine at Dad’s. They’ll be back. Our children are happy and healthy and loved and loving, just as they would be in a first family. They simply split time differently.
Secure in the knowledge that the kids are happy and healthy, I can pursue what keeps me happy and healthy too. I fill my reserves when the kids are with their dad, and that makes me a better mom when they come home to me.
Q. My parents broke up years ago and chose new partners that are far better suited for them. I was raised by four people I knew loved me. I was never asked to choose homes or parents. However, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day poses a problem for me. Got any ideas how I can acknowledge my stepparents while not slighting my mom and dad? What’s good ex-etiquette?
A. Good ex-etiquette is good behavior after divorce or separation based on the best interest of the child you share, and it sounds as if you have had parent figures who have done their best to do just that — put you first. Based on that, you may be worrying for nothing. If it was common place for your mom and dad to put their issues aside and let you love everyone who cares for you, it’s unlikely they will be offended by your affection for their partners. That’s how they raised you. Unfortunately, your question is proof that even though parents do a good job at co-parenting, a child of divorce can still feel torn. No one asked you to compare, yet you still feel as if acknowledging one means you may be slighting the other. It doesn’t have to be an “either/or situation.” It can be “also” if you let it.
The truth is, you have already answered your own question. It’s obvious you have a clear understanding that Mom is Mom and Dad is Dad, plus, you feel lucky to have two other people in your life who have loved and cared for you — so that’s exactly what you say. (Ex-etiquette rule No. 8, “Be honest and straightforward.”)
“On this day of all days, when it comes to mind how grateful I am to have a Mother (or Father) I adore, I would also like to thank you, (name of the partner), for your love and support.”
Sounds a little formal, I know, but something like that in your own words acknowledges your parent as a priority and lets your bonusparent know how grateful you are for his or her contribution. You may also want to consider acknowledging mom or dad. Good ex-etiquette does establish a pecking order — “Parents make the rules; bonusparents uphold them.” (Ex-etiquette rule No. 4)
From a mother’s perspective, it’s a great comfort to know your child is loved in their other parent’s home — and it goes a long way if it is acknowledged. Right around Mother’s Day was the first time my bonuskids’ mom acknowledged my contribution — she started out with something like, “Now that time has passed, and things have calmed down I know my kids are safe with you, and that’s all I really ever cared about.”
Then she came out and said, “Thank you for loving my kids.”
I liked that a lot. Still, do.
Finally, be kind to yourself. Do your best not to put yourself in the middle. Your parents didn’t. That was good ex-etiquette.
It’s time to stop bullying yourself into staying… One of the reasons making the decision to divorce is so painful – even when you know that leaving your marriage is absolutely the right thing to do – is that you believe doing so is wrong or bad.
So instead of sitting down with your spouse and having an honest discussion about ending your marriage, you remain stuck in your head (and your unhappy marriage) wondering how to divorce without feeling guilty.
Guilt is an emotional anchor and can prevent you from taking the actions you need to take care of yourself.
It’s tremendously difficult to shed because it’s based on the expectations you have of yourself. Expectations like being an amazing parent to your kids, being true to your spiritual and religious beliefs, keeping the promises you make to your spouse and yourself, and the family and friends who love and respect you. There’s nothing inherently wrong with these expectations – until you use them against yourself as a reason to feel guilty about even considering getting divorced, despite knowing the only way for you to feel true happiness is to leave your marriage.. So here you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Paralyzed and unable to move. Out of guilt.
But you can move forward, work through your guilt and gain the clarity and peace of mind you yearn for.
The first step is to work on your thoughts. As you continue to adjust your thoughts by allowing yourself to gather and consider more information, your emotions will shift away from the guilt. You can then begin your divorce journey from a place of respect for your spouse – and for yourself – rather than from a place of guilt, shame and blame.
Here are five tips for how to divorce without feeling guilty – for anything.
Feeling guilty about what divorce would do to your kids?
First, it is extremely important to understand that the commonly accepted “fact” that divorce destroys children is a lie. What makes divorce so hard for kids is how their parents react to and deal with it. If you and their other parent treat your children as messengers or spies, stop spending quality time with them because you’re too wrapped up in your life, stop showing them the love they deserve, cease giving them the structure and security they need, or talk poorly about their other parent when they are within earshot, your kids will certainly suffer. That doesn’t mean they aren’t suffering because of your divorce. It means they are suffering because of your poor behavior and role modeling. If you commit to being the best parent you can be and get the support you need to move past your divorce as completely as possible, you have nothing to feel guilty about.
Feeling guilty about betraying your spiritual and/or religious beliefs?
