I guess I have to accept that under normal circumstances I am now entering the time of my life when my previous generation start to fade away. Unless you are unfortunate to have been inflicted by the pain of war, a violent society, flukes or natural disasters of other kind midlife is the time for one to accept the growing reduction in the family photo shoot and the changing dynamics this has on everyone.

My ex-wife’s family were quite close and her father was put on a pedestal as the leader of the family. When he died the change in the family for all was quite dramatic purely because of his absence. He was a well educated and quite experienced, although old fashioned and Victorian in outlook. Yet his opinion and the direction he asserted on his children kept him in their thoughts, like a small character looking on at everything they did well after he had gone.

From a psychodynamic / Freudian point of view this was a superego that had given the family their rules of life and will continue to be that reference they will use for the rest of their lives.

When my ex wife’s mother died I begun to see a change in my wife. She went off the rails, had an affair and rejected me and the children, but apart from that, her personality changed. She seemed to move back to what was safe, the nature and personality of her mother seemed to be where she wanted to be. She is now more ‘prim and proper’ and asserts her children with victorian-like table manners they were not used to growing up in a more relaxed environment.

The change in her has been profound and permanent. I guess the safe-ness of the ways of her parents was a place to go when she was for the first time realising her actions were triggering others to make choices that she might not be able to control. The safeness of a victorian attitude, blinkered and stiff, enables her to make logic of her actions and the darkness that she knows full well she has forced onto her children.

But I feel it is only a plaster stuck over emotions that one day may have to be returned to. The plaster seems to be firmly in place. She rejected the thought of sitting in front of a counsellor to talk about her feelings of rejecting the children saying, “I only need my clairvoyant to guide me”, dangerously leaving someone else in charge of her direction and destiny as opposed to herself.

She recently asked to have a change in the sleep over rota for the children to visit her. Ever since she left the house she has stuck by her rule that she can only take one child at a time (unless her partner is not there) and that the dogs (she has created a collection of dogs, almost to replace her children) hold her back from being able to support her children with after school events such as Ballet, Gymnastics and other dance sports activities.

A thin excuse is all she needs but some honest truth is what would help her understand how much she fails her children by only deciding what she is capable of doing and using the price of petrol and the needs of her (and her partner’s) dogs as good reasons why she can not and will not support the children’s activities.

©2010 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Of course this is impossible, I wouldn’t touch my ex with a barge pole so that is irrelevant. But my point is, after four years of separation, I still feel an immense loss of the family unit for my children.

My youngest is almost at an age where her years in a separated family are more than that whilst her mother was around. I can never forgive what she did to their young lives, yet accept if people don’t want to be together, its a very sorry situation but can be for the best.

I just wish I could create for them a childhood that they can look back on and not feel like they were torn between two different collections of photo albums.

©2010 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

I have felt sad about this in the past. In my marriage I did feel at times ‘outside’ the family. It was hard to be the suited pro who worked to please the boss to bring in the salary whilst also having to turn into a dad and husband at the end of the day to be there for others needs too. Its not easy for anyone in this situation if work takes over, which I think is pretty much where things lie for most of the western world nowadays because of the ethics of overworking yourself.

I am not less career but more with children. My eldest goes to sleep with her mum twice a week and sees her after school each day.

But I do miss her so much and feel that my lifestyle now almost has switched from physical absence to conscious absence. I have so much to think about, life feels so complicated now. Additionally, my daughter is very nearly 13 and has had a boyfriend and a busy social life with her buddies from school. This means that whilst she is here she is either texting her friends or is on MSN.

I understand and try to accept this. As kids become teenagers they want to spend less time with their parents. Their lives are blossoming and it is only natural, very natural for them to want to socialise with their friends. It is important for them to do so because they need to develop good, healthy social interaction skills so that they have sound interpersonal skills that will hold them in good stead as they go through life.

But I miss her and feel that the years are shooting by and little happens to make anything we do a memory that will be happy to reflect on in years to come. I feel terrible that my children are from a broken family. I feel terribly sad for them to have experienced a mum and a dad that live in different houses. It’s something I find very hard to deal with at times and want to compensate for by buying them things (and getting myself more in debt as a result).

I am currently looking for something that I can do to engage my eldest. Like many parents in the past and future, I will keep on trying to engage my child, broken family or not.

