A multi-speaker YouTube discussion about helping children navigate parental divorce. Speakers share personal experiences (Heather describing regret for not getting counseling for her twins, others describing how they supported their children) and concrete parenting strategies: practice self-compassion, use age-appropriate transparent language about emotions, offer counseling or low-cost resources, preserve at least one stable element the child chooses, create small rituals (picnics, desserts for breakfast, nightly "funny") to maintain connection and normalize feelings. The tone is empathetic and practical, aimed at parents undergoing separation, especially mothers dealing with betrayal and single parenting.
I did not do this well. I did not get my twins counseling when I divorced their dad. I divorced their dad when they were about 2 years old. But I always feel like their divorce happened when they were five because that's when I got remarried and that's when like a, that's when the court and it got real nasty. And I think most of the trauma happened when I got remarried to my current husband. And so this was 14 years ago. I've apologized to them that I didn't get them the help they needed. When I got divorced, I pendulum swing on my sexual addiction. So I would be on the train in church and then I'd fall off the train and find myself with a guy and then be back on. And then I also developed an eating disorder and OCD all in the same year. And I still have a little ocd, but Heather says if it doesn't disrupt my daily functions, I'm probably okay with that a little bit. But all these things just exploded. And so I didn't have the ability to even think or care for myself. I had nobody around me other than black and white church theology that I now am an unwed mother and been divorced. Nobody was around me to tell me to get counseling. And then I was afraid to get counseling because we were in this nasty custody battle. And so then I was afraid if I go to counseling I'm going to look weak, I'm going to look like I can't handle my life, like I can't handle my kids and I'm gonna lose my kids. And so I didn't do them any favors by not getting them counseling. But when kids are involved, what do you suggest? What can you encourage parents to do so that maybe they hear something different than I, you know, did with my kids?
Yeah, I just, I have so much compassion for you sharing that because that's probably more common than you think. When your reality is shattered by betrayal and you are literally bleeding out, but yet you're still responsible for other human beings, you're going to make mistakes. I don't know how. You cannot. That would mean you weren't human. And to, to try to care for other humans who are relying on you for their safety and well being while, while you are totally destroyed. That is one of the things that I would love for us to improve on just as a society and a recovery community that we can come alongside particularly women who are left to care for their children after betrayal because it's so devastating. And a lot of the focus goes on getting the person who did the betraying help, Getting them in inpatient or outpatient therapy, making sure that they're in a group. Meanwhile, you know, the partner is home bleeding out, but still having all of the responsibilities of caring for the home. So I would say first is to please have compassion on yourself. It is so hard to be a mom in our society. The expectations are unrealistic. But when you're a mom that's been betrayed and you're trying to heal from that, you have to have compassion for yourself. So that's the first thing. But the second thing I think that is most important is having age appropriate conversations with your children. They sense what's going on. They know. And this, this is true for anything, right? That your children are little wise sages. They know things inherently in know, they see things and they have questions. And so when they say things like, mommy, are you sad? You go, oh, no, no, Mommy's not sad. No, Mommy is sad. I am sad. You know how sometimes you get sad when someone hurts your feelings? Well, I'm sad because my feelings are hurt. Right. And, and putting it in language that they can understand and also helping them know that they're not responsible for, for that, that you are an adult and you're going to take care of yourself. But that crying is normal when your feelings get hurt. Needing to rest your body is normal when you're trying to heal. Because what you're also doing is teaching them how to handle the challenges that they're going to face in their lives when they become adults. So if you model sucking it up, hiding behind closed doors, no, you don't need to bring them in on all of the details, but enough to where you're not gaslighting them, making them doubt their reality or think that they're crazy because they're like, something's going on, right? Dad's on the couch, Mom's in her room, or mom doesn't want to go outside and play anymore. She looks sad, her face is red. Mom's gone all the time when she used to be here all the time, all of these changes that are happening. And I would say one of the biggest things that I think was helpful for my kids, as you mentioned, I have four. And so they were at varying ages throughout the process. But one of the things that I think made the biggest difference for them is once I realized that I was going to be getting a divorce, that we had been separated a couple of months and restoration was not going to happen, I sat them down. I was homeschooling at the time and had homeschooled for many years. I was a stay at home mom. So they were used to a certain structure and regimen. And I sat them down and I said, there are a lot of things that are about to change about our lives. I'm going to have to go back to work, which means I'm going to need to get a job. We're going to have to move, we'll probably have to sell some things. We had no money because, you know, my spouse chose to take the money away from us. So so many things were changing so quickly. Uh, but I asked them, if I can keep one thing the same for you, if there's something that I can keep stable in your life, what would that one thing be? And I think allowing them to have a voice about what was really important to them just made such a difference in our transition. And I, I did talk to them. I offered them counseling, which can be hard to afford. So if you can't afford counseling, there's so many on YouTube, they're, they're free webinars and things. There are books you can buy. The Gotmans have great books on raising emotionally healthy children there. I mean, there's just so many resources on the Internet now, you can't get to that counseling. But remember that you as a parent, God gave these children to you, and when he gave them to you, he equipped you with what you need to care for them. So praying for them and with them. You can't underestimate the power of just listening. Not trying to talk them out of or into anything, but just listening. Yes. That's really tough. Yeah, I can see that you're sad. I imagine that so hard. What else? And then doing things to make the hard things fun. So we had to move. We've moved multiple times since the divorce. But during those initial days, it's like, you know, while our, while our house is empty, we're going to have picnics, which was just a blanket on the floor, eating food in the living room, which we normally wouldn't do. We would, you know, somebody had to come look at the house. Let's go to the park, let's go hang out, let's have Sundays. I made sure. And by Sundays, I mean ice cream sundaes. You know, things that you, you normally would say no to, but just finding ways to say yes. And I think a big thing was I committed to finding something funny every single night. So every night we ended the night with what I called a funny, be it a comic, a video, a joke. But infusing laughter into the heart situation really helped us to recognize, like, there's still good happening. Yes, we're going through this really hard thing, but we still have each other, and we can still find joy in the midst of this.
That is such good advice. I mean, I feel like there was 10 things in there. Such good advice.
Oh, my gosh, I love that you said all that, because I'm sitting here listening to you and thinking about the things that I did with my boys when I. When we were going through that really hard transition at first. And even things like getting to have dessert for breakfast, which, as a mom, it's like, no, we're never doing that. But it's like, yeah, okay, today we're going to do that, or we're going to play hide and seek in the dark. You know what I mean? Which seems a little bit unsafe. But we all had kind of these little flashlights. But it was those kind of things that we still talk about today when we get together, and it makes a huge difference.
Yeah. And, yeah, you just spoke on so many good things. I think the thing that stood out most to me was just being transparent on their level, whether it's divorce or adultery or cancer or whatever. The way that you, you know, helped articulate. Yeah, you know, I'm sad, and. And it's okay. And, you know, that's all right. This is how. This is normal. Because it does. It teaches them. You know, some point along the line, I learned that you don't be sad in front of people and you don't share your feelings. And I had to relearn that through this process and through the group process.