This type of guilt is usually based on fear of reprisal from On High. And this was something I really struggled with when I got divorced. In virtually all religious traditions The Deity is forgiving and teaches love. If this is true of your religious/spiritual view, then you know that others can be and are forgiven for their mistakes. And you’re no different from any other person, you make mistakes and you can be forgiven without the requirement to continue to feel guilty once you’ve asked for forgiveness. Even better, you take the time to learn the lessons from your experiences so you can move forward with enriching your spiritual and religious life. And, seriously, if God can forgive you, who are you to not forgive yourself? Feeling guilty about breaking your promise to your spouse? The fact is that people grow and change over time. You and your spouse are both different from the people who promised to live together for the rest of your lives. And chances are you’ve both neglected your marriage over the years. The best thing you can do now is acknowledge to yourself and to your spouse your own part in the demise of your marriage and apologize for it. And since this is the best you can do, there’s no reason to continue to beat yourself up for it, since castigating yourself won’t change anything. This is another opportunity for you to learn and change how you’ll do things in the future.
Feeling guilty about breaking your promise to yourself?
Again, you’ve changed over the years and so has your spouse. The truth is that you’ve always don’t your best given the circumstances you were in and the knowledge you had at that time. That doesn’t mean you were perfect or the ideal mate for your spouse, and that’s OK.
The promises we make to ourselves are the best we know how to make at the time to provide us with as much joy, as little pain, and as solid a sense of integrity as possible. As we mature, what makes us feel good about our lives changes – sometimes dramatically. Sometimes the only way to maintain personal integrity is to break a promise you made to yourself when you were a different person and to then let the guilt of having to break the promise dissipate.
Feeling guilty because of how your family and friends might react (or are reacting)?
You’ve probably heard the adage “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” This sentiment is an important one to remember as you continue your divorce journey. The people who truly love you want the best for you and sometimes their expectations and biases can get in the way. And when that happens they begin their efforts to induce guilt in you. When family or friends attempt to send you off on a guilt trip, their words and behavior say much more about them than about you. And that sometimes they turn out to be people who don’t matter in your life (at least in the moment).
These tips regarding how to divorce without feeling guilty all focus on how YOU think about and interpret things.
That’s because you need to change your thoughts and perspectives before you can start releasing the emotional anchor of guilt. As you continue to remind yourself of these ideas, you’ll start feeling more compassionate toward yourself and your soon-to-be-ex.
My alternating Saturday mornings are wildly different. In one weekend, I wake and stretch my toes, heave a big satisfactory sigh and smile into the quiet. I prepare my coffee, lazily curl up on my couch to read my newspaper and decide how I will spend the day in self-care and hobbies.
On the next weekend, I can hardly wait for my fifth-grader to come peek into my room so we can loudly make breakfast together in the hopes of stirring her 13-year old sister. The cheerful chaos of mapping out our activity-driven day ensues with the search for shin guards, identifying when homework will be done and getting caught up on the who’s in and out of their fast-paced, friend-swapping lives.
As a divorced parent, both weekends carry guilt.
In the first, I feel guilty for the sheer enjoyment I experience in down time. Often, the quiet lasts too long and I crave the chatter of my girls, and my heart sinks by Sunday evening with missing them. In the second, I feel guilty for having to “catch up” after the past couple of days without them. I have to balance the urge to “make up” for missing them with spoiling them and planning only fun-filled activities void of any normal parent-child responsibilities and chores.
I have learned in my own life and in watching divorced parents for nearly two decades, that navigating the hardness of co-parenting and never really getting used to not living 100 percent of the time with your children takes a lot of work. It also leads to some fairly universal new parenting perspectives.
We have to do it all, and that improves our overall parenting — even if it's exhausting. During our parenting time, we are 100 percent in charge and responsible for all things parenting, including new challenges and issues because we must be both mom and dad.
For me, I had to learn how to be more active with my kids because that was a role, pre-divorce, filled by their dad. He had to learn the art of matching hair bows to outfits and tracking all of the parenting to-dos. We are both now more complete parents, having had to fill both roles.
We have rich relationships with our kids. For better or worse, our children spend more one-on-one time with each of us than they ever did when we were a family unit. Despite the downside of never having us together, they do get undivided attention from each of us on a regular basis.
We have a deep appreciation for time spent with our kids. As any parent who has been away from their child on a business trip or an adult vacation has experienced, you miss your kids. You look forward to seeing them again. You cannot wait to hug them. Divorced parents experience this feeling toward their kids weekly. As a result, a deep appreciation grows post-divorce for the time you get with your children. It is rarely taken for granted and often treasured.
"An arch consists of two weaknesses which, leaning on each other, become a strength."
- Leonardo DaVinci
We all need help from time to time, especially when working through times of challenge and difficulty such as divorce or any other hardship. There should be no shame, embarrassment or pride that prevents us from seeking help, learning and inspiration from those who've been through similar challenges to us and who can help us to understand how they made it through.
"You have two hands, one to help others, the other to help yourself"
- Anon
There will always be those who are a few steps ahead of us and those a few steps behind. What's important is to help those we can help and to seek help from those who can help us.
