Answer the questions, no matter how tough!!! (Children & Divorce)

Member Name: KELLY170980

Product:	Children & Divorce
Date:	01/12/08 (212 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: If parents can at all be amicable, it will make the experience less devastating for the children

Disadvantages: No child wants there mummy and daddy not to be together, and it can turn into a tug of war.

Children and divorce.........Well, this is something that I have no personal experience of whatsoever, so I can not harp on about this too much but I have four people close to me that have had this experience all in different ways and all have had different ways of dealing with it and i thought that some of their experiences may be of help or be of interest to others.

I know that over the years I have seen them all suffer in many ways or not suffer in other ways, but now I am a mother I can definatly say that I have thought of this, as although I am inlove with my husband and him with me...you never know what can happen and there have been times through out the last couple of years when i suffered from my post natel depression that i did think that "how on earth can my hubby put up with me" and "what will happen to the kids"...... it was silly to think this as my husband has supported me through everything but i had to ask him the question and Im glad that he also felt the same as me that we would try and be the best parents we could whether that be together or seperated.

Now I am very lucky as I have been with my husband for 11 years, married for four and we are still very happy, my parents have been together 29 years and my grandparents have been together 65 years, and all but one member of my family are happily married and have been for long periods of time....don't ask me why because I really do not know, My granddad says it's the women in the family we are all kind and generous and have lots of patience!!!! (We have to, to put up with the men in my family hehe!!) But seriously I think we are just very very lucky. But unfortunaly marriages do not always last especially these days and I think that when you decide to end a marriage you need to if possible be as grown up and as amicable as possible especially when having children.

My aunty thought this too and was happily married for five years, until she found out that her husband had been having an affair for all of those five years, so they split up and eventually divorced. At the time my aunty had a little boy of three and was pregnant with a little girl, now as you can imagine she was devastated and did not like her ex husband very much (that's a bit of a understatement... I think my whole family wanted to string him up by a particular part of his body) but she was determined to make sure that her son and her unborn child were not affected.

What she did, angered many members of my family at the time as by rights they were so upset with him for doing what he did and did not think he deserved my aunty being so kind to him, but she would not listen and now when we all look back we can see what she did was a very amazing and unselfish thing.

She sat down with her ex husband when she was 8 and half months pregnant and laid down the following rules;

* They share custody...one week she will have the children 3 days and the following week she will have them four days and so on.
* They share all holidays equally
* They go halves on all birthday/xmas presents and all other extra luxuries the children would have such as school trips or parties.
* They will never ever ever say anything bad about each other in front of the children
* They will always attend school plays/open evenings/sporting events etc together.

There were loads of other rules also they wrote down, and although my aunty says it was extremely difficult for her to do this, as she still loved him and in some ways she wanted him to suffer she could not do it to her children, as they would have suffered also.
Now don't get me wrong it was not easy at first, when my cousin came along although my auntie let her ex come in the delivery room, it was very awkward, and also afterwards she was breast feeding my cousin and she did not want to let her go overnight to her ex's, so they agreed for the first six months he would not have any overnight visits, but he took her and the baby to doctors appointments, for walks, came round for Sunday dinner etc etc and then once she was 6 months and then on to formula and food, he then started to have her at least 2 nights and then they increased it to the 3 and 4 nights when she became at a nursery age.

Now 18 years on, she has two very well adjusted children, whom love their parents very very much, they have great relationships with my aunties new husband also whom she married 4 years ago and also their dads wife (whom is the women he was having a affair with) they love to bits and they have two half sisters whom they adore. I have spoken to my cousins about how the divorce affected them my younger cousin says she never remembers her parents living together so she never knew any different and my boy cousin also says the same, and he thinks he had the best of both parents as he got loads of quality time and his parents always made the effort to make his life as pleasant as possible.

Its really weird sometimes to see there family.....like when my aunty got married again 4 years ago her ex and his wife and their children were there also, his two children were even flower girls...... was a bit crazy....especially when my granddad did his speech....he is 85 and does not mince his words!!! He actually said "she had to kiss a lot of frogs to find her prince, and one big toad also but at last she has found the one for her!!" it was quite funny....my Nan was kicking him under the table at the time!! Hehe!!

So overall I think this was a success story, if you can be adult about it no matter what the situation and put your children first I think it reduces the impact to them dramatically, but i suppose this depends on situations.


Now not all divorces are easy, and my best friend and also my husband both come from family's that have been divorced and remarried and it affected them very badly in different ways, for e.g. My best friend looked at her step father as her dad, as he had been there since she was a baby, which maybe caused a lot of jealousy etc and her biological father she stopped seeing when she was 12, as they just never had a close bond as they rarely saw eachother and when she was at the age of about 12, she had lots of questions she wanted answering and felt a bit confused and she just wanted him to tell her that he loved her and was proud of her, she had a big heart to heart with him and let out a lot of her anger, only to be told that he did not love her and they have never spoken since even though he still has a very close bond with her brother, this has caused her lots of depression throughout her life and made her feel inadequate, she is getting over it more so now, mainly because she is an amazing mum whom does not want her children to see her depressed, but it was a awful divorce process, and I think if it had been managed differently then possibly she may have had a stronger bond with her biological father and maybe saved a lot of years of hurt and confusion.

My husband also had it tough, he had a great mum and a great sister, whom he adores to death, but his father moved away when he was two and saw him maybe only a few times a year, and they have virtually no bond, its getting better since our children have been born and he and his father have made more of an effort and I hope one day they will become close or closer than they are, but there is still a lot of hurt even after all these years.

When people become parents they have a responsibility to do the best for their children, and I would hope if I was ever faced with this situation (which I hope to god never happens) that I could learn from my aunty and try to put my feelings to one side and put my children's happiness and well being first, as even if my husband hurt me, I know he is the most terrific father and would do anything for our children.

Again I will repeat I know that this is all very easy for me to say as I have never been through this, and I can imagine there are loads of different scenarios when you can not just put your feelings to one side, or sometimes maybe the other parents is not suitable to be a part of your Childs life, I would just say that as long as you put your children first and explain things to them along the way in a positive way, and answer all their questions, then I do not think you will see as a dramatic of an impact as many people I know.

Summary: Put the children first, and try and explain everything to them in a positive way.