Oct. 10, 2023
Navigating divorce while raising teens.
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Ask Rachel anything Deciding to split can be an incredibly challenging time for any married couple, but knowing the impact it can have on our kids can make it even harder to navigate the complex untangling of a life together. We were asked by one listener to talk about it, because she has a family member who's planning to divorce once their teen has finished their main exams, but keeping it quiet in the meantime. It's a tricky question; do we stay together for the kids, when do we tell...
Deciding to split can be an incredibly challenging time for any married couple, but knowing the impact it can have on our kids can make it even harder to navigate the complex untangling of a life together.
We were asked by one listener to talk about it, because she has a family member who's planning to divorce once their teen has finished their main exams, but keeping it quiet in the meantime. It's a tricky question; do we stay together for the kids, when do we tell them, and how?
In this episode we talk about a news article that claims teenagers are the ultimate marriage wrecker, the impact on teens who live with parents in an unhappy marriage, and whether they are better or worse off than those in a single parent family.
We talk about the best way to tell your teen you are splitting, an innovative way of dealing with it called nesting, which allows the kids to stay at home whilst the parents move in and out, and the new apps that can ease the burden of communication.
Whatever path you choose, one of the best bits of advice I always give divorcing couples, is to try and choose a legal service that's trained in reconciliation to reduce the fighting, and cost, of going through such a difficult process.
THINGS THAT MIGHT HELP:
A few apps; but there are many out there:
- https://supportpay.com/
- https://www.cozi.com/
- https://www.custodyxchange.com/
- https://www.onwardapp.com/
www.separatespace.co.uk Legal and mental health professionals who specialize in divorce.
www.restoredlives.org online courses for people going through break-ups
https://raisingchildren.net.au/grown-ups/family-diversity/parenting-after-separation-divorce/helping-teens-adjust-separation#:~:text=If%20you%20and%20your%20partner%20separate%2C%20the%20ups%20and%20downs,not%20coping%20with%20the%20transition.
https://www.custodyxchange.com/topics/divorce/worst-divorce-age.php#:~:text=The%20school%2Daged%20years%20are,feel%20like%20a%20personal%20attack.
https://evolvetreatment.com/blog/divorce-impact-adolescents/#:~:text=Effects%20of%20Divorce%20o
teenagersuntangled.substack.com
Please hit the follow button if you like the podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit.
You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
Please don't hesitate to seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping. When you look after yourself your entire family benefits.
My email is teenagersuntangled@gmail.com
My website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact me:
www.teenagersuntangled.com
Find me on Substack https://Teenagersuntangled.substack.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teenagersuntangled/
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/teenagersuntangled/
You can reach Susie at www.amindful-life.co.uk
WEBVTT
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Hello and welcome to Teenagers Untangled, the audio hug for parents going through the teenage years.
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I'm Rachel Richards parenting coach, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters.
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Hi there, I'm Suzie Azli, mindfulness coach, mindful therapist and musician, and mother of three teenagers, two of them are twins.
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Suzie, you mentioned this as a topic a while ago because you noticed a number of people in your age group were separating yes, there seemed to just be a few in my circles.
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Today's episode actually came in as a request.
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A lady told me that there's someone that is in her family circle who has decided she doesn't want to be married anymore.
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They have a teenage son who's going into his 16-ish, 16-17-ish and rather than just go for it straight away, they are not going to tell him for two years so that he can get through this final stage of his education and then they're just going to split.
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And she's told this member of her family and it's a bit awkward for her member of her family because then nobody's.
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She's not supposed to tell anybody.
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No.
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She's really awkward.
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It's awkward for her.
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Yes, and you know there are opinions on what the best thing to do in that situation is.
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Do you stay together for the sake of the?
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teen Do you when you tell that it's all big stuff?
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So, we'll talk about that.
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And when I started researching this, I read a headline in the Daily Mail why Teens Are the Ultimate Marriage Request.
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Oh, my goodness.
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And this is based on a statistic which is that the average age of divorce is 45 for men and 42 for women.
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And the writer then extrapolated out and said well, that's when we have teens, so they're marriage wreckers.
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Amazing research.
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Brilliant and I read that such clickbait.
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Clickbait is where they make you want to read the article because it's so horrified, so ridiculous.
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The Daily Mail is basically a kind of it's a rag.
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Anyway, we all know having teenagers is hard, but when I actually looked at the numbers, these people, the biggest spike is in the 20s for marriage breakdown, and it's in the first two years.
00:02:19.881 --> 00:02:22.936
So that's not when you've got teenagers and it's never to do with your kids.
