Institute of Step-Family Dynamics

Tag: divorce

  • Should I give up fighting for my alienated child?

    Should I give up fighting for my alienated child?

    This heartbreaking question is one I see a lot in support groups.

    Fighting in family court is brutal.

    It’s hugely expensive, not just financially but also mentally, physically, emotionally. It can also take a tremendous toll on our relationships with those around us. If you’ve been battling in court for years, then you are very possibly tapped out and wondering whether you can go on. You will be given all sorts of conflicting advice – never give up!!! Stop this, it’s killing you and you’ll never win. And on and on. Ultimately, the only person who can decide when enough is enough is you.

    My hunny spent 8 years off and on fighting in family court to be a parent to his children. It was grueling, it put our lives in a holding pattern for years because we lacked the resource to do anything else. He reached breaking point when he found out days before court that his ex wasn’t going to move to the town she said she was. We had given up our home, all ready to move to that town and have 50/50 care of the children. It was going to be almost impossible for him to win in court.

    He said to me – I can’t keep doing this to the children. They were well down the path to full blown alienation at this point. We were hanging on to a relationship with them in our home, but outside our home they were bad mouthing us, telling lies etc. He knew if he kept fighting, they would be put under more pressure to reject us and it was taking a toll on them. He decided in that moment that he would accept reduced time, give their mother everything she wanted and focus on building a good life while being basically a disneyland dad. The children were 9, 8, and 6.

    It took less than a year before things started to go awry. The children complained about not spending time with us, the eldest struggled hugely at school and with his mental health and we ended up back in court under urgency. That time my hunny took to step back was enough to hold him through the next round of court, where he ended up with 50/50 care.

    Family court with a high conflict person is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s ok to take time out to rest and heal. It’s ok to build a life that works for you, in fact it’s not just ok, it’s essential. We need to be in our best shape for the moment the children need us to get back in the fight or for when they are old enough to want to pursue and rediscover a relationship.

    Parenting doesn’t magically end when the court deems it does, or a child ages out of the agreement. Parenting is a life long journey, our adult children sometimes need us more than they did when they were children.

    We need to make sure we look after ourselves well enough to hold hope, and when we get depleted, have people around us who can hold hope for us.

    The best thing we can do for our alienated children is our own internal work, so that we deal with our wounds and inner pain. This means we can be the healthy, happy parent they need us to be.

  • How to deal with an overstepping ex or stepparent

    How to deal with an overstepping ex or stepparent

    If I had a dollar for every time I heard about someone overstepping in a step-family dynamic, I would be a very rich woman. It is right up there with some of the most common complaints in a step-family.

    So what exactly is overstepping? Who decides?

    In simple terms, it’s when one person intrudes on the space/boundary/home etc of another.

    For some mamas, it means whenever a stepmum performs a mothering task without the consent of the mother.

    For some stepmums, it means whenever a mum tries to insert her opinions/demands into the home of the stepmum.

    Gosh – does anyone else see what I see?

    When we try and control what happens in the other home, it can often feel like overstepping.

    Women tend to feel like their counterpart is overstepping more than males, in my experience. I think this is in part due to the expectations placed on women to parent and run households. We are socialised to see women as nurturers and caregivers and many parents tend to expect their female partners to step straight into a mothering role. This can feel incredibly offensive to a mother who is used to be the sole female role model and carer in her children’s lives. It can be difficult for a mum to step back and allow another women to ‘mother’ her children.

    In a healthy dynamic, where step/parents are solid and secure in their roles, they can have conversations about co-parenting and make joint decisions about parenting. If you have an over stepper, then it’s almost impossible to have those conversations and co-parent.

    Here are some golden rules to help with overstepping

    1) Parents do not have to parent with their ex’s new partner.

    Not going to lie, this one was a hard one for me to grasp first off. I expected a seat at the parenting table. My hunny demanded a seat at the parenting table for me. Unsurprisingly, his ex was not on board with that. It caused a huge amount of conflict. Now my feeling is…

    I’m very glad to step back and allow my partner and his ex to parent together outside our home. In our home, my partner and I parent together.

    Anita Inglis

    2) Stepparents do not have to parent with their partner’s ex.

    I saw a post recently accusing an ex and stepparent of parental alienation because the stepmum wasn’t getting permission from the mother before parenting in her home. People, that is not parental alienation, that is boundaries. If you are demanding people comply with your values and opinions in their home, you are the over stepper.

    3) You can only make the rules for your home

    In the ideal world, children would have the same expectations and similar experiences in each home. If people had the same values and expectations, they probably wouldn’t have gone their separate ways in the first place.