I found an image of my daughter sitting in a tree with a big smile on her face. The picture was taken when she was around 3 years old when we lived as a family. After streams of tears I was non the wiser for why, for the past couple of weeks I seem to feel so unhappy about how things are with my children. My partner feels the same. Maybe we should just live with our own children… maybe we are just wanting to do what we tell others not to, that is over-compensate for the failures we are as parents to give them an unspoilt upbringing and blame ourselves for the failures they have innocently had to experience.

Maybe… that just teaches them something that we were not taught: don’t expect life to be fair.

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©2010 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

For me the most important thing moving ahead is gaining some stability with life. An income as (seemingly) always is at the top of my most wanted list. Also the ups and downs of the emotions (mine or a few others) within our household keeps us on a roller-coaster of tension & release that I don’t think does anyone any good in the long term. But whilst we try to fix those things I feel a little lost with what to say and where to start with it all.

So, just to say, I am trying to get into the groove again.

Today it is a peaceful day. The sun is out and the birds a twittering. The wind is calm and everyone has left the house to go their separate ways today across our county.

Tomorrow we may be creating our own volcano again.

©2010 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Rhonda Leigh Jones wrote an impressive article on what to consider when understanding what you want form a relationship that left me wondering what else needs to be considered at midlife.

I felt it is quite complete and compared it to my own relationship and feelings too.

I think, for anyone who has got to midlife it should be more clear what you really want from a relationship because by then you will have probably had a few and broken up a few.

Perhaps by now you think to yourself you don’t actually want a relationship, or that you only want a relationship that is far less committed, and more of an open friend like relationship that is not complicated by the issues of a more serious one, such as, cohabiting, commitments to domestic chores or changing your ways to accommodate someone else’s needs.

For people entering what ever relationship they want in midlife there is something else to consider in a relationship that is not covered by Rhonda’s article.

Its the baggage we all have by then. By baggage I mean we have a history. Some good, some not so good. A divorce or two might need explaining, a financial crisis, an illness, a few children across the world maybe?

It is important that we offer our history to our potential partners if we want to create a genuine and serious relationship with someone. For every piece of us we hide leaves a dark part of us that we are choosing never to offer to them. The more of these we have the less we offer ourselves to our partners.

Likewise, we need to consider what we are prepared to take on of someone else’s history. How much of that history affects your day to day living with someone? A past drug addiction that might come back some day perhaps?

This reminds me of that great film staring Ben Stiller, The Heartbreak Kid where, over time Ben’s character realizes he has jumped into a relationship way to early and that there was a lot more to his new bride that initially met the eye.

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©2010 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

On The Hunt For A New Relationship?

The day you discover your freedom is the day before you realise you are only half way through your ‘post midlife crisis’ transition.

If you are just out of a long term relationship and divorced I am sorry to disappoint you, but you have a whole lot of new things to consider again, and a few more that you think you know about that are now different now you are older.

Back To Dating

Take for example the dating scene. Well in case you’ve not heard, the dating scene has hit the Internet and it is one of the hottest things that is getting forty something’s tapping away late at night and uploading the slimmest photos they can find of themselves whilst managing a list of possible candidates for their next sexual adventure.

Unlike Myspace which is more about pouting and showing your cleavage, the forty something daters aim to look as confident with no baggage as they can convince other forty something’s.

If you have been thinking about a new relationship then be warned, dating online is not the best option in my opinion. What about moving to a new area, getting a new job, starting a new activity after work?

Been There, Got The T-Shirt

There are many ways to meet new people without jumping into a game of roulette with dating sites. The more you try to find the right person, the worse your experience will be. The more relaxed you are, the better position you will be in to find the right person for you

Why am I so cynical? Because I’ve used dating sites (stunned silence). Well, it was a period I was going through.. er.. I was very lonely… er.. no one in my area new to meet… and a few other excuses all other online daters use.

You see, overall, people that are online to date are there because it doesn’t work off line and you have to ask the obvious question, why is that? (of course it doesn’t count in my unique situation :O)

There are some very genuine reasons why someone will find online dating is the best way to get to the person they want to find. For instance, rural areas provide little opportunity for someone who wants to date to find eligible candidates.

If you are so busy with being a parent, working to earn your crust and find little time to meet new people in your area then going hunting via the Internet can feel very convenient and safe since you can sit in your own lounge and tap away.

But if you go hunting there you will need to filter out a lot of people who are there to prey or are very vulnerable and who need the Internet to communicate because all other routes have failed for them, rather than not being available to them.

