Divorce

Divorce introduces a massive change into the life of a boy or girl no matter what the age. Witnessing loss of love between parents, having parents break their marriage commitment, adjusting to going back and forth between two different households, and the daily absence of one parent while living with the other, all create a challenging new family circumstance in which to live. In the personal history of the boy or girl, parental divorce is a watershed event. Life that follows is significantly changed from how life was before.

Somewhat different responses to this painful turn of events occur if the boy or girl is still in childhood or has entered adolescence. Basically, divorce tends to intensify the child's dependence and it tends to accelerate the adolescent's independence; it often elicits a more regressive response in the child and a more aggressive response in the adolescent. Consider why this variation may be so.

The child's world is a dependent one, closely connected to parents who are favored companions, heavily reliant on parental care, with family the major locus of one's social life. The adolescent world is a more independent one, more separated and distant from parents, more self-sufficient, where friends have become favored companions, and where the major locus of one's social life now extends outside of family into a larger world of life experience.

For the young child, divorce shakes trust in dependency on parents who now behave in an extremely undependable way. They surgically divide the family unit into two different households between which the child must learn to transit back and forth, for a while creating unfamiliarity, instability, and insecurity, never being able to be with one parent without having to be apart from the other.

Convincing a young child of the permanence of divorce can be hard when his intense longing fantasizes that somehow, some way, mom and dad will be living back together again someday. He relies on wishful thinking to help allay the pain of loss, holding onto hope for a parental reunion much longer than does the adolescent who is quicker to accept the finality of this unwelcome family change. Thus parents who put in a joint presence at special family celebrations and holiday events to recreate family closeness for the child only feed the child's fantasy and delay his adjustment.

The dependent child's short term reaction to divorce can be an anxious one. So much is different, new, unpredictable, and unknown that life becomes filled with scary questions? "What is going to happen to next?" "Who will take care of me?" "If my parents can lose for each other, can they lose love for me?" "With one parent moving out, what if I lose the other too?" Answering such worry questions with worst fears, the child's response can be regressive.

By reverting to a former way of functioning, more parental care-taking may be forthcoming. There can be separation anxieties, crying at bed times, breaking toilet training, bed-wetting, clinging, whining, tantrums, and temporary loss of established self-care skills, all of which can compel parental attention.

The child wants to feel more connected in a family situation where a major disconnection has occurred. Regression to earlier dependency can partly be an effort to elicit parental concern, bringing them close when divorce has pulled each of them further away - the resident parent now busier and more preoccupied, the absent parent simply less available because of being less around.

The more independent-minded adolescent tends to deal more aggressively to divorce, often reacting in a mad, rebellious way, more resolved to disregard family discipline and take care of himself since parents have failed to keep commitments to family that were originally made.

Where the child may have tried to get parents back, the adolescent may try to get back at parents. Where the child felt grief, the adolescence has a grievance. "If they can't be trusted to stay together and take care of the family, then I need to start relying more on myself." "If they can break their marriage and put themselves first, then I can put myself first too." "If they don't mind hurting me, then I can I don't mind hurting them."

Now the adolescent can act aggressively to take control of his life by behaving even more distantly and defiantly, more determined to live his life his way, more dedicated to his self-interest than before. He feels increasingly autonomous in a family situation that feels disconnected. He now feels more impelled and entitled to act on his own.

For the parent who divorces with an adolescent, the young person's increased dedication to self-interest must be harnessed by insisting on increased responsibility as more separation and independence from family occurs.

For the parent who divorces with a child, the priority is establishing a sense of family order and predictability. This means observing the three R's required to restore a child's trust in security, familiarity, and dependency - Routines, Rituals, and Reassurance.

Thus parents establish household and visitation Routines so the child knows what to expect. They allow the child to create Rituals to feel more in control of her life. And they provide continual Reassurance that the parents are as lovingly connected to the child as ever, and are committed to the making this new family arrangement work.

Divorce and children

WHAT NEXT FOR CHILDREN AFTER DIVORCE?

Divorce introduces a massive change into the life of a boy or girl no matter what the age. Witnessing loss of love between parents, having parents break their marriage commitment, adjusting to going back and forth between two different households, and the daily absence of one parent while living with the other, all create a challenging new family circumstance in which to live. In the personal history of the boy or girl, parental divorce is a watershed event. Life that follows is significantly changed from how life was before.

Somewhat different responses to this painful turn of events occur if the boy or girl is still in childhood or has entered adolescence. Basically, divorce tends to intensify the child's dependence and it tends to accelerate the adolescent's independence; it often elicits a more regressive response in the child and a more aggressive response in the adolescent. Consider why this variation may be so.