    People separate/divorce usually because they don’t agree on some fundamental issues. Expecting those differences to magically disappear when it comes to parenting in different houses, especially with new partners, seems naïve at best.

    4) Conflict between homes creates loyalty binds for children

    There is a huge difference between conflict and disagreement and pathogenic parenting/parental alienation. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of confusion as to what PAS is and people will accuse people setting boundaries and reacting to their overstepping of engaging in parental alienation.

    Look at what messages you are sending your children. Are you making it uncomfortable for them to be around you because of your attitudes to the family in the other house? Are you complaining about your ex or their partner overstepping? Are you demanding your ‘rights’ at the expense of both sides of the child’s family being able to participate or be involved?

    If you are, then you are the one creating the loyalty binds. In situation like this, children may reject you or choose the other house over you. Your attitude and the drama and discomfort it creates may mean the child seeks to limit time with you, so as not to be exposed to your upset and unkind words about people they love.

    5) Children don’t reject emotionally healthy parents who don’t abuse them without some form of coercion from an outside source.

    This is one of the foundational tenets of whether a child rejecting a parent is because of pathogenic parenting/alienation.

    • Emotionally healthy parents don’t attempt to control what happens in the other home.
    • Emotionally healthy parents don’t attempt to restrict the involvement their ex or their ex’s new partner in the children’s lives, unless there is abuse. Not doing what you want them to do is not abuse.
    • Emotionally healthy parents don’t make their children feel they have to choose who is going to be at an event to support them.

    If you feel like your ex or their partner is overstepping, take a moment to check your expectations.

    Am I trying to control what is happening in their home?

    Am I trying to control what role the new partner is playing in my children’s lives?

    Am I trying to control or do I believe I have the right to dictate/control?

    If the answer to any of these or similar questions is yes – you might the be one overstepping.

    If the answer is no, and you are dealing with a high conflict ex, check out this article for some ideas of how to manage that relationship more calmly

  • A Guide to Parallel Parenting with a High Conflict Ex

    A Guide to Parallel Parenting with a High Conflict Ex

    Everyone in a high conflict situation likes to think the difficult ex is a narcissist. Clinically diagnosed narcissists make up between 1 to 15% of the US population, so all of the ‘narcissistic exes’ are not all narcissists. The sad news is people don’t have to be narcissists to be challenging to parent with! 

    Letting go of the labeling and the name calling can be a vital first step towards finding peace in the parallel parenting world. We can step outside of the victim mode of dealing with someone we feel is impossible and start creating a world we can feel some control and autonomy – in our homes at least. But first we need to fully define parallel parenting and why it might be the ideal approach to a high-conflict situation.

    What is parallel parenting and why is it helpful when dealing with a narcissistic (or challenging) ex?

    Parallel parenting, very simply put, is your house,  your rules. The flip side of that, and one that people find less appealing, is that it also means their house, their rules. Parallel parenting means taking an inventory of the things that are within your control — for example, bedtimes in your home —and the things that are not, such as bedtimes in the other house.

    People with high conflict natures and personality disorders tend to crave conflict because conflict equals interaction and attention. Just like kids will sometimes act out even if the only response they will get is a negative one, those people who crave attention and interaction are happy to get your energy even if that energy is anger and resentment. Often, people with personality disorders and a predilection for drama have been fed negative attention as their dominant source of attention since childhood, so they don’t know any other way of doing or being.

    This is an important clue. We can unwittingly become a source of sustenance if we keep engaging with someone hooked on negative attention. Our attempts to diffuse, while well-intended, do little more than feed the addiction. In turn, we become frustrated because it doesn’t matter how reasonable we try to be. There is just no reasoning. 

    So now that we know what parallel parenting is, let’s talk about why it’s helpful during high-conflict situations. 

    Parallel parenting gives us the opportunity to take back our power and limit communication. 

    If we stick firmly to the idea that in our house we make the rules, all of the noise from that high conflict person surrounding what we are doing wrong, why we are bad parents, and why we should be doing things their way becomes just that — noise. I often tell my clients to channel a sassy old English woman when they are being hit with a tirade and respond in their heads, “That’s nice dear.” Those attempts to drag us into conflict don’t warrant or deserve our energy. We can keep our responses very brief and to the point, lacking in emotion, and pleasant. Check out the BIFF or Grey Rock responses for more information about this.

    What this means for the actual practice of parenting

    After many years of trying different methods, my hunny and I have found a process that works really well for us. He and I parent together in our house. We set the boundaries and the tone, we decide the consequences, and we enforce those consequences. There is zero expectation that our values, rules, or consequences will be supported in mum’s house. This also means that any rules, values, or consequences from her house stay there.