Dater Beware

An old friend of mine, who was desperate to find ‘the one’. This term, ‘the one’  is used by daters to describe the perfect partner who is all things and ticks all the boxes for them.

Such a person does not ever exist however there is a strong need to turn the dream into a reality, possibly because of some fairy tail they may have read when they were young. Bless.

Anyway, poor said friend spent around a year hunting out new males online only to constantly date men who were cheating on their partners and just wanted to sow their seed in as many fields as possible in the shortest space of time possible.

My friend’s relationships usually went from feeling like she had found ‘the one’ to finding ‘another cheater’ in around two weeks on average.

The courting of the male of the species could last no longer before the thin veneer of their integrity faded away.

Check out my list of the most common dating characters out there to avoid. Coming soon.

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©2010 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Does Being Single At Midlife Make More Sense To You?

Surely for many at midlife we are now settled into a happy life & routine with a companion. We have become mature individuals and understood what really we want to do with our lives whilst watching our own children develop and grow around us.

For many, there is a hidden desire to break away from their long-trodden routine and a relationship that has long past its sell by date. They fantasize about being free to roam and do exactly what they want to do without hindrance and receiving guilt laden comments by their ‘other half’.

Many partners keep this quite for fear of being alone emotionally, practically or financially. They don’t share their real feelings for their own reasons. This is how things were with my relationship. My ex’ and I had been trying for our forth child and I had felt things had never been better. We had downsized and both worked from home so that we could both be equally part of our children’s developing lives and not spend so much time apart. Yet within a couple of months my wife had begun an affair that ultimately ended in her leaving the family home.

I had no idea she felt this way, she would tell me she loved me, yet when it came to her being honest to me when I discovered the infidelity she told me she had at many times been tempted to have an affair (but confessed to no more) and had not loved me for a long time. Useful things to know if you are planning to live a happy life. She had found someone that she felt secure enough to ‘jump’ to without fearing she would end up being alone.

Rather than delve into the why’s and wherefores of my wife’s integrity, her midlife crisis and my own I am more interested (today) to write about being mid in years and that perhaps for many it is a time that more naturally you should be single.

You see, and I am aware that this is a little controversial, but stay with me here.

As you come of age, i.e. midlife, you become finally and fully aware of who you really are and what is really important to you. Mixed with a slight increase in your narcissism you are now well prepared to be uncompromising with your views and motivations for your own life, and less likely to be willing to compromise for others.

So wouldn’t it just be more natural for a whole lot of us to be honest with our partners and say, “hey its been nice but in the last few years you’ve got really boring and I want more form life.. so .. I’m off. Good Luck”

Harsh words but honest. Genuine. You can’t accuse a person who would stand up and say that to their partner as being a coward, hiding away their true feelings, just…

…. waiting for the day for a damsel to arrive over the horizon needing to be rescued, or a knight in shining armour to whisk them away.

I look around me sometimes and I see a whole community of people living alone, happily, independent and loving it that way because of the freedom it gives them to do what they want and live exactly the way they want to live. Perhaps in a way like they are reliving their college days perhaps. Free from complications. Earning a crust and paying the bills, or maybe even better. Maybe they have got to the top of their profession and are now enjoying the rewards of this. Convertible, summer house, holidays away with friends.

They can socialise, they can have relationships but they don’t let anyone pin them down into a mutually compromising co-habiting agreement (now there’s a phrase I might like to use again!)

It seems to me they are the most honest majority. I take my hat off to those couples who are genuinely in love and want to be with each other. They do exist! My parents recently had their 50th wedding anniversary. My mum gets a bit fed up with my dad because he is loosing his hearing but other than that, they work well as a team together on most things.

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©2010 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

It suddenly dawned on me today. I set up an email account for my eldest daughter a few years ago which was used occasionally and all the email came from both sides of the family to her that way. No problem you would think. Wrong. For my ex-wife’s perspective this was a reason to feel projectionist about our daughter again. Previously my ex wife had contacted and insisted that all presents and birthday cards would come to her house for each of our children even though the children lived with me. It didn’t seem to bother the kids although I feel the beginnings of them trying to deal with the approval of their mother and the loyalty that comes with it. My ex wife was really harsh with her sister about it, a lady who has seen enough of issues between parents and the affect on children to know best to keep the children out of your own squabbles.

Anyway, today i realised that my ex wife has now set up an email account for my daughter that she asked all her family to send messages to for her instead of her original one.