Recognise where you need help in life and then seek it out; there is great power in doing so!
My thoughts on the importance of living for the now, looking to the future and letting go of the past (once you've learned the lessons from it of course!) How easy do you find it to stay in the now? Let me know your thoughts! Find more videos like this one over at the Divorced Lifestyle Design YouTube Channel!
Every so often a topic arises which isn’t, strictly speaking, in the financial realm I usually discuss, but nevertheless has important implications for women going through financially complex divorces. Social media is one of those topics. In my practice as a Divorce Financial Strategist™, I am seeing more and more that not only can social networks and digital communications contribute to the breakup of a marriage, they can have unforeseen consequences in divorce settlement negotiations, as well. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and other social media and professional networking websites and smartphone applications have become an important part of how people interact in today’s culture. They’re fun and useful, and these days, they’re second nature to many of us. When something happens in our lives, we post about it to let our friends know. When something happens in our careers, we update our profiles to enhance professional connections. We’re sharing personal and professional news, triumphs and tragedies, laughs and tears . . . . and lots and lots of pictures. Unfortunately, though, we sometimes do this without thinking through all the potential consequences. Not every “friend” is a friend. Not every connection is an ally. And many times, a message you thought was private turns out to be anything but. Here are some of the ways that social media activity can impact your divorce proceedings:
Online activity can provide clues to hidden assets or other dirty tricks.
Married couples often have dozens of mutual friends and connections. If the marriage breaks up, obviously some of these people will be more loyal to one spouse than the other. I’ve had more than one client report a steady stream of information about her estranged husband’s financial activities, as relayed by mutual friends who were still following his Facebook updates. So, even if he’s blocked you from seeing his posts directly, your mutual friends can still tell you all about the ski trip he took to Switzerland with his girlfriend a week after claiming he couldn’t afford to pay spousal support.
Yes, we can definitely add social media activity to the list of signs that your husband may be hiding assets during divorce. Sometimes it isn’t the husband’s online activity that gives him away, but his friends’. Maybe your husband’s pals shared pictures of their trip to Vegas in his new BMW, or his girlfriend updated her Facebook status to exclaim over an expensive present, when he just pleaded in Court that he’s broke. Or maybe a college friend of his suddenly appeared in pictures with a “new” boat –one you recognize as your husband’s, and suspect that this pal is holding it for him until your divorce is finalized. If you think your husband may be hiding assets, social media activity might well bear out your suspicions. You might also check to see what your husband is saying about himself on dating websites, compared to what he’s saying about himself in Court. Don’t assume he’s been smart enough to keep a low profile. His ego might overcome his better judgment.
Email and text messages can be admissible evidence in Court.
In addition to activity on social media and networking websites, emails and texts – the routine ways we communicate today – can sometimes be subpoenaed and gone through with a fine-tooth comb. If your husband refers even obliquely to an impending bonus, a new job offer, or a plan to “get away from it all for a few days,” this might be evidence that he is not telling the truth on his Financial Affidavit. At the very least, it could call his credibility into serious question. Family lawyers advise their clients not to put anything in an email, a text message, online or anywhere that they don’t want the judge to read. In the context of a divorce, if either party has shared information digitally that is at odds with what they’ve conveyed in person, or in legal documents, it can create serious problems. Lying on financial documents is a crime, and social media, email and text messages provide a potentially huge trail of evidence that can be hard to explain away.
This can all work in your favor. But remember, it all applies to you, too.
We’ve discussed ways social media can trip up your husband, but you also need to be exceedingly careful with your own online activity during divorce. Be absolutely sure you update your privacy settings on all social media accounts. Even better would be to follow this general rule: Don’t post, Tweet, or share anything that you wouldn’t say in person to the whole world, to be remembered forever.
This infographic provides a useful guideline for online conduct during divorce. In general, you should think of social media activity as both public and permanent. Even if you’ve deleted or hidden previous posts or photos, it is possible that someone has taken a screenshot of your page while they existed or were public, or that a cached version is still retrievable through a search engine. Even Snapchat, a picture-sharing app that’s popular because pictures shared through it “disappear” after a few seconds, is vulnerable to a quick screen shot by the photo’s recipient. So please, remember two things about social media as you go through the divorce process: 1) It may provide very useful information about your spouse, particularly if what he says in legal documents is at odds with what he posts online, and 2) He’s hearing that exact same advice from his divorce team. If you use social media yourself, you need to exercise caution, discretion and excellent judgment. Finally, please note that I’m not an attorney, and I don’t give legal advice. Laws about using email, texts and social media as evidence in divorce cases are notoriously convoluted, and also differ from state to state. Have a detailed discussion with your divorce attorney to find out what online information can be legally obtained and used in your case, and also how to protect your own privacy. Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jefflanders/2013/08/20/how-social-media-can-affect-your-divorce/#60bae1ce35a3
