Richard Hogan: Here's how to manage when a relationship ends - and what NOT to do
"Of course, relationships do end, and sometimes in conflict; depending on what happened leading up to the separation. Often, there has been incredible hurt and betrayal. So, separating well or healthily can be very difficult to achieve."
Separation, whether from a romantic partner, spouse, or even a friend, can be one of the most challenging of emotional experiences. Nobody enters in to a close relationship thinking about how it will end.
Of course, relationships do end, and sometimes in conflict; depending on what happened leading up to the separation. Often, there has been incredible hurt and betrayal. So, separating well or healthily can be very difficult to achieve.
Hurt people can do terrible things to each other.
Very few people separate from each other in a way that doesn’t damage their children. That’s my clinical experience. And it can be challenging for the parents to think about the needs of the children when their own hurt is so great.
People who have a low differentiation of self can really struggle to separate their hurt from their children’s hurt.
Parents often confide in their children what has transpired in the adult relationship. I have met many separating couples and am often asked, ‘Should I tell the children that he/she was having an affair?’
I always ask the same question: ‘What is your desired outcome from telling your children about their father’s/mother’s sexual life?’ No child wants to think about their parent being sexually active.
In fact, I have chatted with many older children and they shudder at the thought of their parents’ sexual life.
So, bringing children in to that kind of adult theme can cause huge problems for their relationship with their parent.
We live in an anti-family society. A lot of the advice out there can be quite negative about the importance of family. The advice can make separation seem like an easy thing to do, or the right thing to do if the marriage becomes difficult.
And, of course, every marriage meets difficulty. Every relationship, marriage or otherwise, will experience a nadir, a dip, and will flounder at times.
That is normal; we should not pathologise that. But if that conflict is prolonged and becoming more intense, and without resolution, then the couple should seek help to figure out how best to move forward.
Sometimes, the conflict is so great that the relationship will break down, and parents will separate. I often hear experts talking as if separation doesn’t upset children. Of course it does.
Children want their parents to be in a loving relationship. So, the idea that separation won’t upset them is not correct. It will. But the separation doesn’t have to disturb them. That is an important distinction.
Again, depending on what was happening in that family system before separation, the separation may even come as relief to the children. In my experience, while parents separating will upset children, it might, in fact, be a healing process for the entire family.
But that is if the parents manage it successfully. That is if the parents think about how they can work together, while separately raising their children. It isn’t easy, but it is possible.
One of the biggest mistakes parents make is to bring children in to adult themes. One parent often wants the child to know the pain the other parent has caused them, and so they bring them in to a destructive narrative about their father or mother.
This is what traumatises children and leaves a lifelong scar.
That is an uplifting thing for a child to hear. Help children to see that your relationship with each other is separate from your relationship with them, but explain that you both loved each other to bring them in to the world.
That will help ameliorate any negative thoughts floating around in a child’s mind.
Children often blame themselves for the separation. Both parents should tell their children that they love them and how they will both still parent them even though they will live in different houses. That’s an important conversation to have.
Often, parents feel awkward about having that conversation, and it causes conflict as things remain unspoken.
Children are resilient, but you can’t prevent them from being upset; you have to help them manage those feelings and reassure them about how much both of you still love them.
I have sat with so many children who have said to me, ‘I really wish my mother/father would not speak badly about my other parent’, or, ‘I love my dad or mom and I want to be able to talk about them’.
‘It really hurts when they say something negative about them, and I don’t know what to do about it’.
Adults should have adult friends to whom to say all of those negative things.
Children should never be the confidant parents rely on for emotional support. That is abuse, and it damages children. Separation is difficult.
There are so many feelings involved.
But if we manage it well, while we can’t prevent our children from being upset, we can prevent them from being damaged for life.