If there a message in this for us all?

Well the one I can think about is to try really hard not to make your issues become your children’s.

If you feel guilty about the breakup of your marriage and the affect it has on your children think again about the ongoing approval and conditional love messages you may be giving them, and the damage this causes children at a time of great influence as they develop.

Then look up narcisssism.

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©2010 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

On a recent visit to my parents I found myself bedding down for the night in my old bedroom. This was a great place to reflect and compare myself today, post midlife crisis, divorced, survivor of infidelity and overcoming mood depression, anxiety and with a sound self-esteem, to the anxious & frequently depressed person I was when I lived here around eighteen years previously.

Life back then, with a small bit of rose tinting, was simpler. OK, so I was desperate for answers even then. Questions about the future and how my life would unfold, normal questioning about my future I guess. As I sat there in bed I took the opportunity to think about what it was that was good about then, that is lost today.

Simpler also means younger I guess. I had my youth and was fit by default. I was single so only had to consider myself although I wanted to be married and have a family. That was probably a security thing I’m assuming now.

Although for most of the time I was out of relationships I was immersing myself into other loves such as music and creating fun car projects, and meeting people who had the same passions as I had. Money wasn’t ever a worry because I had what I had and if I ran out I just sat at home.

Nowadays money is hard because I live in a part of the country where jobs are scarce and I cannot go out for a full working week because I have child responsibilities. Nowadays I am older and health and fitness cannot be taken for granted. Nowadays my youth is not there anymore so I am reminded of my age when I look in the mirror in the morning (not advised for many over the age of forty).

So, how can I get something back from the simplicity of my early years? I feel sometimes that the pressure of the responsibilities means I have little time to really understand what it is I want to do with myself today let alone my future. I feel that everyone wants or needs a piece of me, even my ex needs me to serve up our children to her and too ill to accept her responsibilities so that I have to cover for her.

I want to have a simple life. I want to just enjoy having a free mind and little to trouble me. I want to enjoy the things in life that are free, nature, a smiling face, a simple conversation. The sunrise on a frosty morning and the bright moon on a clear night.

Yet I cannot ignore most of my responsibilities so it’s never going to be that simple. Take for example finances. My outgoings revolve around trying to keep the house from falling down and keeping the kids from not looking like tramps and making sure they don’t loose out on any opportunities so that my situation does not affect their lives and development. I scrape together the fees for their school activities and feel glad that for them, there is no financial issue (unless their mother has told them again that she is in a financial crisis in which case I will be spending some time with them explaining why they don’t need to worry about that).

What can I do to make my life simple and so be happy and content?

Make money by doing the things I love, which I didn’t do when I was young. Make enough money to cover the household, children and my own needs (but keep my needs simple).

Keep my life simple and not complicate it.

Spend regular time exercising now it cannot be assumed I will be fit and healthy.

Make sure I don’t eat like I did when I was younger. Keep the foot to a minimum and keep it healthy.

I got to the point in this process of thinking where I thought, all my thinking should be able to be put into some simple categories like key indicators. If I got the list down to around 5 key indicators then I could simplify my life by thinking, if there is an activity that does not support or develop any of these key indicators / factors, then I wont complicate my life by doing them.

I’m wondering now how this could help others. I can see how some people, confused about what is important to them and what they actually need in their life, spend so much energy on activities that only give them short term happiness (such as retail therapy) and some others that end up giving them long term pain (infidelity). Whereas with a clear mind about what exactly it is that will give them longer term happiness for example they would be able to understand that retail therapy is ok for a short boost but it isn’t something that will help them if they continually spend money, it just wont get them anywhere except a house full of objects.

Here is my index of key indicators that I want to live my life around from now on, and ensure the essence of it is simple. Its clear how they interconnect, read on.

Relationship & Children: love is good although the children responsibilities and issues regularly dull my relationship. I’ve put these two together to show the main challenge here is the balance between the relationship and the children. It is not easy, it never will be. It’s about doing one’s best I feel sometimes.

Self-Esteem: Self Esteem is high, but will be higher with better income and some weight loss,

Health: health is good, my viral conjunctivitis eye scars are healing and so my eye is not sore anymore after a day of working on a laptop. My sciatic nerve back problem is healing and Imp taking care not to sit badly or pick up heavy items.

Fitness: fitness is poor although residual fitness is still there waiting for it to be utilized. I must start an exercise plan. I have now started walking a little more although my business demands my attention at this point in its development although not for much longer I hope.

