Table of Contents
Custody Chaos, Personal Peace
A gold mine of useful information for one of modern families greatest challenges.
Michael P. Nichols, Ph.D., author of The Lost Art of Listening
A wonderful blend of wisdom, encouragement, and skill-specific advice. Confronts the really intractable problems that are so disheartening in post-divorce relations. I am recommending this book to my clients.
Carl D. Schneider, Ph.D., director, Mediation Matters, author of Shame, Exposure, and Privacy
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To my wife, Frances, who has always been my partner in the pursuit of dreams
Acknowledgments
Whenever I sit down to write, I am aware that I am not alone. I bring to the task a personal history rich in lessons taught by good teachers and carved into my soul by my own lifes meandering through joy and pain. I am grateful to all those who have inspired and guided me.
My wife, Frances, to whom this book is dedicated, not only tolerated the hundreds of hours that I spent secluded in my office but also consistently believed in this project and in all it represented for me. In a sense, she is my co-author; quite simply, this book would not have happened without her encouragement.
The team most central to this books final gestation and birth was invaluable: My agent, Sara Jane Freymann, offered me deep enthusiasm for this work, crystalline guidance, and a kind of spiritual companionship that kept me focused. Susanna Margolis, my private editor, took a somewhat rough stone and helped me turn it into the gem I was striving for. Her influence is woven throughout this book, and I am very grateful for her extraordinary literary talent, her critical insight, and for many moments of laughter between us. Sheila Curry Oakes, my editor at Penguin Putnam, said yes to my proposal for this book, a moment I will not soon forget, and then was the skillful and supportive shepherd of this manuscript through its release.
My colleague and close friend Dr. Randy Cale has served as a sounding board and loving critic, always challenging me to take my thought to a higher level in a way that stretched me. Our partnership, focused on work with divorcing adults and children, has been enormously important to me. Jeffrey Cohen, Esq., has been an enthusiastic supporter of this project and has been a model for me of enlightened and sensitive legal representation for parents and children as they experience divorce. Christine Benton provided early editorial assistance along with very welcome encouragement. Dr. Michael Nichols offered invaluable advice on the process of bringing this work to print, for which I am deeply grateful.
Most important, I am grateful to the several thousand divorced parents who have come to my office as they struggled with navigating their relationships from separate homes. Their creative and thoughtful insights, borne of life in the trenches of divorce, form the foundation of this book and are woven into its very fabric.
Finally, some gratitude for a life experience: After my own dad died, my mother remarried, and my beautiful sister was born of that second relationship. As a twelve-year-old, I saw my little sister, a toddler at the time, trying to cope with the reality that her mother and father had decided to divorce; I was the big brother who watched as she tried to make sense of the complexities and emotional challenges of a divided family. Consequently, some of the thoughts I will share with you in the upcoming chapters flow from my own experience as a teenager observing two loving parents working hard to part, with dignity, while a special little girl stood between them.
PART ONE
Working on Yourself
CHAPTER ONE
How You Got Here
I felt like I had no life of my own when we were together... like I was drowning. I finally couldnt take it anymore and told him I wanted outbut now that Im out he still finds ways to drive me nuts, especially when we have to talk about the kids...
It took me twelve years to figure out that I could never do anything right in her eyes, and I just couldnt face that for the rest of my life. I remember the night that we told the kids.... I felt like I was dying inside, but at the same time I thought I was finally finding freedom from her endless nagging. Now, after two years apart, Im amazed at how she continues to make me feel like a worthless father from ten miles away. In many ways, things didnt get easier...
He pulls up to my house with the kids sitting in his truck, and they never have their seat belts on. Whenever they leave for their dads home I have a lump in my throat, because he has no brains when it comes to keeping our kids safe...
Whenever Jason comes to my house for our weekend together it feels like it takes five hours for him to settle in and warm up to me. No wonderI know that my ex speaks about me like Im a vampire, and Jason hears it all...
My ex is like a screaming maniac whenever I bring up the fact that I need more money for the kids. He acts like he thinks Ill blow his money on partying rather than taking care of Suzy and Jake. When he starts to yell I can see our kids cringe and hide, but there is no stopping him...
No matter how many times I tell my ex that I need her to be on time and to stick with the schedule for her visits, she keeps pushing the limits, showing up a half hour late, or canceling at the last minute, only to leave me with two disappointed kids.
Sound familiar? The fact that youre reading this book means that you recognize the anxiety, anger, frustration, even desperation that come through loud and clear in these quotes from divorced and separated parents. Your story is no doubt different in the details. Whats the same is the extent to which your life is still shadowed by someone you no longer live with, the extent to which youre still driven crazy by an ex-spouse with whom you will be sharing custody for years to come.
I am a psychologist who specializes in the problems affecting separated families, of whom Ive counseled or evaluated more than 2,000 to date. As you can imagine, Ive heard infinite variations on the theme of sharing custody with an ex whos driving you crazy, but the theme itself is always the same. It prompts feelings of hopelessness and sadness, anxiety and anger, feelings that seem to be always present just under the surface. Even the brief periods of relative calm these separated parents enjoy are darkened by the knowledge that another storm with their ex lies just over the horizon. Too much of their life feels out of their control. For such parentsperhaps for youwhere there is custody chaos, there is virtually no personal peace.
This book aims to help you end the chaos and find the peace. It will help you put a stop to the roller coaster of conflict that constantly and consistently interrupts your life. When children are involved, divorce doesnt erase conflicts between ex-partners. Your kids will bind you together for decades after separation; your lives will intersect time and again as you try to rear them from your separate homes through schooling, sports, graduations, weddings, and beyond. Your problems wont disappear, and neither will your ex. Raising children from two separate households provides many opportunities for further conflict and disagreement.