    If a child has had their device taken off them in either home, there is no expectation the other home will carry on that consequence. There are a couple of reasons we have chosen this approach. Firstly, there was no co-parenting in our situation. I’m talking zero communication about the most basic things like toilet training or nap times. It was a very high conflict situation, and the children were constantly being told how stupid and wrong we were by their mother. Thirdly, we didn’t agree with the fundamental parenting approach of the ex.

    So with all of that in mind, it would make zero sense to continue enforcing values and rules we don’t agree with. For example, one child might be scapegoated in one home, which is fairly common when narcissistic traits are present. They may consistently be punished for things that were not their fault, so why would we carry on that inequity? Switching home environments is hard, so it’s important that kids have perks here and there, like getting a fresh start.

    Outside of our home, when it comes to things like medical, legal, and education decisions, there are laws in place that put the responsibility of decision making on both parents. It can be incredibly difficult to do this when a high conflict ex refuses to co-parent on these matters. We have found that it requires consistent boundaries and accountability. 

    For example, one child in our stepfamily had blood tests recently. We waited and waited for the ex to inform my husband of the initial appointment and subsequent test results. In the end, he asked her outright. The response of “I just got the results back” was an outright lie, as we know she’s had them for weeks. She then gave a partial report. Is there any point in calling out the lie? No. However, it is important to keep holding her to account to share information. Each time we become aware of another breach, my husband will text requesting the information.

    Narcissistic or not, parents can get very territorial. They can become self-righteous and feel entitled to tell us how we should or shouldn’t be parenting. Parallel parenting gives us the option to “pay them no mind” when this happens! We can sit solidly in our decisions and the parenting we choose to perform in our own homes. 

    Protecting the couple relationship amid the drama

    A critical part of parallel parenting is focusing on your relationship with your partner. The couple relationship is the foundation of a stable step-family unit. It’s far too easy to let a high conflict person come between us. Find common ground and establish your own family culture that embodies your shared values as both a couple and your goals as a family unit.

  • What Is (And Isn’t) Parental Alienation Syndrome?

    What Is (And Isn’t) Parental Alienation Syndrome?

    This article was first published in Stepparentmagazine.com

    Parental Alienation Syndrome or PAS is one of the most incorrectly used terms in the step-family world. It’s a word that can often send court-appointed officials running for the hills, or rolling their eyes so far back in the heads their eyes get whiplash. Why is this term so widely misused and misunderstood? And what does it actually mean?

    Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) was a term coined by Dr Richard Gardner. He used it to describe children who rejected a non-abusive parent. This is where the incorrect understanding about PAS begins. Most people think PAS refers to the behaviour of a parent who is trying to damage the relationship between the child and the other parent.

    A parent won’t let the child talk on the phone , withholds important information, doesn’t follow the parenting order, withholds the children – it’s PAS, it’s parental alienation syndrome people claim. Well, actually no, none of those things are parental alienation syndrome. They may be alienating behaviours, or as I prefer to call them, pathogenic parenting. They are not PAS. PAS is what occurs as a result of those behaviours.

    Parental Alienation Syndrome is when the child rejects the parent. The child refuses a relationship with the parent. It’s nothing a parent does, it’s all about the child and his/her behaviour and responses.

    Why is this such a controversial term, and why are so many professionals dismissive of it? Why is it not an officially recognised condition?

    The original findings of Dr Gardner stated that alienating parents tended to be women. So the foundational belief was that women were the perpetrators of alienation behaviour, and the victims were children and men. As Dr Gardner did more work in the field, he found that it was a pretty even spread between the genders, and both men and women were indulging in alienating behaviour, but the initial findings are what many professionals identify. The damage was done.  It is not recognised as an official disorder by the American Psychological Society. PAS is seen by many professionals as misogynistic; dangerous for women and children escaping domestic abuse. The fear is that abusive men use the term to try and discredit women who are trying to protect themselves and their children.

    In fact, I heard a leading expert on domestic violence in New Zealand say exactly that. His description of PAS was that it was appalling and used by men to further abuse women. This narrative was very different to both my experience and understanding of what PAS actually is, but gave me a deeper insight into why the court system is so wary when parents, particularly fathers, bring this up in cusotdy disputes.

    When you combine this with the prevailing paradigm exploited by many women who use alienating behaviour, which is that the children are scared of their father he is an awful person; it’s unsurprising fathers are not met with understanding or empathy when they raise the PAS question in custody battles. Women are also victims of this behaviour, with fathers using PAS as a way to discredit loving mothers.

