I started a divorce process with my husband about 5 months ago becuase he cheated 3 times on me and I was done. I have a 5-year old and an 18-month old. Right now the younger one has almost no idea. The only thing since the kids and I moved into our own townhome is that he has gotten really clingy. But my 5-year old is taking it really hard. She wont sleep in her room (and when I get her too she will get up all hours of the night to look for me). She has made the comment that her dad doesn't love to her and it just goes on from there. The thing is that my soon-to-be-ex husband only comes around other then his weekends when him and his girlfriend are fighting or he is between girlfrinds. In the last 5 months he has been with three women. The kids and I are moving on becuase I am in the process of getting enrolled in collage, we now have our own townhome, and I have the older one in therapy. We have made these changes for best, but my question is how do I shield my daughter and son from seeing all these women coming and going and how do I help her move on when the therapy doesn't seem to help very much. I don't down-talk thier father and I try to minimize the amount of phone conversations they see, so to try to help make sure they don't see us fighting.
Hi, M.. I reccomend that you get the book Talking With Children About Loss. It is a book about helping children cope with death, divorce, and other difficult times.
I'm sorry that you're going through this. While I know your heart is broken right now it's time to focus on your kids. Here in Oklahoma there's a class that is required for parents to take that deals with the psychological issues of divorce. I would check around and see if there is something similar in your area.
It sounds like the split has triggered some separation anxiety in the children and you have to focus on getting them happy again.
Do you have a really good bed time routine? At 5 your daughter could be playing on the computer, preschool.com, pbskids.org, starfall.com, while you bathe and spend time alone with the baby reading books before bed. 20 minutes minimum, alone with each child. Then off to bed.
Then with your daughter you could read a new book each week about divorce. Doing the same thing, bath then books then bed.
When you are playing with the kids, call them by name and praise the little things they are doing. "Jenny, you pulled the blue car out of the box, you made a good choice by getting the blue car. It's pretty and I like it." When she says something like "I like waffles" or the baby makes words then you repeat them "You like waffles" "Johnny, you said babbly load" It shows the kids you are there, and really paying attention to them. Avoid asking questions, eliminate telling the kids what to do at playtime, and be as enthusiastic as you can. This will help eliminate all those pestering questions that come in order to keep your attention. Practice doing this all the time. I have a 5 year old and a 2 year old and they hear a lot of this in order to keep me from harping on their every move.
My local library has a great selection on divorce for kids
The Boys and Girls Book about Divorce, Confessions of a Divorced Kid, "Daddy Day, Daughter Day", Dinosaurs Divorce: A Guide for Changing Families. These are just a few that I found by punching in divorce into their search engine. I would suggest you do the same. http://www.tscpl.org/
For you, I would see if you can find Family First on Tape or CD and listen to it in the car, doing dishes, while bathing. There is a whole section on divorced parents and even on blended families.
Take Care, remember to take time out for yourself. I love 9-11 p.m. for this reason. The kids are in bed and I can really get the things I like to do done.
First let me say that I have you and your children in my prayer. And also you soon to be exhusband. I am 44 years old and divorced the children's father about 5 years ago and know exactly what you are going through. My divorce was extremely messy. Currently my boys are 21 and 18 yrs old. Shielding them from all the mess was one of my issues as well. How do you feel about having supervised visits with you (ex)husband? And explain that you have some concerns of the children being exposed to so many women. Maybe even mention this to your lawyer (if you are going this route). I don't want to get to personal with too much of my business online but if you want to discuss this in more detail please email me ____@____.com and I will give you my direct number or we can exchange email in that form. One thing I did is I wouldn't let the children go with him if I felt they would be exposed to things I didn't approve of. Putting aside personal issues between their father and I but soley being concerned about the well-being of the children.
I will keep you in my prayers M.. Do you have any support group, church, friends, family that can be of assistance?
Please keep you head up, and know it will get better. One thing I can say is please don't bad talk the children father in there presence. This is truly not a good thing to do.
Much Love,
M.
Wow! there is a lot there to deal with. But I am going to confine myself to the question, "How do I me kids from seeing all these women coming and going?" The answer is: you can't. It's possible you ex-husband could shield them for it. But he probably won't. And you can't.
All you can do is give your kids the tools to deal it and recognize that seeing your ex-husband may be pretty scary for them. They probably need a lot for reassurance the your ex-husband can cycle though girlfriends all he wants; nothing can change the fact that he is their father.
Whether you want to explain your ex-husbands many women and a continuing search for the right partner or a continuing search for maturity, I don't know. But I do know you need to dome up with some explanation for it. I would suggest deciding what you would tell your kids about it if they were say 15 and then scale back and soften that explanation until it's age-appropriate. Then you can introduce new elements of the explanation as they get older and you won't have to change your story just enlarge it.
