I met a woman this past week who shared her tragic experience of her parent's divorce. She was 18 when it happened and one of her sisters was 4 years old. It was a bitter, contested divorce, with both parents using the children as spies and messengers. She shared with me that after her youngest sister would visit with their father, her mother, regardless of the hour of night, would wake her and demand to know who her father was with, what they did, and even forced her to show her where her father was living. Had she refused, she feared she would have been beaten. As a result, their father would scold the younger sister for being a snitch, and complain to her that she should keep her mouth shut. Now, as young adults, neither daughter has a relationship with their father: there is a complete lack of trust, and resentment by and between father and daughters; Mother continues to bad mouth father to their daughters (even as adults), causing resentment and animosity between mother and daughters. At her own wedding, the woman told me that she was in tears, pleading with her mother to stop making a scene in the Church because of her father's presence. Her child's birthdays are torture for her because she fears how her parents will behave and who they will bring.
In short, beyond robbing their children of a childhood, they continue to torture them, emotionally, with their selfish behavior. They are not, in and of themselves, bad people. They are people who either cannot or will not see beyond their own hurt and anger, such that they are blind to the collateral damage they have caused and continue to cause. They are people who learned to handle conflict in an unhealthy manner, perhaps from their own childhood experiences. This family, or even any one member, would do well to work with a divorce coach, even now that the divorce is long since over. Learning how to disengage from the battle and how to become the safe place for yourself and your children gives an opportunity for healthy growth, regardless of what the other parent is doing. A child can also learn these tools, especially as an adult having lived through the nightmare, that will help model for their own children how to disengage and redirect offensive behavior in a conflict.
I have never met a parent who's goal was to harm his/her children, physically or emotionally. In divorce, taking care of yourself and your children, while battling an offensive and/or attacking spouse is a tremendous challenge: so many hidden traps and pitfalls. Having a guide makes all the difference between a healthy divorce and a destructive one. I am so blessed to be and have qualified guides in my practice for my clients. I am so blessed to have the opportunity and the resources to prevent these types of experiences for future children of divorce.