    So let me recap. Many court officials will have a view that PAS is used by abusive men to try and discredit mothers who are trying to protect themselves and their children. Many mothers who are attempting to cut their children off from the children’s father will claim bullying, fear, and the children/themselves are unsafe with the father. This plays right into the stereotypes of the concerns of court appointed officials, who worry about protecting children from abusive fathers. For mothers, a child rejecting the maternal figure is so far outside of the dominant discourse, many believe it must be because the mother is deficient in some way, otherwise why would a child reject their mother.

    There is a distinct lack of understanding of the impact for children of being in the primary care of an alienating or pathogenic parenting. There is limited understanding that children who exhibit ADHD type behavioural issues in a high conflict divorce situation are often doing so because of the high conflict divorce and pathogenic parenting situation, rather than ADHD. There is not an understanding that children will lie to protect the alienating parent, out of fear, loyalty, and a sense they need to protect their parent. There is also a lack of understanding that a child will take on the fears and beliefs of an alienating parent when this is the dominant discourse and the alienating parent lies about the behaviour and intentions of the targeted parent.

    So where does this leave a parent who is the target of their ex doing their level best to destroy their relationship with their children? This is not something I can address in a single article, but having an understanding of what the term PAS actually means, why it’s controversial, and why using that term in your legal battles may not serve you well is a start.

    It’s important to realise that a single moment of expressing exasperation about the other house, or your ex, is not going to cause PAS. PAS is caused by sustained pressure on the child. This article is the first in a series about PAS and pathogenic parenting, so keep an eye out for more articles about how to counter PAS and to make sure our children are being given the tools to form healthy, loving relationships with all of the parental figures in their lives.

  • Why Kids Should Not Be in Charge of the Visitation Schedule

    Why Kids Should Not Be in Charge of the Visitation Schedule

    This article was originally published in http://stepparentmagazine.com

    Permissive parenting is something  I see a lot in the step-family dynamic. It’s custodial parents who think children should get to dictate to schedule, it’s non-custodial parents who are too scared to set boundaries. It’s when kids are put in the driving seat of the decision making in the family unit. It’s when kids are given too much control over the family dynamic. It’s when kids get to dictate the visitation schedule.

    One of the big warning signs of pathogenic parenting (alienating parenting) is when a parent keeps saying ‘But why won’t you listen to the child?’ or ‘I can’t make the child call you/spend time with you etc’. Strangely enough, these parents usually manage to get the children to do other basic tasks they may not particularly want to; like going to bed, eating a meal, getting to school, but anything to do with the other parent is mission impossible…

    A parent who is invested in their child having a healthy relationship with both of their parents will respond firmly, but lovingly, to any expression of ‘I don’t want to go’. There are many reasons a child will choose not to go to the other parents, the majority of those are benign. They hate having to change routine, they miss their toys, they want to be able to do things with neighbourhood friends. All of those are understandable reasons for a child to express a reluctance to change houses, they are not reasons to allow a child to miss time with their other parent.

    One of the greatest tragedies for children with two homes is the ability they have to play the homes off against each other and to avoid having to face responsibility when they screw up. If we allow our children to avoid dealing with conflict with the other parent, we are doing them a great disservice. None of us are perfect parents, we all make mistakes. Giving the other parent the space to repair from mistakes is essential for our children’s well-being and developing skills to manage relationships. If we simply say ‘Oh dad was mean last time, you can stay here’ we are teaching children avoiding conflict is a valid response. Instead, to promote healthy conflict resolution, we could say  ‘Yeah, I know things were rough last time, but I think it’s important that you go and spend some time together and figure things out’. The only exception to this is when children are subjected to abuse that is worthy of a child services notification. If it’s not notification worthy, it’s not a reason to withhold the children or allow them to dictate the schedule.

    Children who are subjected to pathogenic parenting are also often subjected to permissive parenting. The children are told their feelings, wants, and needs should take precedence over the wants and needs of everyone (except the pathogenic parent!). So when the child goes into an environment where they are not the centre of the universe, where the world does not revolve around their wants and needs, they act out. When the parent who is the target of the pathogenic parent has time with the children, the children are set up to be unhappy. They have an expectation everything they want and need should be supplied by the targeted parent, and that the targeted parent doesn’t understand them so therefore, won’t be able to meet their wants and needs. Sound familiar?

