Putting Children First When a Marriage Comes Apart

The Truth About Children and Divorce: Dealing with the Emotions So You and Your Children Can Thrive
by Robert Emery, Ph.D.

Nationally recognized expert Robert Emery applies his twenty-five years of experience as a researcher, therapist, and mediator to offer parents a new road map to divorce. Dr. Emery shows how our powerful emotions and the way we handle them shape how we divorce and whether our children suffer or thrive in the long run. His message is hopeful, yet realistic divorce is invariably painful, but parents can help promote their children's resilience. With compassion and authority, Dr. Emery explains:

• Why it is so hard to really make divorce work
• How anger and fighting can keep people from really separating
• Why legal matters should be one of the last tasks
• Why parental love and limit setting can be the best "therapy" for kids
• How to talk to children, create workable parenting schedules, and more

The telephone call was typical of many that I receive as a marriage therapist and mediator. After fourteen years of marriage, Danielle and Frank were separating. Normally, only one partner calls to make the first appointment. It's usually the one who wants out of the marriage. I know to listen carefully to the caller's version of events while bearing in mind that in marriage there are at least two, and sometimes even more, sides to the story. What was different here was the timing - just a week before Christmas, an understandably unpopular time for separations - and the timetable Danielle had set for the split: now.

As a psychologist and a dad myself, I found this especially distressing since the couple had a six-year-old child, Sam. Danielle and Frank had each met with lawyers, but Danielle told me that she - and, she hoped, Frank - didn't want to go that route. They both made the same amount of money, so they weren't going to be fighting over finances. Even though Frank wanted to work things out, Danielle said, there was little chance of saving the marriage now.

"Could you please meet with us before Christmas?" she asked urgently.

After we agreed on a date, Danielle offered some additional, crucial background: She had only recently confessed to Frank that she was having an affair. She was worried about what Frank might do. Whenever she tried to talk seriously about separation, he made it very clear that he wanted to have Sam with him all the time. Danielle said this was a ridiculous suggestion. After all, she had spent more time raising Sam, and she loved him so much. She couldn't stand being apart from him. But Danielle also felt guilty and uncertain about what was right and what might happen legally. After all, she was having an affair. As I penciled in the appointment, I wondered how much Christmas spirit any of us would be feeling by the time they left.

Later, as I read through my notes from the conversation, I saw that Danielle and Frank had all the ingredients for a volatile and ugly divorce: a one-sided separation, the surprise and betrayal that comes with a partner's affair, a rush to accomplish in a matter of days the tasks of separation that typically take months or even years, potentially adversarial lawyers, and terrible timing. What could be worse for young Sam than his parents' separating over Christmas break? There was no question that as former partners and future exes, Danielle and Frank were in for a rough time. Despite all this, though, I hoped that one thing Danielle had told me on the telephone would hold true: that she and Frank shared an abiding love and concern for Sam.

Really Putting Kids First

Sometimes I wonder why I put myself in the middle of the agony - and the anger - of couples like Danielle and Frank. As a psychologist, mediator, researcher, and college professor known for my twenty-five years of scientific studies and work on families and divorce, I could choose to remain in the academic realm rather than jump into the fray and fury of divorcing couples.

But children like Sam don't have a choice. In the United States today over one million children every year find themselves in Sam's shoes. So I put myself in the middle in the hope of getting children like Sam out of the middle. For I know with absolute certainty how important it is to get kids out of conflict and put them first in a divorce. All of my research and all of my work with couples and families demonstrates that what parents do after divorce - how they parent, how they handle their emotions, how they relate to each other and work together - is the key to children's resilience in coping with divorce.

Believe me. I know just how real (and just how unreal) the world gets in divorce. I know the helpless, sinking feeling you get facing the end of your marriage and grappling with what you are supposed to do now. I know this from those twenty-five years of professional work. And let me be frank up front: I also know the pain of divorce from personal experience.

As I write this, my daughter from my first marriage, Maggie, is a happy, energetic, and independent twenty-one-year-old woman who is soon to graduate from college and chart her own course in life. (I have since remarried and have four more lovely and lively children.) Maggie's mother and I certainly have our share of regrets, but we also are incredibly proud of Maggie and the job we've done in raising her.

Sure, with divorce or the separation of their unmarried parents a part of the lives of close to half of children today, parents and experts alike want to put children first, at least in theory. But one of the things I have learned from the real world, and especially from my personal experience, is how hard it can be to keep our children's best interests first in the middle of all of the emotional complications of divorce. What isn't obvious, but what research and clinical experience can explain, is why it's so hard and what steps can be taken to overcome the difficulties - no matter what kind of divorce you might be experiencing.

The insights in this book apply to all couples - whether they are facing angry, distant, or cooperative relationships with their exes. In the case of Danielle, she was ready to focus on Sam, but Danielle wanted the divorce. She had a new life all planned for herself. But could Frank put Sam ahead of his own emotional devastation? Could you? Or maybe the question is, can you?

My goal in writing this book is to give parents the understanding, practical advice, and, I hope, some compelling arguments for putting children first - and keeping children out of the middle - during the crisis of separation. Ideally, this means devoting a few months before your separation and two to three years afterward to working through the legal, social, practical, and especially the emotional process of divorce. My goal is to help you do with your heart and your actions the things you might know in your head you should be doing. And if you didn't do it right from the beginning, the time to start doing it right is now. This book offers you a new understanding of this crucial time and shows you how to take steps toward building a new life and how to lay the foundation for a respectful (if, in some cases, a distant), low-conflict relationship with your ex and continuous involvement with your kids. It will help you understand the emotional realities so you can make better choices in dealing with the practical realities. Some of the key points you will learn are:

• Why anger and fighting can keep you from really separating

• The unique and complicated grief cycle associated with divorce and how it affects the way you deal with your ex

• The truth behind "his" and "her" divorce

• The difference between power struggles and intimacy struggles and how they complicate things even more when it comes to day-to-day parenting plans

• Why legal matters are one of the last tasks of divorce

• Why parental love and parental authority can be the best "therapy" for kids

© 2006 Plume, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Robert E. Emery, Ph.D., is professor of psychology and director of the Center for Children, Families, and the Law at the University of Virginia. A frequent lecturer, he is the author of more than one hundred scientific publications, and several books. His work has been featured in publications such as Newsweek, Time, Child, and the New York Times and he has appeared on Weekend Today and The Jane Pauley Show.