The child's world is a dependent one, closely connected to parents who are favored companions, heavily reliant on parental care, with family the major locus of one's social life. The adolescent world is a more independent one, more separated and distant from parents, more self-sufficient, where friends have become favored companions, and where the major locus of one's social life now extends outside of family into a larger world of life experience.

For the young child, divorce shakes trust in dependency on parents who now behave in an extremely undependable way. They surgically divide the family unit into two different households between which the child must learn to transit back and forth, for a while creating unfamiliarity, instability, and insecurity, never being able to be with one parent without having to be apart from the other.

Convincing a young child of the permanence of divorce can be hard when his intense longing fantasizes that somehow, some way, mom and dad will be living back together again someday. He relies on wishful thinking to help allay the pain of loss, holding onto hope for a parental reunion much longer than does the adolescent who is quicker to accept the finality of this unwelcome family change. Thus parents who put in a joint presence at special family celebrations and holiday events to recreate family closeness for the child only feed the child's fantasy and delay his adjustment.

The dependent child's short term reaction to divorce can be an anxious one. So much is different, new, unpredictable, and unknown that life becomes filled with scary questions? "What is going to happen to next?" "Who will take care of me?" "If my parents can lose for each other, can they lose love for me?" "With one parent moving out, what if I lose the other too?" Answering such worry questions with worst fears, the child's response can be regressive.

By reverting to a former way of functioning, more parental care-taking may be forthcoming. There can be separation anxieties, crying at bed times, breaking toilet training, bed-wetting, clinging, whining, tantrums, and temporary loss of established self-care skills, all of which can compel parental attention.

The child wants to feel more connected in a family situation where a major disconnection has occurred. Regression to earlier dependency can partly be an effort to elicit parental concern, bringing them close when divorce has pulled each of them further away - the resident parent now busier and more preoccupied, the absent parent simply less available because of being less around.

The more independent-minded adolescent tends to deal more aggressively to divorce, often reacting in a mad, rebellious way, more resolved to disregard family discipline and take care of himself since parents have failed to keep commitments to family that were originally made.

Where the child may have tried to get parents back, the adolescent may try to get back at parents. Where the child felt grief, the adolescence has a grievance. "If they can't be trusted to stay together and take care of the family, then I need to start relying more on myself." "If they can break their marriage and put themselves first, then I can put myself first too." "If they don't mind hurting me, then I can I don't mind hurting them."

Now the adolescent can act aggressively to take control of his life by behaving even more distantly and defiantly, more determined to live his life his way, more dedicated to his self-interest than before. He feels increasingly autonomous in a family situation that feels disconnected. He now feels more impelled and entitled to act on his own.

For the parent who divorces with an adolescent, the young person's increased dedication to self-interest must be harnessed by insisting on increased responsibility as more separation and independence from family occurs.

For the parent who divorces with a child, the priority is establishing a sense of family order and predictability. This means observing the three R's required to restore a child's trust in security, familiarity, and dependency - Routines, Rituals, and Reassurance.

Thus parents establish household and visitation Routines so the child knows what to expect. They allow the child to create Rituals to feel more in control of her life. And they provide continual Reassurance that the parents are as lovingly connected to the child as ever, and are committed to the making this new family arrangement work.

Pillars of marriage

We all know that a marriage without trust is like a car without gas, it just won’t run. Knowing how to regain trust and even better yet, maintain it in the first place is essential to creating a thriving marriage relationship.

But did you ever consider that there are different kinds of trust and we need all 4 of them to make our relationship work?

This great article on Your Tango talks about the different kinds of trust your marriage needs and was the inspiration for this week’s post.

Even though we are all familiar with wedding vows, to love honor and cherish, there are promises that we might never say out loud that are the foundation for a marriage to last and, more importantly, be happy.

Safety, Faithfulness, Commitment and Reliability are 4 pillars of trust every marriage needs.  If any one of these is missing, the roof starts caving in and the relationship starts to deteriorate.

Here is why they are so important:

Safety

Marriages thrive when both partners feel safe and secure.

You have to trust that your partner isn’t going to hurt you, to be able to reach out to them when you need help, to be vulnerableand share your life with them as well as your hopes and dreams.

Whether it’s physical or verbal – any kind of rejection chips away at trust.

One form of rejection that you may not be aware of, is the all too common “nagging.” If you nag, you are saying, “I don’t trust you will do your part.”

A loving reminder is okay. “Nagging” is a sign that there is a trust issue that hasn’t been addressed and a deeper conversation is called for. The next time you hear it or feel tempted to do it – pause and ask, “What is really needed here?”

That goes two ways – we also have to keep our commitments once we make them. More on reliability later in this post.

Faithfulness

Another kind of trust that marriages need is faithfulness. That goes without saying right?