Weight: weight has gone up again: needs lowering: risk of heart attack or a stroke gets nearer. However in recent weeks I have changed my diet and am beginning to feel the difference already. I’m not terribly over weight, I’m not obese but I would like to loose a stone. I don’t like having a bulge so its gotta go. I lost it all a couple of years ago but it slowly added it on again.

Money: money is dire: I’m spending more than I get however recently I have got to the point of ‘zero spending’ which means I spend nothing unless it is absolutely necessary and this has helped the financial hemorrhaging I have felt in the last year. I need to keep it up.

Fulfillment: My work is my fulfillment and it is pretty high right now but I need it to be monetised for me to feel completely fulfilled. Having said that, I have sold some of my music so I have past that great point in fulfillment. I have started to develop a game (fun-free-games-online.com) but have not had time recently and have chosen to prioritize other activities over it for the time being. But it remains a very real project and so do the challenges!

OK so that’s seven not five. I’ve just counted them and realized. I will consider making a little graphical display of this for the top page sometime for a bit of fun, but also to put across the simplicity and focus that can be achieved so that the things that are the most important to you can be kept in focus and other things avoided that waste one’s time.

Here is my little graph which I will be tuning from now on. Oh yes, the higher the bars the better the situation. So if I am loosing weight, the bar will be going up.

Since I wrote this article I thought it would be interesting to compare to Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs of which there is a great article over at ye-htut’s Blogspot. It seems I have pretty much covered the lower levels of human needs with my key indicators but I don’t currently show much interest in self actualization which I hope will come once I feel that the lower levels are well fed. read more at Ye-Htut’s Blog and let me know what you think.

Have you got any advice you would like to share about your situation? Post your comment below.

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©2010 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Are you Divorced Yet? If So, Have You Ever Fully Separated?

So many times I hear of people who have divorced only to find that at least one (in some cased both) partys are still very reliant on each other. Sure if this is a mutually agreeable situation then why not? However, if you do still offer a shoulder to lean on sometimes, consider how this will be taken by anyone you wish to attract. How will they feel if the ex still pops around and calls up when they are feeling down and in need of support?

I know of couples who have broken up badly yet one of them still needs support. Narcissistic in nature, someone who has had an affair may actually never get to understand you don’t want to be with him or her, and for years carry on being a nuisance in your life. They may spend time pressuring you to still do things for them, odd things like iron their shirt, pick up and drop the kids at their place. Little things like that make them feel they are in control still.

However they will only be a nuisance whilst you let them. So work hard to cut the ties, think about yourself, how do the arrangements fit with you? Recently my ex partner asked to have two of our children to stay over on Saturday night. Simple enough but I needed to consider how that would effect my day and my partner’s day.

You see, my somewhat narcissistic ex partner will need to have the children available to her once she has finished working, no earlier, and no later. If it is much later then she chooses not to bother. This means we have to be around at the right time and the right place or she won’t take the kids.

Like many people with a narcissistic personality disorder their narcissism was not clear to their partner until they grew to know them as an ex-partner. Like many narcissistic individuals she would be making efforts to tell our children that I have been awkward and that she has only been interested in seeing them.

This then needs me to help work through the children’s feelings when they return with issues around what mummy has said about daddy. As a survivor of narcissism you sort of get used to it and have to do a bit of mending but it can be hard sometimes not to be so honest with your children in these cases.

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Ten Do’s And Don’ts Of Managing Children After Your Divorce

One: Make sure you do not overcompensate for the situation your children are in. You probably will feel guilty about the break-up of the relationship even if you chose to break-up for the right reasons.

You will feel sorry for your kids when they are upset and missing the other parent. You might want to lavish them with presents, and give them what ever they ask for to keep them happy.

This maybe ok once in a while but you risk a habit forming situation that will spiral into a child that is spoil and eventually becomes narcissistic. This is how narcissism can develop in children.

Two: Don’t make your children feel guilty about going to see their other parent. They have a right to choose when and if they want to see their other parent and it is likely they will want to.

Think about the child’s needs as opposed to your revulsion that anyone would want to be with your ex-partner. Its different for children. Children need their mum and dad don’t forget.

Three: Never knock the other parent down. Don’t get into a discussion with your child and put your ex-partner down. Keep it cool and keep your thoughts to yourself.

Kids need a good mum and dad and whilst you can try to keep your child from thinking that you have a balanced well adjusted child. If you decide to knock your ex-partner down you will start a war where the children are the cannon fodder in the middle.

