Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: Couragedearheart on September 26, 2019, 08:36:03 AM
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I’m going to ask this question, because initially I had this thought....”I don’t want my S14 to have a broken home.” But now I genuinely wonder....what makes a broken home broken?
Is it lack of ability to emotionally handle what happens?
Is it learning wrong messages from what occurs?
Is it simply the lack of 2 parents in one house?
Is there things that the LBS can do as parents to prevent all the negative side effects that come with separation abandonment and divorce for our children.
And to those of you who are single parenting.....do you want to call it a broken home?
What should we call what we are building in our homes after the MLCer leaves?
Having read many posts on this site, I would say this is the largest group of unbroken people I know. Not perfect, but certainly not broken by what life has sent their way.
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What an interesting question, CH.
Not sure I know the answer in regard to kids as a non child owner lol.
But I know it is a real issue that many LBS struggle with.
Actually just belatedly realised that - albeit in a different way - after the loss of my family, my sense of 'home' was broken. I'm not sure I know what 'home' feels like now to me. House yes, home no...
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Technically, a broken home where one parent leaves (or one with many issues). Howeverm, homes with two parents can be broken as well. Very broken, in fact.
What makes a broken home, aside from one parent leaving, a messy, problematic, ambient. A place where there is distress.
Is there things that the LBS can do as parents to prevent all the negative side effects that come with separation abandonment and divorce for our children.
I would say there are things that can be done to the prevent negative effects. If all, I don't know.
Number one would be, I think, remember the MLCer is still the kids parent and regardless of what the LBS may think of the MLCer and what happened, not to put in on the kids or their relationship with the MLCer.
MLC affects LBS and kids, but it is a grown ups business.
Other things, try as much as possible to offer the kids a caring, open, safe, place. Allow them to make question about the situation and answer truthfully, in a manner they can understand, but without anger or pointing fingers - no good will come of making the MLCer the vilain before the kids eyes.
What should we call what we are building in our homes after the MLCer leaves?
A home. A safe, good space for LBS and kids.
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I do think the LBS being strong, healing properly and being present goes along way. My kids still feel the very large missing peace. They feel the abandonment. My d14 especially has grown in Christ due to it, but her void is still there.
At divorce care last night the lady that spoke said she told her kids that Christ was now the head of their home. It seemed to help.
I’m not sure we have to call it a broken home, but it is a broken home. In order to visit their father, the kids must say goodbye to their mother. For older kids that is not as big of a deal, but it is huge for younger kids.
That said, broken things can be restored beautifully, though they will be changed for it.
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That said, broken things can be restored beautifully, though they will be changed for it.
I like this idea. A lot.
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I don't use the term "broken home" but I do use the term "broken family'.
One of the reasons I have contact with my husband is that in spite of our broken family, I try for my daughter's sake that he is included in certain events and holidays.
Does he deserve it? Most certainly not but my daughter did not deserve to lose her family.
This is a very good book that discusses from the adult children of divorce view point.
Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak: Leila Miller
Primal Loss is shock treatment for anyone rationalizing the effect of a broken home on a child. Leila Miller presents the raw words of adult children of divorce, exposing the myth that "the children are all right."
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As a teacher, I have seen
- Many children from hopelessly broken homes with 2 parents.
- Many children from secure and loving homes with1 parent.
- A handful of children from from secure and loving homes with grandparents or uncle and aunt.
I assert that ‘broken’ or ‘secure’ home is not defined by the number of parents living within it but by the character, attitude and life perspectives of the parent(s) and their level of commitment to carrying out their calling as parent(s) with due diligence. I know of many such single parent on HS. I am in awe of them.
My observation is that a home is only as broken or whole as the parent(s) is(are).
A single parent family is a bona fide family. It’s a complete unit all on its own.
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Wow these answers are blowing me away. I don’t have very many answers to the questions I asked today.....which is why I posted it.
If my work on my FOO issues has shown me anything it is that we should teach ways to feel and release emotions and how to get unstuck from an emotion. And to make sure that kids understand that all of their emotions are okay.
The other one would be ensuring they don’t teach themselves value messages from the actions of their MLC parent. No kid should feel unwanted, unworthy, unloved, rejected or replaced.
I look forward to seeing more opinions and thoughts. We aren’t the only ones dealing with the effects of MLC small impressionable minds are too.
Thank you for sharing. ❤️
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This is a very difficult question. I like this definition from the Macmillan Dictionary best.
a family where the parents are divorced or do not live together, and the children suffer as a result
I like it because it seems to allow for a situation where the parents don't live together but it isn't considered a broken home because the children don't suffer. I'm afraid it's probably rare, though, for the children not to suffer at least a little bit due to the absence of one parent, even though they may actually be better off than they would be if the missing parent were present.
