by Dr Elizabeth Gordon
It takes two people to make the decision to form a couple relationship. Your first such relationship to either live together or get married was probably made between two single individuals with few or no extra ties. It was less likely that there were children whose needs were to be considered at this stage.
When you form new partnerships or marriages in the future, there is more chance that one or both of you will have children whose needs will need considering in the new arrangements. This can have an effect on where you live for example.
I often ask patients why they married after enjoying a good relationship. Most often it is because they feel able to consider becoming a family and introducing children into their lives.
For some people becoming pregnant is very easy; for others it can cause great problems. Either party can have a low fertility problem and the explorations and treatments can put much pressure on even relatively strong relationships.
These issues of fertility and their affect on relationships will be dealt with in later articles. To-day we are assuming you are in a couple relationship and there are children involved in your joint family life.
Before your children are born it is difficult to know how their arrival will effect the relationship between their parents. In some cases the stresses caused are considerable, in others they can cement a good relationship and make it even stronger.
You, the reader, should take a break here to consider: What fundamental changes took place between you two parents as your status changed from Husband and Wife to include the roles of Mother and Father? Some people welcome the new roles, others find them quite traumatic. There is no right or wrong way to perceive them. Just be honest with yourself, for once, as to what it actually meant to you.
As your lives move along, not always in the direction you might have hoped, the children’s lives demand much emotional support and input from the parents. They are not able to understand adult thinking and adult emotions. In their minds, you, their parents, have always been there to provide food, shelter, comfort, help and to put their interests above your own.
When you find yourself in a situation where your own original relationship is becoming so lost in your day to day family existence, you are suddenly faced with the suggestion of divorce as the only escape route.
This threat often reflects the need for the couple to re-think their deeper issues of what their original relationship was about. That basic relationship has its own needs and those needs have possibly been drowned out by the needs of the children.
It is time to stand back and re-balance all the different roles you have to juggle. If the pressures have caused rows and arguments, you the adults are actually arguing over grown up issues.
A common problem is when parents tell the children they do not love each other any more. It is frightening to a child to hear that their parents can stop loving each other. They have no understanding of the different type of love between the parents from the love they experience from their parents. So maybe their parent will one day just stop loving them. Scary stuff!
Any message the child receives which indicates that their present circumstances might change causes them anxiety. If you are a child you can not provide your own security, so however bad things are, the security you have and know is better than the threats heard through the arguments.
Even as children become teenagers they can hear about adult emotions. This still does not mean they can fully be aware of the problems that their parents are dealing with in their marriage or relationship. Adults who experience parental divorce in their childhood very often express how for years after the split they hoped the parents would get back together again.
If parents try to engage their children in sorting out the adult problems this can cause problems too. The children’s fear is being abandoned or being left unsupported. It is better if arrangements are discussed and made before involving the children. this lessens the anxiety they will have to deal with
The children will come to terms, in their own way, with the way each parent performs after a divorce. It is very distressing for them if one parent tries to punish the other through alienating them from the children. The child is not able to respond until they become old enough to be independent and in the meanwhile will often become very unhappy and even depressed at the loss of a loved parent- however unreliable they may have been to their partner.
It is difficult to put ones self in the childrens shoes, but the adults would help them deal with the situation better, if the adults remember the children do not understand the implications and workings of adult relationships and emotions. They are too complicated!
If the children are involved in the arguments, or negotiations,they are likely to become very distressed. It could show in withdrawn behaviour or bad behaviour. It might cause bedwetting or many other symptoms of stress. The less the children are involved with hearing the threats to their personal safety and security the better it will be for them.
If you have found this article helpful and interesting I suggest you visit my website where these issues are explored in more depth. You might find the report offered about marriages facing divorce would be helpful to you at this time. To visit the website click the link below: www.readaboutyourself.com/divorce.html
Use Ctrl+Click to follow the link or copy and paste it into your browser. I look forward to meeting you there. If you have questions or queries please use the Contact Us page.
See you at the Website Dr E Gordon
About the Author:
Dr.Gordon has spent more than 25 years working with couples experiencing marriage problems.Using the knowledge gathered from many hundreds of patients she has prepared a
New Free report which describes some of the pitfalls to be avoided at this sensitive time.You will find many
helpful tips and ideas of the support that is available to you at this critical time.