When parents divorce, their family doesn't die--like a living cell, it splits in two. At its best, the result is a new kind of family with a surprising structure: a healthy, thriving organism that has two separate and vital centers.
No matter how severe their initial problems, many families do achieve this kind of transformation over time, allowing parents and children to recover from divorce and get on with their lives.
But this cannot happen until the parents have resolved their custody conflicts. Sharing the Children provides divorcing parents with the tools they need to deal effectively with each other, and to cope with the intense, protracted custody disputes that can traumatize a divorcing family.
In the turmoil of working out a child custody settlement, two spouses either can fight competitively for the upper hand--what Dr. Adler calls "win-lose" negotiating--or they can try to work cooperatively for the benefit of their children.
With all the problems that surround a divorce, cooperative negotiating is extremely difficult--but not impossible. Using anecdotes and case histories from his own professional experience, Dr. Adler introduces divorcing parents to the techniques that make a successful settlement possible, guiding them through the divorce process so that all the participants--mother, father, and children--can come out winners.
This book shows how to develop, stage-by-stage, a successful custody arrangement.
Giving practical answers to tough questions, it tackles every step:
- from deciding to separate
- to hiring a lawyer and/or mediator
- to negotiating custody details (such as who gets the children for which holidays)
- to the complications that arise when new lovers, spouses and step-children enter the scene
Dr. Adler lays out the methods for creating a custody arrangement that works for you and your children. He shows how to:
- Understand and manage your own feelings
- Anticipate and influence the reactions of your spouse
- Communicate and negotiate effectively
Sharing the Children also includes a basic self-help checklist for divorcing parents and a state-by-state summary of custody laws in the United States.
In my practice I have worked with many people in pain. I have counseled people who have fled from political oppression, concentration camp victims, schizophrenics and their families. I have listened to men and women in deep depression. People have told me of their frustration, helplessness, and rage at the illness and death of their parents, their children, or their mates. Parents of children born autistic, brain damaged, or developmentally delayed have spoken of their years of struggle and heartbreak. In their words, drawings, and play, children have conveyed to me their histories of neglect and abuse.
Surprisingly, from among these many unhappy people, one group stands out as among the most confused, the most trapped, and the most hurt and helpless. These are divorced or divorcing parents caught in a seemingly endless pattern of resentment, animosity, and pain. The months or years that have passed since they separated have not healed their wounds. The shock of betrayal, the humiliation they felt, their sense of loss and victimization, remain as vivid as if they had happened yesterday. They continue to seethe with anger, leading them to avoid all contact with each other or to make every meeting a tense, hostile standoff. For some, periods of uneasy truce are punctuated by explosive exchanges of criticism, threats, and, all too often, violence. These parents and their children are trapped in a continuing struggle, a hot or cold war that has taken on a life of its own, poisoning years of their lives.
When parents divorce, their family does not die; like a living cell, it splits in two. At its best the result is a new kind of family with surprising structure, a healthy, thriving organism with two separate, equally vital centers. No matter how severe their initial problems, most families do achieve this kind of transformation over time, allowing parents and children to go on to live fulfilling lives on their own terms.
Although the details of their custody arrangements vary greatly, those divorced parents who go on to lead fulfilling lives share several key traits: they have let go of the past and are busy and involved with new people, activities, and relationships. They have developed independent lives and have stopped trying to control and interfere with each other. They have shown their children that it is safe and acceptable to love both of them. As a result, the children have a loving, realistic relationship with both parents. Finally, these parents, despite their divorce and their continuing differences, have developed a businesslike, workable way of dealing with each other when it comes to the children.
Many families, however, do not make it across the divorce and child custody minefield safely The statistics vary, but experts report that one-quarter to one-half of all divorced families continue to live with destructive levels of friction, hostility, and bitterness, even years after separating. Their lawyers call them "hostility junkies." Psychologists describe them as entrenched in intractable disputes. Teachers find their children troubled, depressed, and prone to school failure and antisocial behavior.
When I first started working with families like these I was sure that the root of these severe, chronic problems had to lie in psychological flaws of one or both parents. I thought that horror stories like those I heard could never happen unless one or both of the parents were seriously disturbed. To my surprise I found that these men and women could not be distinguished from parents who had worked out their custody problems far more successfully, or from parents who had never divorced.
As I learned about their backgrounds and how they were managing other aspects of their lives, I discovered that most of them were neither bad people nor emotionally disturbed. They differed not so much in who they were, but in what had happened to them and in how they had gone about trying to solve their problems. It was the specifics of what they had experienced, said, and done while trying to separate and divorce that had gotten them in trouble, not the kind of people they were.
