As a therapist with over fifteen years experience, I hear a lot about divorce, particularly divorces where children are involved. While most of what I hear relates to the trauma and pain of divorcing, I have noticed a surprising sentiment among many divorces: people secretly like their time off from parenting.
A newly divorced client in her forties puts it this way:
"I feel terrible admitting this, but I cherish my down-time each week. It rejuvenates me and leads to a great amount of patience and positivity when I am with my kids. I totally lacked this in the past. I sometimes wonder if what my ex and I really needed was more help with the kids, more down time, and more romance."A divorced dad in his thirties echoes this sentiment, admitting:
"It wasn't until we separated that I truly invested in quality time with my kids. When we were married it was as if we were stuck on this gruesome, endless treadmill of chores, meals and obligations. I was just trying to get through the day. I'd read books to my kids and have no idea of the plot, because I was thinking about what I would say in the emails I needed to send when I finished. Now, my time with the kids is limited and precious and I make the most of it. I listen to them and I'm totally in the moment."
If you dig past the pain and disappointment that devastates those who divorce, many will admit that they recharge during their time away from their children and become--albeit in time-limited doses--the parent they always wanted to be.
Obviously, many divorces are necessary and occur for reasons far more complicated than a lack of down-time, and divorces where one parent fears for her child's safety or well-being are fundamentally different.
But for divorced parents who have at least a modicum of respect for their ex's parenting abilities, it is remarkably common how frequently they view their weekly break from the children as a little slice of heaven within the hellish pie of divorce.
This appears to be a sentiment heard mostly behind closed doors. In a culture that encourages helicopter parenting and over-scheduled childhoods, perhaps parents are unwilling or ashamed to admit that (while they may miss their children terribly) they sometimes enjoy being separated from both their ex-spouses and their children.
A divorced stay-at-home-dad, whose ex-wife has a demanding career, confesses:
"Our parenting responsibilities are more balanced now. It's like my kids finally have a mom. She spends quality time with them and they look forward to being with her. Sure, I miss my kids, and that's what I tell my friends. But the truth is that, in large part because of the weekly break from the pressures of parenting, I've never been happier or more relaxed. I just wish we could have achieved this balance when we were together."
What are the implications of Divorce's Dirty Secret?
For couples who have already divorced, building on any improvement in their parenting is vital, as children obviously suffer tremendously in the ongoing aftermath of divorce.
For couples who are still together, yet struggling, the implications are especially significant. Perhaps, if parents gave themselves some more time off, they might improve both their marriages and their parenting. Indeed, I make a point to share this secret with my couples clients and urge them to prioritize down-time.
When two people love each other and love their kids, there is nothing better than family time. But there is also a cost to family time. It can be draining to an individual and a couple. So married couples should look for opportunities to take a break from parenthood in order to recharge, both individually and romantically.
I also ask my clients to promise that, once we end therapy, the money they have budgeted to pay me will then be directed into a dating fund. After all, babysitting is cheaper than therapy, and astronomically cheaper than divorce!
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My husband died when our child was an infant.
One year later my business was closed.
I lost so much in a short time and have been raising our child alone ever since. What it would do to have a down weekend or evening or hour - I cannot tell you!!!!
Parents need a rest. Parents need rejuvenation.
I love my child more than my own life itself. My child is my passion but parenting can be exhausting and draining. Psychological support is ineffably critical.
Kudos to you for recognizing this need - all judgment aside. I salute you and your article!
One can love one's children truly, madly and deeply - without needing to be joined at the hip 24/7.
Now we have this crazy fiction that good parents are simply delighted with their children every minute of every day. The correlating and equally crazy fiction is that kids past the age of infancy need their parents' attention and intervention constantly. When I was a kid, the scenario of a child hollering in the back door that he was going bike-riding to the park with his buddies, and the mom breathing a sigh of relief at having a little peace and quiet, was considered normal. Now it would be gasped at as parental misfeasance.
I'm a grandmother, although very far away but when I visit, I tell my son and his wife, please go do something that you like together/or separately. I think they need all the time off they can get. Time off can and frequently does make you a better parent. I didn't have anyone like that when my kids were young. My time away was called going back to work.
I should have gotten a divorce.
Worse is your notion that you shouldn't tell your kids you miss them. This plays right into the hands of the parent that inflicts divorce on their children. The kids unquestionably miss seeing their parents. What would a kid think of a parent that says, "Hey, I'm not allowed to see you much anymore, and I'm good with it." What kind of message does that send a child? It reinforces the message that divorce has already sent them -- they are not that important to their parents.
By the way, I have written about what my son and I have gone through here:
http://news.mensactivism.org/node/15347
It is very different from the picture you are trying to paint.
I'm troubled by the fact that you so readily dismiss emotional abuse as a stress factor in a home environment. If you are looking at studies that don't factor emotional abuse into the relative harm of children living in a two-parent home as opposed to a divorced home, then these studies are inappropriately limited in scope. Certainly emotional abuse can be harder to prove than physical abuse, as the effects are subject to interpretation by the professionals evaluating them (as opposed to physical abuse, which can leave actual marks). That doesn't mean it's contrived.
I do agree with you somewhat on letting children know that you miss them when they're not around. I tend to tell my son that I miss him (or have missed him), but it's all right because I know he's enjoying himself with his father. This can be a precarious balance, though, for situations where there has been a significant amount of conflict.