Experts agree that nurturing, supportive
parenting that provides firm but fair limits assists children
in becoming healthy, well-functioning adults. However, a seven
year study by Dallas's Timberlawn Psychiatric Institute found
the one factor that was the most important in helping children
become healthy, happy adults, was the quality of the relationship
between their parents. This one factor was more important than
giving kids hugs, providing good discipline, and building their
self esteem, or any other aspect of what is traditionally considered
'good parenting.' In light of these and other similar findings,
our concern for the 'best interest of the child' in marital dissolution
cases rests with helping parents communicate and work together
after the divorce.
Children Do NOT Just "Get Over It"
Many of us used to assume, and some
still do, that children will 'get over' their parents' divorce
after an initial period of adjustment . The Timberlawn study,
as well as landmark studies by Judith Wallerstein and others,
found that divorce not only hurts both parents and children, but
that children suffer long term consequences including emotional
difficulties, poor school or job performance, and difficulty achieving
intimacy in their own relationships as adults. Wallerstein reports
that one third of the children experienced moderate to severe
depression five years after the divorce. Fifteen years after the
divorce, many of those children were still experiencing the consequences
of their parent's break-up as they began love relationships and
marriages of their own. Every child in her study feared repeating
a failure to maintain a loving relationship in adulthood, all
feared betrayal and rejection, and all remained very vulnerable
to loss.
Continual Battles Worse than Divorce
What these and other studies have also
found is, that while divorce hurts children, living with parents
who continually wage embittered battles is even worse. Research
shows that the children who suffer most are those whose parents
divorce, and then carry on the battle for years through legal
challenges, arguments, or refusal to cooperate with orders regarding
visitation, custody, and child support. As Wallerstein points
out, the courts have often believed that awarding joint custody
would force parents to put aside their anger and cooperate for
the sake of the children. However, often, the opposite occurs.
The children become either the weapons or the trophies in
their parents power struggle, or the unintended victims of their
rage. Moreover, the chaos and emotional (and sometimes financial)
strain that the divorce process puts on parents often makes it
difficult for them to provide the security and availability for
their children, further leaving the child's emotional and physical
needs unmet.
Does Counseling Help?
How can attorneys, mediators, and judges,
then, assist a couple in repairing their relationship in order
to either stay together and create a fulfilling relationship for
both, or, at least, to communicate and work together after a divorce
for the best interest of their children? Legal professionals often
refer or order parents to marriage counseling, but many times,
little seems to change. The same dynamics of conflict and discord
continue throughout the legal process and long after agreements
and orders are made. Successful marriage counseling teaches the
couple practical skills to effectively move beyond the power struggle
in their relationship and to heal the causes of that power struggle.
Negotiation and Contracts is Basically
More of the Same
Many counselors are taught to use negotiation
skills and contracts to help resolve conflicts. While these methods
sometimes help, their benefit is often short-term. Using contracts
and negotiation tends to civilize the power struggle for a period
of time -- until those very contracts become another expression
of the basic power struggle. Focusing on 'tit for tat', or on
the content of the issues (money, children, sex, etc.) is at best
a band-aid, and at worst, in contractual form, fuel for the fire.
Therapy in which each partner tells their story to the therapist
with the therapist acting as a kind of mediator also tends to
have short term benefits. Long after a couple leaves a courtroom
or a therapist's office, they continue to interact with each other
and their children. Court orders, contracts, or agreements, in
or outside of therapy, set parameters for the power struggle,
but do not give couples the tools to move through and beyond it.
Learning those skills is an important key to the parents' 'best
interest' and especially, to that of their children.
Learn Skills that Help You Step Out of
the Power Struggle
Over the past 20 years, we have learned
that teaching couples concrete, practical, skills that help them
use frustration and conflict as an opportunity for growth and
healing for both partners, instead of a weapon for more wounding,
results in long-term improvement in the relationship. Instead
of the tools remaining in the hands of the therapist, they are
taught to and practiced by the couple. In this way, couples can
move from automatically reacting to each other in ways that are
hurtful or hostile, to intentional, safe, and healing communication
and behavior.
Tikkun
A method that I use and that has
proven to be very effective in helping couples repair their relationship,
and in helping those who divorce communicate and act toward each
other in a productive and healthy way, is Tikkun.
