Caught In the Middle

No one consciously wants to place their kids in the middle of the conflict...and yet, sadly, one way or another this is where most children of divorce land — no matter their age. And it’s not a trip to Disneyland for them.

Most parents can’t get out of their own way or believe that they are potentially causing lasting emotional damage for their kids. Of course, they aren’t awful people or intentionally trying to inflict harm. However, they are, and its impact can reach far and wide and cause destruction long into their lives and relationships.

That doesn’t mean that they have bad parents — they have human ones, navigating the emotional upheaval of their lives.

But it doesn’t have to be a mess. It can be a wonderful opportunity — a chance to guide your kids, to consciously communicate and connect with them in ways you haven’t before (and trust me, I don’t say those words lightly).

Yes, it takes work to get out ahead of that train wreck — and no, you’ll never get it perfectly. And yes, you are likely being pulled in a zillion directions at once — but you can’t be all things to everyone and show up in all places at one time. That’s a recipe for a crash and burn.

It’s precisely why HOW you divorce matters to not only you, but your kids as well.

There is a lot that can be avoided when we learn to communicate consciously — when we realize that we are not alone in this divorce. Our kids are there on the sidelines taking it all in; absorbing the energy, experiencing the pain, and trying to figure out all their own big feelings about what is happening to their family unit and their own lives.

I recently shared a passage in one of our group coaching classes from a book I’m currently reading (and loving) by Priscilla Gilman, author of the memoir A Critic’s Daughter.

It’s one thing to read divorce how-to books, it’s another to read about people’s experiences — particularly from a child of divorce.

Priscilla grew up in New York City torn between two successful and eccentric parents; her father, a famous theater critic and her mother, an acclaimed literary agent.

And still...they got it wrong, repeatedly, with their kids during divorce. It wasn’t that they didn’t care about their kids. To the contrary, they loved them dearly — they simply didn’t understand how to keep their children out of the conflict.

As they say...out of the mouth of babes.

 This is an excerpt where Priscilla writes about her mother’s ‘over-sharing’. Keep in mind that she was 10 years old at the time. It speaks for itself but is testament to the impact of our words...especially our unconscious ones.

“Each time my mother had disclosed more damning things about my father, she’d warned me not to share any of it with Claire (her sister); although just fourteen months younger, Claire was considered by both my parents to be fragile, incapable of handling “adult” information. I was a dutiful and obedient little girl; I never told anyone what I’d learned that day until I was much older.

But while Claire was to be protected, my mother was determined to deceive me no longer. She was an anti-romantic, a no-nonsense, direct truth-teller. She must have seethed as she watched her innocent children playing with, revering, adoring a childlike man she knew to be far from innocent. Part of the strain of being married to my father, she’d made clear, was covering for him, hiding his darker side. She was tired of deception. Tired of secrets. And I think she thought she was giving me Truth. She saw it as a gift, a healing blast of arctic air that in its bracing purity would do away with illusion, or a scalding light that purified as it burned away the masks and facades. No more gauzy fairyland for my father and me. No more seeing only part of a person. Enough with unquestioning love. It was time for criticism. It was time to grow up.

But what she was actually giving me was her Truth. Partial truths. Truths I probably shouldn’t have been given at my age and in the way she delivered them. She both turned me against my father and turned me toward him. I knew she was right about some of it. I wanted to prove her wrong about the rest.”

~ Priscilla Gilman, A Critic’s Daughter

This beautifully composed passage haunted me when I read it. We’ve all been there. We’ve all said something to our kids we regretted later. And [sigh] we are all human. We will get it wrong. We will say words we wish we hadn’t. We will get in our own way. We will make mistakes.

It’s what we do with it next that matters most — and it’s what we take away from that experience and how we move forward that makes the difference.

Your kids aren’t an afterthought. They can’t be shoved aside. And you want to know something...isolating them from all that’s unfolding as if you are somehow sheltering them can be as destructive as over-sharing.

There is a delicate balance — it is not one that is composed of perfect words in perfect timing. It is one that speaks from a grounded, heart-centered, intuitive space. It is one that invites conversation but doesn’t have all the answers. It is one that empowers our children through listening to them, giving them voice and teaching them accountability.

It is one that says, I’m sorry.

We cannot deny them their own feelings. It is our job to help them develop tools to process them. There is not one truth in a house, and they can cohabitate and heal together if we remain committed to not allowing our kids to be caught in the middle.

No one consciously wants to place their kids in the middle of the divorce conflict, but it takes conscious awareness to prevent it.

Learning how to do this is something you will never regret, mama. Ever. Ever. Ever.