    They pout, they tantrum, they use every available tool in their toolbox to assert themselves in what they deem as their rightful place – the centre of attention. They will often come back and complain vociferously that the other parent was mean, didn’t listen etc. In fact, what happened was the other parent set necessary boundaries and the child didn’t like it. Not liking a boundary is not a reason to opt-out of seeing your parent.

    It takes a very brave parent to go against this conditioning. There is a very real fear that setting boundaries could result in losing your child completely. When I say very real fear, I mean a fear that is grounded in reality. There are many stories of parents who have lost their children to pathogenic parenting. It’s this fear that leads to permissive parenting by targeted or non-custodial parents. They are scared to set boundaries with children who already have said they don’t want to be there. How on earth do you risk making them hate being there even more by imposing rules and boundaries?

    The answer to this is not simple, and what I am about to say may not be relevant to your situation. There is no one size fits all, but this is what I have seen work in my own family and in the families of people I have worked with over the years. Enforce the visitation schedule, go to court if need be. Setting a boundary that the schedule must be adhered to when dealing with pathogenic or permissive parenting is key. It takes the pressure off the child, it allows them to keep the pathogenic parent happy by saying they hate the targeted parent, but it means they get to maintain a relationship with both of their parents. It’s a sad fact that this dynamic is still not recognised by many involved in the judicial and therapeutic community. It doesn’t mean you don’t keep on enforcing the schedule.

    Boundaries are the means by which children feel safe and held. It’s scary being in a world where you get to call the shots and you are 5, 10 or 15. You know on some level you are not equipped to make decisions for yourself, but you have adults around you allowing you to do that. Is it any wonder these children lash out and tantrum?

    The most important thing is realising that being a permissive parent will not protect you from losing your child to pathogenic parenting, or parental alienation. In fact, it will probably fast track the process. Kids need to know adults have their backs and that adults will make the hard calls. Leaving kids in charge of the schedule puts the burden of disappointing a parent on them. Most of the time they will side with the parent who is most vocal about being hurt by them choosing time with the other parent, i.e. the permissive/pathogenic/alienating parent. Enforcing the schedule takes the burden off your child, giving them space to have a relationship with both of their parents.

    NB – I know there are genuine situations where children are forced to spend time with abusive parents due to the courts not recognising the abuse. This is not what I am talking about in this article. The situations I am talking about here are those where loving parents are being kept from having a relationship or time with their children because of the other parent wants to be the chosen parent.

  • The Ghosts of Christmases Past

    The Ghosts of Christmases Past

    We laid a few ghosts from Christmases past to rest this year. Christmas #9 for our blended family was a resounding success. It was not always that way. A time of joy and celebration for my children and I became a nightmarish stress that we all began to dread. It was a big wake up call for me. My kids quite rightly pointed out that Christmas was the one thing their father and I had got right. They loved it. It was the highlight of the year, and something they dragged friends along to so that they too could experience the Christmas joy.

    I started our blended family journey filled with dreams and optimism about a wonderful big family who all got on as well as the children did. That was my first mistake. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, just that there was a very large gap in the family cultures. The way we celebrated Christmas was very different, and me trying to make something that fitted with everyone’s wishes left me a stressed, disappointed mess, and everyone else feeling like they had been cheated of the Christmas they wanted and expected.

    It was my mother who made the brave call and set a boundary. She told me she wasn’t going to come to Christmas with my darling’s family any more. She explained it wasn’t about them, or not liking them. It was about her and my step-father being unwilling to embrace creating a new set of family traditions and cultures. They liked the ones we had just fine and were simply not on board with having to feel uncomfortable about someone else’s.

    My family are very focused on Christmas being about the food and hanging out. Presents are a very small part of the whole thing. My darling’s family was all about the gifts, and the food, but the food was very different to the food my family prepared. My parents found the amount of gifts exchanged too much. My in-laws hated my cooking, finding it too rich and fancy, to the point of them bringing their own Christmas lunch one year.

    I was stuck in the middle trying to find a way to make everyone happy, and failing.

    So the boundary set by my mother was a start to a new way of doing family and Christmas. It was awkward, my in-laws were hurt. It didn’t matter how much I tried to explain it wasn’t personal, it was about safeguarding their family traditions, it still felt like a rejection. I get it. It’s not nice to be excluded. The older kids then became more vocal about wanting to retain their traditions from their childhood and it became apparent that my dream of a big happy blended extended family was not the dream of everyone else.

    We tried several different incarnations of Christmas, none of them really felt right, until this year.

