Helping Our Children Through Divorce...Emotions Matter

Amongst the anger, sadness and upset surrounding my imminent divorce was this sensation of heartbreak — all wrapped in a blanket of fear. So many feeling and emotions were swirling through my body and mind at all times. And up until this point, I had not thought much about what the impact may be on my daughter, Chloe. 

Once Chloe’s mom and I decided she was moving out of our house, there was this amazing force inside of me that just needed to get it over with. I can remember feeling like faking it was a cancer and I had to stop it immediately. I felt so strongly that Chloe needed to know what was going on and that she deserved to be able to get on with life. I recall that I also had this great sense of betrayal in not letting her know the truth about her future. Right or wrong for me, telling her needed to happen immediately.

I remember speaking with my former wife in the parking lot of a children’s party, actually demanding that tonight was to be the night we would tell Chloe about our family breaking up. I was filled with a huge amount of guilt that Chloe had not been given any choice in this matter. She was going to have all the safety and comfort of her eight-year-old life ripped out from under her — and I was a playing a role in it all. 

The evening we told Chloe about the divorce goes down as the single most painful night of my life. The experience of being the root of my child’s deepest pain is indescribable. Chloe knew there were issues and that my ex wife and I were working through things. Yet the general understanding for her was that there was love in our home and that we were not fighting. What she didn’t know at the time was the fact that we were not fighting was a sign that we were no longer connected.

That night we sat Chloe down and fumbled over the words for a while. And when we finally got them out, well it’s a sound I will never forget. Chloe let out the deepest pain-filled cry I have ever heard. She screamed out “NO, NO, NO…you guys aren’t even fighting anymore!"

Panic ran down my spine and this urge to do anything and everything to take away her pain streamed through me like a rushing river of adrenaline. My instinct was to make it stop, which I feel is very natural. As parents, of course we don’t want to see our kids in pain. Thankfully, I had been working with my coach on all of this, and I had prepped myself for this moment. I fought the urge to say “its okay” because it wasn’t! Chloe had, in a moment, lost her innocence and we had stolen it. It was not okay by any means.

Chloe cried inconsolably on her own for about an hour — maybe longer — it seemed like hours and hours to me. And I did the same. After some time, I went to Chloe, and not with the intention to make her stop crying. You see, working with my coach I had distinguished that one of the greatest impacts of divorce on children was the unresolved emotion behind it.

As parents, our culture has taught us to try to take all the pain and suffering away from our children. In today’s society, expressing our emotions is not really acceptable behavior. The result of this is a bunch of adults who are totally out of touch with their feelings and are carrying around packs filled with incomplete emotional baggage, which always turns up later in life. 

For Chloe, I wanted something different. I wanted to let her experience all there was to experience — her anger, upset, frustration and heartbreak. The night we told Chloe about the divorce she and I cried together for hours. We snuggled and cried, and then talked and cried together some more. She and I shared the experience together. I told her it was good for her to cry and feel all her emotions. There was no reason to stuff them down or try to hide them. It was brutally painful for me to watch her suffer. There were many times when I wanted to give up and tell her it was all ok, and do something to soothe her upset, to quell her pain. I resisted and instead embraced all of the emotion that was present.

Prior to the divorce, Chloe and I didn’t spend a lot of time together, strangely making the divorce the greatest gift for my relationship with my daughter. Today as I write this, it still upsets me as I can feel the pain that was so present during that time. However, I’m also very grateful for it as the experience made us what we have become today. I love my daughter — that was never in question — and today I also love our relationship and the amazing connection we have built.

Today, five years later, Chloe remembers this time as one of the things that actually brought us closer together: “Dad you were there for me. You were with me during the painful experience of being with the divorce, and that’s one of the reasons we are so close now.” Sharing my feelings and allowing her to experience her own created a new paradigm for us. And as a result, Chloe and I have a new foundation for our relationship, and since then we have used this as a corner stone to create our new dynamic together.

The simple message I want to share here is this: allow yourself and your children to be with all there is to be with around your divorce or separation — or any other life-changing situation. Creating the space for your kids to express and feel their emotions is vital. It allows them to move thought the experience, express what’s there, and avoid a pile of unresolved issues down the road, which, left unattended, will certainly bubble up somewhere down the road. 

And let me add that this is not a “how to” but rather a suggested course of action. I found my way through this by listening to myself in the moment and getting the support of others. There are no “solutions” when it comes to emotions and difficult life circumstances. Five years down the line, there are still things that come up for Chloe around the divorce. I do notice too though there seem to be far fewer issues than there were for me with my own parents’ divorce. And I’m proud to say that Chloe is an amazing young woman who is empathetic, kind, graceful, and a wonderful friend to others.

It’s not always easy, yet there are ways to encourage your child to open up emotionally. And there are ways to close them down too. Which will you choose?

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