I considered the possibility that I may have grown up in a broken home even though both of my parents were present, but that wasn't a broken home, it was a broken or dysfunctional family. The irony is that my parents did eventually separate and divorce when I was 16 so at that point I really was from a broken home but after the divorce it was a far less dysfunctional home.
I don't think it matters what you call it as long as the children know there is at least one person they can always count on for support. That's what my home was missing. I didn't have anyone. It only takes one person to provide the child with the support it needs.
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MBIB,
I’m so sorry you didn’t have a person. I’m glad you are learning to be that person for yourself.
I really like this definition, and your experience and explanation make a lot of sense for me.
Thank you for sharing that.
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Thank you dearheart. You're very kind.
I wasn't sure about writing this but I've decided it's applicable so I'm going to go ahead.
I didn't realize until a few years ago that anything had been missing. I thought my childhood had been normal. I didn't think it was unusual that nobody ever hugged or kissed me or told me that they loved me. I thought it was normal to be screamed at or spanked when you were bad. And I was pretty sure that other kids had it worse. I knew a kid who was a year or two younger than me. My family was visiting his when he was maybe 8 or 10. He did something bad and his dad pulled his pants down in front of everyone and spanked him. I'm pretty sure that never happened to me. We always got our spankings in private, I think, but I guess I don't really remember everything. Who knows? I know there was something about having to go out back and get a branch off the plum tree but I can't remember what that was all about.
My point is, I don't think kids know they're growing up in a broken home or a dysfunctional home if that's all they know. They don't know any different. Or maybe I was just a dumb kid cause I didn't think there was anything unusual about my childhood. I guess I must have been a dumb adult too because it's taken me a long time to figure out my childhood wasn't normal. Or was it? Maybe it was normal. How do you know what normal is? How do you know what broken is?
Sorry. I hope that makes sense. Sometimes I get kind of confused.
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I was pretty sure your childhood would not be what I considered "normal", MBIB. ( not that mine was either) But I agree as children we often don't know any better.
The answer to the question depends on if a definition is wanted, or opinions. In my opinion, a broken home is where the children suffer due to circumstances beyond their control and within the control of one or both parents. This doesn't mean a single parent is at fault if the home is a broken one. Sometimes whoever is left is just the person who picks up the pieces, and repairs as best they can.
What I don't want is for my children to become broken because they have been convinced this is what "normal " people do.
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I consider a one parent family, where there are two parents but one of them no longer wants to remain in the original family, to be a broken home even if the single parent manages to make that home a good place. I think for children their parents splitting up is a horror, the nightmare they hoped wouldn't be their family. I do believe they will always have scars from this.
However, once the family is split up, I think one good parent can make a very safe home for the children. I agree with what Anjae wrote, home being a good safe place for the kids, where they know they can ask questions, where although the left behind parent will not be creating a fake innocent image of the parent who left, the kids know that their father (in my case) is still loved.
Kids like predictability, it makes them feel safe. I believe that in spite of a broken home, it is a good lesson for the kids if the left behind parent can go on an create a cosy home where there is laughter and kindness and nurturing. They are watching us, and how we react to everything will probably have a huge effect on how they absorb what has happened to their family.
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I haven't read everyone's response because well... I already know my feelings on this.
I believe some of us talked a little about this in Tuscany and here was my opinion.
A ''broken'' or ''dysfunctional'' home comes from the attitude of the main care giver. I will use an example to illustrate what I mean.
If there is a family and the father is in the military, and he goes off to war....the father has left...but the mother has a different attitude. They face time daddy, they write him lovely letters, she tells her children how he is a hero.... they count the days down until daddy comes home. Though they miss their father, their father is a hero...and they all can't wait for daddy. The mother's attitude about the situation influences how secure and loved the children feel.
If there is a family and the father cheats and lies and leaves.....the father has left...but the mother is devastated. She can not call or text him, and if she does it may be full of anger and rage (and rightfully so)....but this leaks over. She starts to tell the children why she cries...she has nothing nice to say about their dad. The children miss their father, and feel abandoned...just like the mother...
Technically these are both homes where the father has left, but the environment surrounding the leaving is completely different. The attitude of the mother, and how she handles the situation...forms how the children view their situation.
I do not mean for this to be gender specific. The same applies in reverse. Just an example to try and explain how it doesn't matter the number of people in the home, it matters about the emotion in the environment.
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Good examples Mort! :)
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Morte, the comparisons are not accurate. How would you write this if both times the father has been deployed but the mother has either the attitude of Dad is a hero, or the converse of Dad is never around when we need him. Same with an MLCer:angry and upset vs oh no problem.