    This year the adult children came down on Christmas Eve eve. Santa came on Christmas Eve morning, so we had a relaxed time to enjoy opening presents. We had Christmas dinner with my parents and all of the 7 children on Christmas Eve. It was a nice relaxed day. We then had Christmas breakfast on Christmas Day with my parents and the 7 children. This was slightly less relaxed, with me losing my shit momentarily about showers, as we tried to get ready for a 9am start. This will need a little fine tuning for next time.

    After breakfast, we headed off to the in-laws and had a lovely afternoon and evening with them. My in-laws prepared a lovely meal, in the way they like to do Christmas. Having 7 people in their home was manageable and worked well. Today, Boxing Day, as I reflect on the previous couple of days, I feel as if we all had a good time and finally we have the recipe right.

    Creating new traditions is not an easy thing. Expecting people to give up their roles and traditions to accommodate yours doesn’t always work either. I love doing the hosting, but so do my in-laws. This way, we both get to host and shape a Christmas that fits our traditions and family cultures. My kids get their family traditions and also then get to go and spend the rest of the day with their paternal grandparents on what is traditionally their Christmas day with me. They get to experience their whole family, this is something many kids lose over the holidays.

    It took my mother stepping up and saying this is not working. It took my kids being miserable and threatening to boycott Christmas. It took me being sick of being disappointed and exhausted from the juggling of competing wants and needs, and failing. From the ashes of Christmases past, we have found a way to celebrate with our step-family dynamics. We have found a way to meet the competing wants and needs, without anyone feeling like they have been disregarded or missed.

    We only have the children every second year, we have chosen to do year about. It means I get a year off every second year and we do a mid-Winter Christmas instead. I used to try and do a special Kids Christmas before the actual one on the years the children are with their other parents. It become another obligation and stress for people to try and fit in around an already busy time of year. Doing something mid-Winter means it’s easier to find a time that works.

    We do a Secret Santa gift exchange, and Santa comes for all 7 of the children. It cuts down the costs for everyone, but I’m especially mindful of the costs for people as my parents approach retirement and the adult children are responsible for purchasing their own gifts. We each purchase one gift and sit round while each person unwraps. It’s fun, no-one feels like they are missing out and the joy each person gets from one single gift seems to be more than they get from a mound of presents.

    I encourage you to reflect on your celebration this year. Look at what worked and what didn’t. Decided whether some brave calls need to be made, and start designing a Christmas that will bring joy and peace for next year. Christmas is not about a single day in the calendar year, it’s about tradition and rituals that create memories of what family is. Let’s make them good ones.

  • Is it time to leave?

    Is it time to leave?

    The holiday season can take a huge toll on relationships. It brings out emotions we have buried, and the end of the year is a time of natural reflection about what we want the new year to bring. This can lead to people questioning whether staying in their current relationship is what they want and need. It felt timely to write about the ending of relationships and the decision-making process around whether to stay or go.

    One of the things I tell my clients is that whatever happens with their relationship, I know they will be ok. I will hold the hope for them, while they figure it out. I honestly believe that the end of a relationship can be a positive thing. We have this idea that when a relationship ends, it is some kind of failure. We should have been able to make it work, we didn’t try hard enough, change enough, bend enough etc.

    How about the idea that sometimes we just grow in different directions and sometimes get to a point where we are no longer compatible? I don’t think it’s a question of outgrowing or putting a value judgement on things. I don’t think that’s helpful. I think it’s more accurate to say, we no longer want and need the same things.

    Sometimes this disconnect can be because the relationship was filling an unhealthy need, and as we deal with our challenges, we no longer want or need to fill that unhealthy need. It can be around entitlement. If we came in to the relationship expecting very little in terms of getting our needs met, and then do some work and figure out we are actually entitled to get those needs met, it can cause a disconnect. The person we are with may not be able to meet out newly discovered and defined needs, or they may not be aware our needs and wants have changed.

    It’s very easy at that time to start finger pointing and blaming. You should step up, you should do this or that or the next thing. What we need to remember is that we are the ones who have changed the rules. Our wants and needs have changed, often without consulting or considering our partner. We have contributed to the disconnect. Does this mean it’s our fault? Should we have not grown? Not discovered we want more out of life than we previously imagined we were entitled to?

    Not at all. We just need to be aware that this is not the fault of our partner. It’s not them failing us, it’s a shift in the dynamics of the relationship that is no longer sustainable.

    How do we elegantly manage the transition? How much should we try to bridge the gap? At what point do we accept the gap is too big and we need to leave the relationship?