Without sexual fidelity we just can’t develop any of the other types of trust.

Physical fidelity and emotional fidelity go hand in hand, so sharing your secrets with your spouse is actually a way to build emotional faithfulness in your marriage.

Marriage researcher John Gottman says, “Trust is built in very small moments in which one person turns toward their partner when they’re in need. When our partner responds positively, by “being there” for us, that builds trust.”

Once we are “there” for each other over and over again, we can also begin to trust each other in the face of anger or upset.

Going back to that feeling of safety – we all want to know that person will be there even when something is going wrong.

Having a ground rule that says, “its okay to be angry, I am not going anywhere,” is a very important building block to trust and like emotional cement in your relationship.

Commitment

It’s also critical that both partners declare their marriage as a top priority both in spending time together and in carrying out the commitments of daily life.

First, by investing time in your relationship, that shows the other person they matter to you. You are putting them above other things. It also helps build trust because you are creating evidence that you are reliable, that you can be counted on and trusted. The ability to rely on each other as a team is essential to sustain trust over time.

Reliability

As you can see, each pillar builds and supports the other. Reliability is the glue that holds all the pillars together as – trusting you will do what you say you will do is essential for safety, faithfulness and commitment.

Knowing the ingredients of what creates trust can also help you see if there is an area in your marriage where you are not feeling or expressing trust. This way you can re-build that pillar before it breaks down.

Domestic violence

What is domestic violence?

Domestic violence is any kind of behavior that a person uses, or threatens to use, to control an intimate partner. The two key elements are threat and control. Domestic violence can take various forms:

The day you raise your hand to a woman, that'ts the day you're officially no longer a man!

Physical – Violent actions such as hitting, beating, pushing, and kicking. In many cases physical abuse becomes more frequent and severe over time.

Sexual – Includes any sexual acts that are forced on one partner by the other

Psychological – Includes a wide range of behaviors such as intimidation, isolating the victim from friends and family, controlling where the victim goes, making the victim feel guilty or crazy, and making unreasonable demands

Emotional – Undermining an individual’s self-esteem, constant criticism, insults, put-downs, and name-calling

Economic – Examples include limiting the victim’s access to family income, preventing the victim from working or forcing the victim to work, destroying the victim’s property, and making all the financial decisions

Characteristics of victims

• Female, although men can also experience domestic violence
• Younger, often in their 20’s and 30’s
• More likely to be dating or cohabiting than married
• Nearly half live in households with children

Why do women stay?

Women often stay with their abusers because of fear. They are afraid that the abuser will become more violent if they try to leave. Some fear that they will lose their children. Many believe that they cannot make it on their own.

Some abused women believe that the abuse is their fault. They think that they can stop the abuse if they just act
differently. Some cannot admit that they are abused women. Others feel pressured to stay in the relationship. They may feel cut off from social support and resources. Abused women often feel that they are alone, and have no where to turn for help. 

Family

                              WHAT IS FAMILY?

                             
What is family? This, he asks me all the time. Standard definition describes family as a group of people affiliated by birth, marriage or co-residence and /or share consumption.

Growing up, with reference to the Holy Bible, his Sunday school teacher made him understand that a family is basically made up of a father, mother and their children. In addition to that, he was told that there is the extended family which now brings the aunties, uncles, cousins and grandparents into the picture.

Primary school brought a whole new concept into his understanding of a family. His teachers then, made him understand that aside from what he knew to be a family, there was another complex aspect to it. Complex, he says, because as a child he had a very hard time adapting to life in a bigamous marriage.

 A bigamous marriage is where one man has multiple wives and each wife is unknown to the other and this is where his moved to, coming from the normal family structure.

From bigamous marriages, most gradually move to polygamous relationships where the wives in this case become aware of the other women they are with, in the same marriage. Polygamous relationships can be broken down into three groups;

         i.            Polygamous – in this case we have one man having multiple wives. This is the most common in many parts of the world.

       ii.            Polyandrous – here we now have one woman having multiple husbands. Rarely do we come across such.

      iii.            Polyamorous – in this case we have multiple females being involved with multiple males. Such cases too, are very rare.

Given a choice, I cannot support bigamous marriages or polygamous relationships, because with them comes a lot of disadvantages rather than the advantages. The situation is even worse when young kids are brought into the picture. This is because at such a young age they do not possess the ability to be able to cope with such situations. They are not able to understand how two different women are able to bring forth one child.

With time, many more issues arise such as: jealousy, envy, financial difficulties, greed and the like. Having seen all this then being in a polygamous relationship is not worth anyone’s time and effort.

Let us stick the basic family concept of father, mother and their children, for a stable family structure enables good upbringing of children.