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It's not your kids, your relationship and your kids maybe are the catalyst Correct.
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So we'll come on to all of that and it's a sprawling topic, but we'll talk about how to spot if you actually should be working on yourself rather than divorcing, because some relationships really don't work and they shouldn't be together, how to go about talking to your kids about it, and the key things that you can do to separate in a way that affects your teenagers as little as possible.
00:02:48.247 --> 00:02:51.552
Yeah, and I've had some amazing help from listeners.
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So thank you everyone before we start Right Nuggets, let's do a nugget.
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Yeah, my nugget today is so my eldest has gone off to university, so that has lots of things involved in that.
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For me and for him and the rest of the family it's an interesting time, very positive.
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It's really exciting for him, really excited for him.
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So he's not very far away, which also makes a difference psychologically as well, and he had actually forgotten, or not forgotten, there was something he didn't think he'd need and then he did need.
00:03:23.305 --> 00:03:24.643
So he said, could you bring it up?
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And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, of course, just a pop-up, I'd love to, I'd love to.
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It was way to beautiful.
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It was right at the end of Freshers Week, so it was right at the start and he was busy with Freshers and I said we won't stay, like I won't stay and is it all right if your siblings come?
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Because they were like, oh, can we come?
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And if not, that's cool, we'll just like I'll hand it to you over in the car park.
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If that's, we'll come another time.
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But he was like no, no, no, it's fine, I am busy, but I've been really nice to see you, just briefly.
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So we went up.
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It then turned out that he wasn't busy because he didn't want to go to the event that was on.
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It was a formal ball, which is not his bag.
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So he did not go.
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So he had a bit more time than he thought.
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And anyway, long story short, he was sitting having a drink in the cafe and we were mucking about a lot and there was a lot of banter and a lot of like.
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Oh, it was really fun.
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This is with his family.
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Yeah, and he just kind of he breathed and he went.
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Oh, it's really nice, I can be as inappropriate as I want.
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Oh, I love it.
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And make some bad jokes and it's all good.
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And you could just see he was enjoying this because he's made friends and it's all going really nicely and it's new and he is really inappropriate normally.
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Oh, that's hilarious.
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You know it was really nice for him to be, to be that, and so it's.
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The reminder was that you know if we can be safe space.
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It just felt like a real blessing a real beautiful space and also that it's really hard when you meet new people.
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So he's made some really lovely friends, but in those early stages you're still kind of scoping each other out and you're a bit scared to say certain things.
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Just in case you know and I've seen this with all of my kids and I guess they need that- buffer someone to come back to and just oh, and he's an introvert, so he's really good at socializing.
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He's learned that and he's very good at it now and it's draining.
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Yeah, so it was really.
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It was really lovely, and how lovely that you didn't suffocate him and go.
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What will come up and we'll just look around your room and meet all your friends.
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Yeah, no, no, yeah, that was nice, lovely.
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So for me, mine was about a conversation I had with the most amazing woman.
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She has teenagers and one of them had quite a dramatic accident.
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She's had a toxic boss who has meant she has actually left her workplace and the area she lives in.
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There are there's been a lot of sirens going around, more police presence and I she dropped these things into the conversation as if they were nothing.
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They just, you know, we were there for quite a while but they just kind of with little little things dropped into the river and I every time I thought, gosh, that sounds much bigger than she's she's saying it is.
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And she then said that she'd been feeling a bit depressed and bitchy and she's gone on HRT in the hope that it will help.
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And, you know, my response was yeah, that's it.
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You know it might be menopause and it might be really helpful, but have you also noticed how hard your life has been over the last period of time and that maybe that's actually having an impact on you physically?
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And her response was yeah, well, I can't complain.
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There are other people who have it way worse than me.
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That's classic.
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Classic response and it's so interesting because there's an amazing book that I highly recommend by Dr Edith Eger, who, which is called the Choice.
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She survived a concentration camp and witnessed some of the most horrific things, and she talks in it about how there is no measure of suffering.
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It's not.
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This person had it way worse than so.
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My suffering doesn't matter.
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We all experience things and we all need to acknowledge the impact it's had on us, not so we can wallow in it, but by actually inspecting and saying, wow, that really that's tough.
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Then we can heal from it and we can move on.
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She's amazing, she's amazing.
00:07:18.226 --> 00:07:23.863
And there's another book of Gabon Marte right is the Myth of Normal and these kinds of experiences.
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You know they're a part of normal life and any reaction to it is a normal response to difficult circumstances, rather than making it either belittling it and ignoring it, or making it into be some sort of massive mental health issue.