    There is no singular answer to that, and I would strongly recommend getting some professional help to work through these questions. It’s some of the most rewarding work I do with clients. Sometimes the outcomes surprise us, the couple work on their own issues and find ways to reconnect. They come out the other side stronger as individuals and more united as a couple. Sometimes we work on an exit strategy, find ways to elegantly and kindly end the relationship.

    The question of ‘Is it time to leave?’ is a hard one. It’s not something I recommend deciding without talking it through with a professional. It’s not something to decide after a fight or betrayal. It’s a decision that needs to be carefully weighed, a strategy put in place to make a graceful exit.

    To make a time to talk through your relationship queries, you can email me on [email protected] or get in touch with a local therapist you feel comfortable with.

  • When Their Story Doesn’t Match Ours

    When Their Story Doesn’t Match Ours

    There is a quote by Anne Lamott “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

    It’s never quite sat well with me. There has always been a sense of disquiet, because I know people can behave well and still have bad stories told about them. I know you can think you are behaving well, and someone still experiences your behaviour badly. It’s not as simple as behave well, not everyone’s stories are factually accurate.

    I have a very postmodern idea of truth, there is not one truth, there are many versions of the truth. We each interpret events, emotions, and interactions differently. Our truth of the situation can be very different to the truth experienced by someone else participating in the situation.

    What do we do when one person’s truth is so incredibly opposite to ours we think they are impaired  or delusional to see their actions as ok? What do we do when this person is so convicted of their truth, so skilled at manipulation, and so well versed in playing the victim, their truth negatively impacts our lives and the lives of our loved ones? How do we reconcile holding space for their truth, when it seeks to destroy our happiness?

    I think it’s easy to dismiss that truth as lies, delusions, and spite. When we do that, we dehumanise the person, we create a category for them, we designate them as a liar, a fraud. We dismiss their pain and struggles. We also cease to take responsibility for our part in the drama, because we have decided the other person is, quite frankly, full of shit.

    Does that serve us though? Or do we create a caricature of the person. No one is all bad, conversely, no one is all good; no matter how hard we try to behave that way. Long standing conflict is fuelled by these caricatures. We lose our compassion, we abdicate responsibility. We dismiss any kind gesture as manipulation. None of that serves us.

    I have a person in my life who is a huge source of conflict, drama, and unnecessary stress. She has done some terrible things; making numerous calls to get us evicted, making false complaints that resulted in an 18 month investigation and cost us tens of thousands of dollars. There is much, much more, but it serves no purpose to publish a laundry list of wrongdoing.

    It has been very easy to dismiss her story. We recently received a paperwork filled with ‘her story’ which bears very little resemblance to our truth. The people she tells her story to are almost always swayed into believing her story is ‘the truth’. I think a big reason for this is that she is so convinced it is THE truth. There is no room in her story for any wrong doing on her part.

    As I write this, I have to pause and reflect. Is there anyroom in MY story for any wrong doing on my part? Sure, I accept there are times I have overstepped, or said things that were hurtful or confronting. I don’t see those things are particularly bad behaviour, because I view them through the lens of what I perceive as her far worse behaviour.

    What if I stopped for a moment and stepped outside my story. What if I suspended my truth. What if I wondered about how my actions were perceived through her lens of my perceived awful behaviour?

    What if all of the positive, kind gestures I felt I had made were treated with the same level of suspicion and scepticism I treat hers? I think I can be fairly assured that they are. We are all on this merry go round, telling ourselves our stories, filtering events in a way to fit our truths. It doesn’t serve any of us.

    I’m not sure how to navigate our truths and stories more gracefully and graciously. I have learned from bitter experience that believing there has been a thawing in relationships or a positive change is all too quickly dissolved by founding out about things said behind my back, actions taken that show bad faith. I have been on this roller coaster far too many times to willingly re-embark.

    How do we hold a boundary, keeping ourselves safe, while accepting the terrible stories others tell about us are not only their truth, but perhaps contain kernels of a fact based truth. It would be easy to fallback on the Anne Lamott quote and say the other should have behaved better. I think in some ways that is a cop out. It’s an abdication of responsibility, it’s an invitation to victimhood.

    How do you hold your truth, while accepting the truth of another that is not flattering or kind may hold some factual truths?

  • When You’re All Out of Love

    When You’re All Out of Love

    This was a rough week in relationship world. I had a falling out with my husband. Notice the wording there – I had a falling out with my husband. As far as he was concerned, life was and should be fine. Something quite innocently thoughtless on his behalf ripped open a deep wound in me. It was a wound I thought I had healed reasonably well, but with the right triggers it became a gaping, festering wound in the space of a few hours. I wasn’t expecting to be wounded so easily,or for the pain to strike so deeply.