Overview of Tikkun
Tikkun is a unique integration of the philosophy of Martin Buber, Imago Relationship Theory, the Positive Change relational skills of Appreciative Inquiry, the peer co-counseling methods of Re-evaluation Counseling, and Relational Neurobiology. It is intended to be a short term therapy
that teaches couples tools to discover the
wounds underneath their power struggle and learn how to heal them.
There is also a three day Adventure In Intimacy workshop for couples based
on the same model of therapy.
In the Tikkun model, couples learn that the power struggle between
them is a normal part of any relationship, and that while divorce
is one way out of it, it is not the only way. Divorce, couples
learn, gets rid of the partner, but not of the problem. Couples
learn the 'unconscious' reasons they chose each other, and why
they would tend to choose the very same qualities in their next
partner.
While insight in therapy is important and helpful, it is not enough.
Unless couples learn to do things differently in their interactions,
they will never get beyond the same difficulties they have already
encountered. Tikkun focuses on learning and
using practical tools to move through and beyond the power struggle.
One of the key elements is learning how to create emotional safety
for one's partner, which ultimately leads to increased safety
for oneself. Often people have very good intentions in attempting
to change their behavior, but feel like failures when they revert
to their old patterns. Creating safety empowers both partners
to invite each other out of those protective patterns in positive,
specific, and measurable ways. In Tikkun,
partners learn how specific things they say or do (or fail to
say or do) trigger the fears and pain associated with wounds that
their partner received long before their marriage. They learn
to hear, understand, validate and empathize with their partner's
experience, whether or not they agree with it. They can then identify
and ask each other for very specific requests to heal that area.
What If the Decision to Divorce is Already
Final?
If a couple remains firm in their decision
to divorce, Tikkun offers the tools to communicate
and interact in ways that are healthy for both parents and their
children during and after the divorce. It also provides a good-bye
process that helps create an emotional closure for both parties.
A legal document does not mean that a couple is divorced on an
emotional level, particularly when one or both parties is ambivalent
about the divorce. Wallerstein's study found that after ten and
even fifteen years after divorce, close to half of the men and
women had not given up the hopes and disappointments attached
to their previous marriage. Half of the women and one third of
the men still felt intensely angry with their former spouse ten
years after their divorce.
What is the "Best Interest of the
Child?"
Chapter 61 of the Florida Statutes,
in discussing the 'best interest of the child' in divorce proceedings,
emphasizes the ability of a parent to allow and encourage continued
contact and a close parent-child relationship with the ex-spouse.
(F.S. 61(3) (a) and (j). The court also considers factors such
as maintaining continuity and a stable environment for the child
and the mental health of the parents. (F.S. 61 (3) (d) and (g).
Without learning specific ways to navigate and move beyond the
power struggle which has brought the couple to divorce proceedings,
those significant aspects of the child's 'best interest' seem
to be, in many cases, wishful thinking. Tikkun Relationship Therapy
can teach parents the skills to co-create those realities for
themselves and their children.
Do Yourself and Your Child a Favor
Whether married, divorced or separated, couples
who learn new skills to use conflict in a healing and healthy
way, who learn how to become more intentional rather than reactive,
who can discover ways to step out of a power struggle rather than
be controlled by it, serve as an important role model for their
children.
Couples today have new knowledge and techniques available that
can change the way they relate not only to one another, but also
to other people in their lives. Parents can learn how to parent
more effectively as they discover things in their own history
that were wounding and realize how to prevent repeating those
wounds in the parenting of their children. Most importantly, they
can lead the way for their children to develop and maintain loving
relationships with both parents, as well as strong, secure, intimate,
and healing relationships as they mature. Learning to get along
for the best interest of the child is indeed possible.
For more information on TIkkun, Tikkun Training for therapists, coaches, mediators, and lawyers, or the Adventure In Intimacy workshop for couples, call 305-604-0010 or www.HedyYumi.org
Lewis, J. (1990). The Young Family Project. Dallas, Texas:Timberlawn
Foundation.
Wallerstein, J. & Blakeslee, S. (1990). Second Chances.
New York:Ticknor & Fields.