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Absolutely.
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Do you have a one of our lovely reviews?
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I do, which is very lovely.
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It's called Huge Help as I Learn to Adapt my Parenting to the Teenage Years.
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I'm so grateful to Rachel and Susie for their research and sage advice.
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I routinely listen to the podcast and look forward to new episodes, as well as consulting past ones as I face new stages in my teens lives.
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Thank you for presenting thorough investigation and sharing your experiences in such an engaging and accessible way.
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Love it, oh, thank you.
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That's really lovely, thank you.
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It's just.
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It's so helpful to hear these things because it makes me think okay, we're doing something, we're making a difference.
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Now are you ready to talk about marriage and divorce?
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Oh yes, so marriagecom, as I mentioned, that statistic I mentioned earlier on, it's the first two years.
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That's the most dangerous in terms of divorces, and then it's actually fifth through to eighth years, with the seventh and eighth being the most perilous.
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That's not when you have teenagers?
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No, but I wonder there is an uptake, I think, when the teenagers get old and they're more independent, and maybe when they leave home, and then suddenly you, looking at your partner, going, wow, we've, we've, we've drifted apart and there's no need.
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We don't, we don't have the same interest.
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I think there was an uptake then as well.
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I don't know statistics.
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I will.
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The statistics I saw said that after the eighth year it starts to decline.
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Yeah, all the way up to the 15th year at which point at plateaus and you've just got consistent rates of people divorcing.
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But you know, again.
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this is just, but I agree, I think it's actually when people think, well, we don't need to do this anymore.
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Yeah, and maybe we were just staying together for the kids and I don't want to spend the next 20 years with you.
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Yeah, yeah, because our values change and I'm right.
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So that can be painful.
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And coming back to that Daily Mail article, she claims couples argue more about teenage children that at any other station.
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I can see that because it's quite challenging, you know the thing is teenagers, the problems can be bigger and more taxing.
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So there is there is this is a claim, and she came up with one example.
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And it was where this couple were in a shop and they had their 14 year old son and he had his birthday money and she had said why don't you, which I've asked them to go off with the son and he can buy his video game while I just finished the shop?
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On no account by Grand Theft Auto, because it's really rapey and violent.
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It's a prostitute.
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And what did you come back with Grand Theft Auto and the father said look, all his mates have got it is not such a big deal.
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And she said look, the one thing I said was don't buy this.
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And he and it turned into a row and he said well, if you feel that strongly about it, then take it back.
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And she said, fine, I will.
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But it turned into a big round.
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That is not your teenager's fault.
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No, absolutely nothing to do with the teenager.
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It's completely their relationship.
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I love this thought for God's sake.
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And my husband.
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I mentioned it to him and he said oh, if you had told me not to get this, I would walk off, with that ringing in my ears and if I disagreed, I would have had a conversation with you offline at home.
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That's brilliant journalism, yeah well done you.
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Thank you for that example.
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Dr Karl Picard, harvard train psychologist, said when parents neglect to look after themselves and their marriage, you're much less able to care for your adolescence and the adolescent.
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The adults can end up blaming the child.
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Yeah, of course it's not their responsibility.
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It's not their responsibility.
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It can absolutely be a catalyst because it's really challenging, but then you can step back and look at the background and what's going on.
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And that's absolutely spot on that one, because Teneeth Carey who wrote the article, but actually it has some good suggestions.
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One of the things she pointed out was spot the proxy battles.
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Are you feeling irrationally triggered by your partner's parenting?
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Because actually that might be to do with tensions in your relationship and they're being fought via the children.
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It's often to do with sort of control issues.
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When we have teenagers, it's very much about what can feel like, it's very much about control and what are they allowed to do, what are they not allowed to do All of the things that we discuss every time and that can feel very difficult to navigate with somebody else if you're not on the same page or you're already triggered by them.
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It just exacerbates everything, yes, and solve your own hangups.
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Is the thing your teen doing wrong or, in your eyes, wrong actually linked back to treatment you experienced?
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your childhood self introspection.
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I'm in my parents sorry and that feels really weird and awkward, but we don't marry our parents and we can think all but my Partners, nothing to like my parent.
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But there are elements in our partners that we pick that make us feel like we did when we were kids.
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That's the thing, it's not that they look like them or they are like them, but there's something in them that makes us feel how we did that parent made us feel, and that's what we need to look at yes, no, absolutely.
00:13:12.400 --> 00:13:13.721
I think that's completely spot on.
