Your Guide to Surviving Divorce

All of our kids have reacted and are dealing with the divorce in their own different ways. They all realize that this is final and that we will not be living together as a family any longer.

Matthew (my 8 year old) and Sarah (13) have had their moments but are dealing with things fairly well. Jacob (my 11 year old) on the other hand, is having a harder time dealing with his feelings.

He is so angry that he actually slammed his fist through a wall the other day over something small. His sister Sarah reminded him that he forgot to put the ice cream back in the freezer, not a big deal, but he just lost it. Thank goodness, he didn’t hurt himself or worse, strike out and hit his sister! The incident concerns me of course and it has opened my eyes and made me realize just how much anger he is carrying around inside – and how quickly it can come out! (more…)

I’m not a lawyer, but I have recently been through a legal separation. A Separation Agreement is a written document stating certain basic “agreements” between a married couple who have decided to no longer live together.

I’m from the United States of America, and the main issues that were addressed in our separation agreement were the division of possessions, child custody and support, child visitation rights, and support payments for my children.

Living Separate and Apart

“Living separate and apart” does not necessarily require “physical separation”. For economic reasons we shared our home for a couple of months (separate rooms of course) after having signed our separation agreement, before I physically moved out. (more…)

We expected our kids would take the news of our divorce hard but as my ex-wife, Amy said to me the other day, “Jason, did you think it would be like this?” I had to tell her that some parts surprised me and some of the things our kids said and did were part of what I’d expected.

Listen – Adjust – Reassure

After all, they didn’t choose this divorce. Amy and I did. Now it was up to us to help them overcome the effects of divorce and help them understand that they would be okay. (more…)

Although our children have suspected that something is wrong, they have each been reacting differently. We’ve gotten calls from the school principal about our youngest son Matthew, age 8, and how he has been having trouble at school and most recently that he is bullying other kids.

Now we have to actually tell the kids all the details about our upcoming divorce. I have to admit that I dread this. I really feel unprepared to explain to them how my wife and I, married for 12 year’s, can’t continue to provide the type of dream family they want.

Of course, they knew things were getting rough and our fashion conscious daughter was already starting to drift away from me and her brothers, preferring to hang out with her tiny group of friends at the mall. (more…)

Now that my soon to be ex-wife Amy and I have thought about how we should discuss our divorce with our children, we realize that they will have plenty of questions, especially as time goes on.

Our 11 year old son Jacob has already been struggling in school and our 13 year old girl Sarah is spending more time at the mall with her small group of friends. I’m hoping that they will feel better as they understand more about the divorce and see that it wasn’t their fault.

So my ex and I have been thinking about the questions our children have already asked us now as well as what they might ask us later.

Anticipate Lots of Questions

It really boils down to what we should tell them about our divorce and what could be too much for them to handle now. (more…)

After I got back from watching my 11 year old son Jacob play on his school football team, I felt a wave of nervousness. It was time to think about how we should tell our kids (the other two are a boy Matthew, age 8 and a girl Sarah, age 13), about the divorce.

My wife and I, married for 12 years, have been talking about how we will tell our children about our divorce for quite some time now. We started out feeling very angry at each other and going over our past wrongs. Now we have finally decided to come together and be calm for the sake of the kids – at least, when we talk to them about the divorce.

I hate this. I wish I didn’t have to break the news to them. (more…)