Likewise never get into knocking your ex-partner’s new partner down either.

Three: Don’t dump your emotions on them. You are an adult.

You may feel and at times act like a child because of the events that have occurred, you may be the one sitting in a bed-sit or a hotel somewhere wondering how you are going to rebuild your life but if you dump your feelings and emotions on your child it makes the whole experience far harder for them and it will adversely affect their lives; their schooling, their friendships, their feeling of self-worth.

If it continues through a child’s developing years (i.e. every year for a child is a developing year!) you will affect their developing personality and you may be responsible for making your child have mental health problems.

Someone I knew had a hard upbringing with issues between parents and became a neurotic anxiety driven person for all her life. Her sister was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder .. (additional resources here) .Think about what you are doing, don’t dump on your children.

Four: Don’t look to your children to side with you against your ex-partner. It’s not their war. Look elsewhere for allies. You maybe forgiven for being off the rails and upset enough to share this with your kids early on but not for long.

Keep it up and you will create the same issues as described above. Children who are suicidal are commonly from backgrounds where the parents have split but the ongoing aftermath is even more torturous.

You should avoid feeling the need to look for any signs of loyalty. I know it’s hard, children may have a predominance for one parent over another for natural reasons. Don’t turn this into a fight for loyalty even if your ex-partner doesn’t deserve their love. That’s for them to work out and they will work it out if its real when they are older.

Five: Don’t get dragged into a fight. You kid may come home and say that mum said you were an idiot or something else that undermines you. You need to keep it cool and get in contact with your ex-partner straight away to clarify exactly what was said.

It may be your child has not heard correctly something that was said and is telling you through loyalty.

IF you are not careful you might end up in a fight for no reason. Be careful about what you say in front of the children about adult subjects in general as well as subjects relating to your ex-partner.

Your children may look engrossed in their painting on the kitchen table but they might be sucking up all that is being said, to then digest later on. This could upset them and also be relayed to your ex-partner.

Six: Be careful about responding to what the children say. They may be using you to punish the other parent for some injustice dished out to them recently. Kids play each parent off against each other.

If one wont let them have another ear piercing then they will go to the other parent. If the other parent wants to start a fight or is a little less careless about managing manipulation then you have a child who knows how to play you off against each other to get their own way.

The child gets in control and over time you risk anarchy in your own home as the child becomes to believe they can get away with almost anything

Seven: Don’t speak for your ex-partner. Let them speak. Tell your kids that you both love them very much, sure, but keep it simple and don’t elaborate. Your words may come back to bite you.

If you say too much about your ex-partner, if this is innocently told to them by your children you might be provoking a fight where the children are used are pawns.

Additionally, the more you try to convince your child that their other parent does love them, even though they never see them, even though they have walked away from them and disowned them, even if they are now starting a new family and don’t even bother to remember their birthdays or send them gifts at celebration times.

You see? Whilst you are trying to hold them together, at worse, the absent parent is moving in the opposite direction

Eight: Focus on developing sound and secure boundaries within your and their home. Make sure they understand they are welcome always in your house even if it isn’t their official home.

Make sure that they understand the rules of behaviour of your house and that this may be different to the rules in the other house they live in.

Nine: Make sure when the children are living with you that you find time for them. You spend time doing activities with them and that they are not just left to do what ever they want in the background as you continue your life.

I understand you will be juggling work and home life, especially when it comes to school holidays. But if you plan ahead and organise some days out and some days where friends can come over you will be able to keep them active and without reasonable excuse to moan.

Ten: Mobile Phones Off! Make sure that you allow your child to keep in touch with their other parent but make sure the mobile phone is not used as a way to undermine your time with them.

Get them to leave it at home when you go on a trip so that you can enjoy the trip with your child. Conversely when they go away with their other parent, don’t keep on hassling them via the phone, make sure they have quality time with their other parent too.

If they go on holiday, ask for a post card, not a call each day in the evening for example.

This is controlling and it will make the children find contacting you a chore or loyalty rather than something they want to do. Think about where this need comes from within you and then think about what is best for your child.

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Have you got any advice you would like to share about your situation? Post them here.

Guy

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Children Of Divorce Still Need Their Mum And Their Dad

It may not be obvious to all, (and this isn’t meant to be derogatory to those that don’t realise this or are too into their own break-up to have thought this through):

Children need their mum and their dad.