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I get massively triggered when your parents.
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Yes, yeah, really really good point.
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One of the things is look at the same house have been coming up the last three years, you know.
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So actually record.
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You can record your house like what are we rowering over?
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Is it the same?
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Always the same thing back in the?
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Can we fix?
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Is this a fixable?
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Is this something we fundamentally just don't agree on?
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I mean, we deserve everyone in a relationship with the deserves respect.
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These are human beings we're dealing with.
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You know whether you've stopped loving your partner.
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What they, you both, deserve respect.
00:13:46.839 --> 00:14:06.572
So this kind of curb, your eye rolling and criticism and back biting because it doesn't help anybody, and most relationship problems, like 90% of relationship problems, are to do with communication and how we communicate or how we don't communicate, and so having a look at communication patterns is can be absolutely game changer yes, so, so.
00:14:06.873 --> 00:14:08.515
so these are all things that could lead you to going.
00:14:08.515 --> 00:14:15.069
Well, you know, maybe, maybe we could learn better patterns, or are we actually?
00:14:15.069 --> 00:14:17.173
What is the foundation our relationship is built on?
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Because if it's an empty vessel, then it may be that it's time to sort of move on much.
00:14:24.069 --> 00:14:42.694
Try and do some of this work before you decide to divorce, because you're still going to be parents together and you're still going to have to talk to each other and you're still going to have to make decisions absolutely and a lot of people, I think you know, think oh great, it's a fix, because it's really difficult and maybe the marriage is over and you know there are a million reasons I'm divorced.
00:14:42.735 --> 00:14:43.336
You know it's.
00:14:43.336 --> 00:14:55.337
It's really challenging and really painful and it's very multi layered, but you don't get out of it, it's not like it gets out of jail card because you still have to co parent and that's really challenging.
00:14:55.337 --> 00:14:58.847
So if you can learn to communicate, that's really helpful.
00:14:58.948 --> 00:15:01.112
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, that's absolutely key.
00:15:01.112 --> 00:15:08.111
Like if we can just look at one thing that you could do before you Push the button, is that we just how do we bet?
00:15:08.151 --> 00:15:14.524
get better at communicating, because we're going to have to do it super, super challenging and I think when you're not going through a divorce, you've never been through divorce.
00:15:14.524 --> 00:15:20.634
I used to be really smug, you know why can't they just, you know, get on with it for the sake of the kids?
00:15:20.634 --> 00:15:26.524
So you know it's so awful, and then you're in it and you go oh my goodness, it's super, super challenging and painful.
00:15:27.386 --> 00:15:31.052
Yes, so you know it's painful and the pain, for the pain is the heart.
00:15:31.072 --> 00:15:32.054
It's multi layered.
00:15:32.054 --> 00:15:37.544
You know you're you're saying goodbye to a family you know, and you know the future and there's so much in it.
00:15:37.544 --> 00:15:44.453
It's Super, super painful for most people and that's not even including if there's been, you know, betrayal or other issues.
00:15:44.453 --> 00:15:52.524
So it's not without its challenges, but it's really worth just trying to be as respectful as possible and communicate as cleanly as possible, if you can.
00:15:52.524 --> 00:15:52.644
Yeah.
00:15:54.548 --> 00:15:58.538
And it can trigger an existential crisis where you literally like who am, you know?
00:15:58.538 --> 00:16:01.203
If I'm not in this marriage and I'm not this person, I'm not this person.
00:16:01.203 --> 00:16:01.504
What now?
00:16:01.504 --> 00:16:01.605
Am I?
00:16:01.605 --> 00:16:10.096
Yes, and it may be that one person feels that way and the other person's like yeah, I can carry on moving this direction is brilliant yes, and that often is the case.
00:16:10.096 --> 00:16:10.856
It's really hard.
00:16:10.856 --> 00:16:12.899
So what about staying together for the kids?
00:16:13.865 --> 00:16:20.913
Oh no, so my friends actually judgemental about my friends in the short term because they had a similar scenario.
00:16:20.913 --> 00:16:36.818
So they had actually three kids who are all going through very important exams, and I I spent some time with the wife three of us women together in very intense situation for a few days.
00:16:36.818 --> 00:16:40.568
I should never mentioned it once, which was amazing.
00:16:40.568 --> 00:16:41.831
How did you do that?
00:16:41.831 --> 00:16:48.644
Yeah, and and suddenly they announced it after the exams were over to the world and I just went what, what, what, hang on, what.
00:16:48.644 --> 00:16:53.754
But they were little signs that had that had made me very confused about their relationship so.
