A
female
age
41-50,
*ronzehorse
writes:How do I tell my kids ages 8 and 3 that I am divorcing their father?
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 December 2008): As you said, pvtguy, this is all better done in private mail..
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 December 2008): Your right, next time I will mail you... for whatever good that will do.
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 December 2008): There you go again PVTguy, trying read people's minds, making assumptions and stories about things that aint written down. Ah well, some you win, some you loose... Have a nice day.
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A
male
reader, orangetree  +, writes (27 December 2008):
 divorce is a term exclusive to the adult world, it means nothing to a child and a very young child. The only understanding they both will obtain is how it change their own world, ideally any changes will be minimum and consistanty maintained thereafter. Due to the children's ages, their emotional understanding & reasoning will struggle to impact on fundental instincts of loss and rejection, they most be SHOWN that they listened to, still cuddled, still played with by you both consistantly, prefferabley with no shortfall or compensation, children learn what they live. Verbal explaination are still important, increasingly so for the 8 year-old, however reassurances that it is not their fault will be undone by inconstitant, erratic behaviour or uncontained, unresolved adult feelings. The children will not be gifted with experience of Mom and Dad as separate entities, this fact is all to easy to overlook, however demonstration of prior autonomy is useful, Daddy is also a son/brother/plumber/friend/cricketer as well as Daddy. Anything poentially new or destablising needs to be ommitted or marginalized. Try to use established parallels in your children's life and understanding,talk about their friends who have experienced marital breakdown or reconstituted families. The child's view of family is inately conservative, there will be resistance, even if the marriage was openly poor and abusive, how this resistance manifests can vary from anger to isolation, its frequency and serverity are also extremely variable. However it is expressed it is helpful to bear in mind that it is normative for children to express distress and distrust of change and the new. Anticipating, accepting and containing this expression of adjustment will require "good enough" parenting and should not be arrested lest resentments, frustrations and primal distruption cause lasting pathology. Parental responses to expressions of adjustment will be one of many areas were there is sharp interaction between the Adult emotion experience of divorce or separation and the more fundamental and visceral emotional world of children. Guilt, envy, loss, resentment and betray to name but afew of the negative feelings which will colour the parents reactions to what behaviours the child is presenting. Being aware of your own subjectivity and unbalance is the first step in creating a "survivable" episode in your children's developement.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (27 December 2008): WHOOOW there...You are not divorced yet.
You sit down with your husband regardless of what happened and agree on the statement you put to your children.
Jumping the gun me thinks.
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 December 2008): Dash and bother.. you mentioned my dad.. you need to read things more clearly.. no harsh statements were made about him, no blame was put on my father at all in my response.. I just asked why they took so long to divorce, and you assume that it was my father and not my mother at fault... lol
Please read carefully and stop putting words and assumptions in that have not been written down.
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 December 2008): As I said pvtguy, different strokes for different folks. I'm not here to judge people or use their lives to make a statement to the world. Every person is an individual, every circumstance is different and my advice changes accordingly. I do not have a template marked "this is the way things should be" one size fits all.
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 December 2008): To a simple question you brought a lot of baggage, some harsh judgements and no explainations at all. Your response made no sense at all to me, and to anyone reading this post without first reading the link I provided, you sound like a guy with some big personal issues, and biased in your advice.
Sixteen words in the question, and you started talking about a whole pile of things that weren't mentioned here. Without knowing the background of course you sound angry and mean.
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 December 2008): mmm... now I can understand why PVTguy was so negative and angry in his response to you.. Only the half the story is given here. Your already having an affair, and are thinking of divorcing your husband because you "think" your in love. Things will be much more difficult if you leave your husband and move in with some man that they don't know and definitely isn't the father that they care about and love. You and your new partner may find yourself with two very angry and hurt little kids on your hands...
http://www.dearcupid.org/question/am-i-doing-the-right-thi.html
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 December 2008): Different strokes for different folks.
My mother sat me down and said "I'm divorcing your father". I was 11 at the time.. the only thing I had to say was "Good, what took you so long?" 28years later, they are still divorced but are the best of friends, and Christmas with them both was lovely, and no fighting involved like when they was married.
SoftlyCaress is perfectly right, as long as they know you will remain their parents and love them with all their heart, then they won't have to worry about being deserted and loosing one of their parents. Try to make the divorce as friendly and kind as possible. If you can, try to remain friends, and remember that even though your not together as lovers and romantic partners, you are still parents, your a team, and you have the best interests of your children at heart.
SoftlyCaress is also right when she advises you to explain you can't stay together because you don't have the proper love that married people should have. Tell them you love each other and always will, but you only love each other as friends and this will make you both very, very unhappy if you stay together. Children can bounce back very quickly. As soon as they realise that being non-married (divorce) means that you all live in different houses, but they still see you both regularly, you still treat them they same, and in the best of worlds, you still talk to each other kindly and wish each other well, then this will be enough for them.
They pretty soon realise that divorced parents mean that you can start using guilt and punishment to undermine parental rules. That's why it's important to remain friendly, to remain a team. No going from one parent to the other, telling stories, saying mum dose this or dad dose that. If you remain as loving parents, that will put a stop to all that.
At first they may become very clingy, anxious, or even angry with you or your ex husband. Give them the extra care and attention they need, but don't let them milk it, otherwise you will remain guilty and suffering forever.
They don't know why your marriage isn't working, they are not in your bedroom, so how the hell can they blame you or him. Your marriage is your business and nothing to do with them. Just promise that you both will be good parents, love and support them together, tell them you can't live together any longer because you make each other unhappy and that's all they need to know.
DO NOT INTRODUCE A NEW PARTNER INTO THEIR LIVES FOR A VERY LONG TIME.. let them get used to daddy living somewhere else first, when they are used to having two parents living in different houses, then you can move on to introducing them to any new partner that you may wish to include in your life. WARNING: They will always hope that one day you and their father can live together and be married again. That's what they wish and desire, well tough, you can't stay unhappily married for anyone, and they won't suffer if their father remains in their life.
Sorry babes, a marriage failed is tough for everyone, not only the kids but also you and your ex husband. But if you remain friendly parents, give each other support and always be very truthful with the children about what concerns them, then like millions of other children in this world, they should grow up happier and more confident than living with two parents under the same roof and watching them hate each other and cause each other pain. It takes time, so be patient with them, yourself and the situation in which you find yourself.
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A
female
reader, SoftlyCaress  +, writes (27 December 2008):
 Its Not easy to tell them but i am going through it also and the thing we did was tell our 3 girls 24 / 21 /11 that we was getting a divorce because we wasnt in love no more that we loved each other but only as friends.. That no matter what we was always going to be there for them .It seemed to be harder for the 2 oldest girls to adapt to it . The 11 yr old was sad but then she saw she had 2 bedrooms and 2 pretty much of everything and we still have family functions with all of us ... Hard for me to get use to since he was the one that wanted the divorce and has moved on but to make my kids happy I can do it and this is the frame of mind you need to get into .
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