You are excused from missing this point if you are mixed up in the worst break-up experience of your life. I understand because I was. I had so much upset and anger at my ex that I just wanted to take my children away and go live somewhere else.

The bottom had dropped out of my life and I was in pieces. I couldn’t think of anything else but what had happened and the disbelief that surrounded this. It is understandable whilst adults are in this situation feeling this, which they would consider running away with their children. However, for the children it will increase the trauma.

Unless something pretty horrible has happened between a child and a parent a child will always want to be with their mum and dad. They will be traumatised by the split up of their parents although may actually be feeling better in a house that doesn’t involve heated (or worse) arguments.

Children will try to keep hold of the two most important people in their lives and now that they are sitting in different houses, possibly miles apart they are feeling split between you both. Don’t make it harder for them than it needs to be. Think of the happiness of your children and help them keep you both as close to them as they need.

They might try to get you back together again, they might ask if you both will taken them on holiday. As hard as it is for you, and for your children they do need to understand the permanence of the situation. This, although upsetting will enable them to work through it and move on rather than languish wondering if things may change and dad or mum make come back to the house.

Your situation may not be that simple of course. You might find yourself in a situation where you don’t actually know if your partner is returning or not. However you need to get as much control of the situation as you can, for your children’s sake as well as for your own.

If is not fair for a parent to create an insecure situation such as this and the sooner it is clear, which ever way it goes, the better for all.

They will probably miss the absent parent and fantasise about their mum and dad getting back together again and having happy times again before mum and dad started arguing.

You must have heard of the saying that children heal. It is complete rubbish and is an ignorant saying. What actually happens is that the child absorbs the trauma and builds their personality around it, like scar tissue. It will in some way affect their future lives and their future relationships.

One more obvious example of this was someone I knew who put everything into keeping her marriage together for the sake of the children because she was brought up by her mother herself and felt very alone throughout her childhood culminating in a suicide attempt when she was 18.

Her husband was having an affair and at one time made her and his mistress pregnant at the same time. Twenty five years on, in her time of need when she had cancer he had another affair and spent the next four years moving between wife and mistress.

Yet she still hoped for it all to end and let him continue to take control until the day she finally threw him out.

Kids get fed up with parents bickering, they get affected by the issues if they are drawn into them by selfish thinking parents. They get fed up with being transported from one house to another. Research tells us that kids are left less scarred if they can call one house home and that is where they spend the majority of their time.

Being split exactly equal between two houses is only ok for the parents and has nothing to do with how the kids feel most of the time. However kids will always be feeling bad about loyalty to each parent, and it gets worse when some selfish parents try to put their own emotions onto them. They get very upset.

I asked my youngest the other day, “would you like to spend the night before your birthday with mum?” her response was to burst out crying and eventually say, “ I don’t know, I love you both the same amount” Clearly she had been drawn into some loyalty issue which I sure is nothing I have done (although if I find out I will ensure I make corrections).

However she was feeling terrible about having to make a choice between mum and dad.

I am aware that mum does put some emotion into her relationship with our children. She tells them of her financial crisis and that she can-not pay maintenance to dad.

She tells one of my daughters not to use the phone she pays for to call or text my partner (more than likely because with a new woman in the house she is feeling threatened by her presence and, since she will feel some degree of failure as a mum because she left the family home to live with another man this will make it worse).

When one of my children doesn’t want to visit mum on their regular Sunday meeting with mum she makes them feel guilty by rejecting them. Essentially what she is doing is offering love conditionally which obviously makes any child feel terribly sad and possibly try harder to please them.

If the parent is overly narcissistic they will pick up on this and use this again and again to get the lavishings of love and presents that a narcissist needs continuously and copiously.

In this particular case the best way to help your child is to tell them you have made the decision for them. Also tell them that it is fine for them to choose whoever they want to be with, it is up to them and it is not a reflection of who they love the most. Both mum and dad love them very much and want them to be happy so their should be no problem.

Download My E-Book On How To Survive Infidelity & Divorce

I say this last sentence with caution because when you start to speak on behalf of your ex-partner you may find your words come back to haunt you if your ex-partner rejects their children when they form a new family and your words are clearly incorrect. Check out my Ten Do’s and Don’ts of Managing Children After Divorce Here.

Have you got any advice you would like to share about your situation? Post them here.

Guy

If you feel this article has been useful to you then please donate something to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.
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©2010 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.