00:16:53.774 --> 00:16:56.098
I don't know how it felt on the inside for those kids.
00:16:57.145 --> 00:17:01.014
No, I think what the problem is, and I and people have to do what feels right for them and if that?
00:17:01.014 --> 00:17:03.118
Works for them, then of course they do that.
00:17:03.118 --> 00:17:05.605
So I'm not judging anybody for what the choices they make.
00:17:05.605 --> 00:17:16.543
I just would be concerned possibly that because teenagers have their antennae out all the time and they need heightened yeah heightened and they need.
00:17:16.583 --> 00:17:17.024
They need to.
00:17:17.024 --> 00:17:33.644
What they see and hear and experience has to be in alignment with what they're, you know, with all of it has to all be in alignment and when they are seeing things that aren't in alignment, that confuses their antennae and that goes back onto themselves and they then start to wonder about their own judgment.
00:17:33.644 --> 00:17:38.089
And everything feels that a bit sort of discumbent.
00:17:51.367 --> 00:17:52.048
I love that.
00:17:52.048 --> 00:18:06.521
That's so important because it's this when you're a teenager, you are trying to work out what you really think of the world and how things work and how your friends working and, and if things are slightly off, yeah, then you just think it's you think it's you.
00:18:06.521 --> 00:18:10.129
Your judgement, so you could you know, mom and dad saying we're all good we love.
00:18:10.431 --> 00:18:14.817
And then they see their body language and it's not how they're talking.
00:18:14.817 --> 00:18:19.223
They'll be like, well, that doesn't match, and they won't be conscious, maybe, of what it is.
00:18:19.223 --> 00:18:19.644
But that will go in.
00:18:20.988 --> 00:18:29.767
Or that you pretend to be getting on really, really well, like, and then as soon as the exams are over, you go wow, and the kid goes wait, wait.
00:18:29.767 --> 00:18:32.186
And then they'll start thinking well, what else have you?
00:18:32.226 --> 00:18:33.401
learned about Exactly Well.
00:18:33.401 --> 00:18:34.787
Who can I trust Right?
00:18:34.859 --> 00:18:36.185
So it has its problems.
00:18:36.259 --> 00:18:37.325
Yeah, it needs to be in alignment.
00:18:37.325 --> 00:18:40.367
But, it's difficult and you know people do it for all sorts of reasons.
00:18:40.367 --> 00:18:42.126
So whatever it works, you have to do.
00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:49.170
And studies reveal that children who are raised in a two-person loving and stable environment show fewer signs of depression, anxiety and defiant behavior.
00:18:49.170 --> 00:18:57.406
Who knew, hey, and these children have better academics and develop better capacity for truly intimate relationships, all that stuff.
00:18:57.406 --> 00:19:13.970
But the reason I'm bringing this up is that children raised in stressful and conflicted marriages are more stressed, have more defiant behavior and more problems than children raised in a stable, divorced or stable single-parent home.
00:19:14.139 --> 00:19:22.868
Yeah, because they are children fundamentally, are competent in the sense and we talked about this right at the start of the podcast.
00:19:22.868 --> 00:19:28.010
They're competent in that if something is out of alignment, they make a noise.
00:19:28.010 --> 00:19:30.243
So they go whoa, hang on.
00:19:30.243 --> 00:19:31.047
This is a bit weird.
00:19:31.047 --> 00:19:31.628
What's going on?
00:19:31.628 --> 00:19:34.105
They don't know it consciously, they probably can't verbalize it.
00:19:34.105 --> 00:19:41.504
So if they're feeling this mismatch of what's going on, they'll probably play out a bit, because they'll be like whoa, what's going on?
00:19:41.504 --> 00:19:42.307
I need some attention.
00:19:42.307 --> 00:19:44.527
I don't quite know why, I just feel it feels funny.
00:19:44.527 --> 00:19:46.164
So that would possibly be why.
00:19:46.425 --> 00:19:47.328
Yeah, brilliant.
00:19:47.328 --> 00:19:56.204
And Christine Northam, a Relationships Counselor for Relate, says parents who stay together for the children often don't take into account the model they're presenting to their children.
00:19:56.204 --> 00:19:57.730
We talk about this a lot.
00:19:57.730 --> 00:20:03.766
These kind of loveless examples can actually hamper children in their adult relationships because they're forming.
00:20:03.766 --> 00:20:16.127
This is why this teenage years are so important, because they're starting to form an imprint of what is a relationship, what is love, and if what they're living with doesn't really match, it can be very confusing.
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