    My response was to retreat into being a bitch. I was grumpy, sullen, and obnoxious. My husband became my ‘bitch eating crackers’. It was amazing how the little things I usually gloss over as unimportant became huge faults and wrongdoings. Him leaving his wet towel on the bed resulted in me telling him to go and put it in the wash, the way he did the most simple things became a source of annoyance and disappointment. I was all out of love. The wound had sucked it out and its place was filling with disdain and disappointment.

    It shocked me how quickly I could go from being so in love with this man, to being so out of love. It reminded me of conversations I have with girlfriends when they have lost the loving feeling and their marriages have become chores and a source of stress. My hunny and I usually manage to avoid this cesspit of disappointment. Now I found that even with all of the work we have done, the safeguards we have in place; opening up a source of pain can quickly lead down paths that make you question your entire marriage and your regard for your formerly loved one.

    After 3 days of hating myself and my husband, I finally came clean with what the problem was. I asked him to listen to me and not to respond right away. I was too raw to deal with an argument or justifications and the topic was too painful for us to have a rational conversation immediately. He was able to hear me and just listen. He was unhappy, I could tell he felt parts of what I was saying were unfair, and possibly they were, but they were the festering sores I carry in the wound.

    It took courage to expose my deep fears, I worried about him rejecting what I had to say outright, or denying it, or trying to blame it on me. These were all things I had experienced in previous relationships, the gaslighting of making their failings mine. His response is why I love him and rarely am ‘all out of love’. As the day progressed, there was a thawing, when he came and hugged me and held me tight, I felt the love slowly seeping back.

    My innate response to these kinds of bumps in the road is to catastrophise, to want to run away, to shut off my feelings and leave. It’s easier to walk away than to deal with the painful feelings. I am a master at cutting people out of my life and walking away. It is my first response and one I battle each time my husband and I disconnect.

    We have spent the last couple of days being gentler and kinder to each other. We still have a way to go before we can address the wound and add another layer of salve to a wound that will probably be with me for life. This morning my husband responded in a negative way to a request for help. It brought up all the feelings of fear and rejection I had been experiencing throughout the week. One moment of him expressing annoyance at asking him for help with something he felt was trivial hurt me to the point of tears. It was then I realised that after having been ‘all out of love’ the reservoir of good will, security, and safety I felt in our relationship was low. Usually I would know this was just his way of dealing with what he felt was a demand when he was feeling stressed, not an indication he didn’t want to be married or no longer loved me. Being ‘out of love’ doesn’t just mean being out of love with our partner, it also means being unable to feel love from them.

    How many of you are ‘all out of love’ at the moment? How many are running on the fumes of goodwill and love?

  • When Will It Stop Hurting

    When Will It Stop Hurting

    Going through a separation and divorce can be one of the most painful experiences of our adult life. It can feel as if the world will never be ok again. The idea of recovery and even a life beyond divorce with a new relationship and joy can be almost inconceivable. People tell us it will end, life will get better, there is hope…

    Suddenly one day, there it is. A day where you didn’t cry. A day that wasn’t consumed by self-doubt, blame, shame, and grief. Those days become more frequent, until one day you realise you are laughing and looking at potential new partners with a gleam in your eye.

    Yass! I am over my divorce. Done with all of that, onwards and upwards.

    Until your ex gets engaged, or has a baby, or buys a house, or any of those other things that previously had been your domain. Those feelings of grief and inadequacy, betrayal etc come rushing back in. Except…we don’t feel as entitled to those feelings now. We are OVER the divorce. We are happy now. We have a life beyond the ex.

    ‘When will it stop hurting’ we rage!

    The answer to that is ‘sometimes’. It will stop hurting sometimes. There are always going to be moments of hurt. Those moments will become further apart. They won’t be triggered by the mundane of everyday like they used to be. They will be triggered by those big life events we thought we would be sharing with our ex for the rest of our life.

    Feeling that sense of hurt, loss, and pain is not silly, weak, stupid, or any of those other things we tell ourselves in the midst of our pain. Feeling those things is a part of dealing with a massive loss.

    When a loved one dies, we know there will be moments when we miss them more than others. We accept there will always be a hole where that loved one used to be. A divorce is the same. It’s a loss, a death of a dream. There will always be a hole where the marriage used to be.

    We can remarry, be ecstatically happy, and yet still have those moments of pain.

    When they inevitably hit, take a moment. Acknowledge the loss. Shed the tears. Honour the feelings. It will pass, the joy will return. Life will go on.

    And it will stop hurting, for most of the time.