While I agree attitude matters, children also grow up to see if the attitude fits the situation. You can't pretend Dad was a hero if he ended up not being one. When the kids find out they no longer trust. A can do attitude with age appropriate honestly is better than a positive attitude full of lies, imo. But I acknowledge I could be wrong. It's definitely what I always want and have wanted since being a child. If all your parent gives you are rainbows and unicorns, how can you learn to weather life's downside? It's a balancing act
As another thought, if an abusive parent leaves, so that there no longer is suffering, by definition it's a broken home, but at that point, maybe it's no longer a broken home, if you see what I am saying.
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As another thought, if an abusive parent leaves, so that there no longer is suffering, by definition it's a broken home, but at that point, maybe it's no longer a broken home, if you see what I am saying.
It's still a broken home. It might even be worse because the child has not only lost the parent who left but also lost is the hope the parent might ever stop being abusive and start loving them. 40 years later you end up with someone who is living with an alienator who is a lot like the abusive parent was while trying to get the alienator to show them the love they never got from the abusive parent.
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I guess to me it matters what age they are. Is it really bad to have young kids think their dad/mom is a hero?
Am I missing something?
I personally feel all soldiers, who serve our country, are heroes, but that's just me. :)
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Thanks Thunder. It's nice to know that somebody thinks I'm a hero. :)
I wish the training I received to be a parent had been as good and thorough as the training I received to be an airman. :(
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Morte, the comparisons are not accurate. How would you write this if both times the father has been deployed but the mother has either the attitude of Dad is a hero, or the converse of Dad is never around when we need him. Same with an MLCer:angry and upset vs oh no problem.
While I agree attitude matters, children also grow up to see if the attitude fits the situation. You can't pretend Dad was a hero if he ended up not being one. When the kids find out they no longer trust. A can do attitude with age appropriate honestly is better than a positive attitude full of lies, imo. But I acknowledge I could be wrong. It's definitely what I always want and have wanted since being a child. If all your parent gives you are rainbows and unicorns, how can you learn to weather life's downside? It's a balancing act
As another thought, if an abusive parent leaves, so that there no longer is suffering, by definition it's a broken home, but at that point, maybe it's no longer a broken home, if you see what I am saying.
I think you may have missed my point entirely. I am by no means suggesting we treat MLCers like a hero...certainly not.
The same would apply if the solider dad leaves and the mother moans about it the whole time...how she has to deal with the kids alone, how he is never around.
The illustration was just to show...that what matters is the feelings and emotion in the home. Is there a feeling of happiness and safety? Or is there a feeling of loss, abandonment, bitterness or rage?
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It's still a broken home. It might even be worse because the child has not only lost the parent who left but also lost is the hope the parent might ever stop being abusive and start loving them. 40 years later you end up with someone who is living with an alienator who is a lot like the abusive parent was while trying to get the alienator to show them the love they never got from the abusive parent.
Honest question: Do you believe it's better to live in abuse with hope the abuse will stop and the abuser will start to love you when they did not before, or better to live no longer abused, possibly believing that the abuser will never love you? Or is there no better, just different?
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I guess to me it matters what age they are. Is it really bad to have young kids think their dad/mom is a hero?
Am I missing something?
I personally feel all soldiers, who serve our country, are heroes, but that's just me. :)
I also believe that who serve our countries are hero's for that.
That was not my point. My point comparing a hero who has every intention of coming home, but can't be there to a person who chose to leave does not give an accurate depiction of one being a broken home and one not. Attitude has nothing to do with the intentions of the missing parent.
Howver, attitude is everything if you have two identical situations, and the person left to be the care giver has a positive outlook (Daddy will be home as soon as his deployment is over) and positives from the person who needed to leave. (Phone calls and letters and whatever can be done) or a negative outlook (Once Daddy gets back, he'll just leave again) or no positives from the person who left (no phone calls,letters,etc)
In the cases above, no divorce. Parent who left intends on coming back, but is one family broken, or not?
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Thanks OR. I've been sitting here staring at my computer because your question is almost impossible to answer. The question really is which choice sucks less? I'd have to say it's better for the abuser to leave because abuse is never justifiable. Still sucks though for the child who has now lost a parent or perhaps never really had a chance to have one and now never will. And maybe sometimes it's better to be abused than ignored? At least then you know that they know that you exist. This is very confusing.
I was 16 when I learned my father was moving out and my parents were divorcing. My first thought was what will people think? It was 1974 and divorce was practically unheard of, especially since we were good Catholics. My father was a member of the St. Vincent De Paul Society.
My second thought was good, maybe the fighting will finally stop.
Maybe the answer to your question is in there some where.
Problem is, I haven't figured out yet whether my father was the abuser or my mother was the abuser. Or maybe it was both? Or maybe they weren't really abusing me. Maybe I was just a PITA.
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MBIB,
Kids love their parents, they need to be wanted by their parents wether it’s a good or bad parent.
That being said if one house has a emotionally healthy environment and the other doesn’t kids know what feels good and bad to them....they have a better chance of learning and adopting the healthy behaviors.
As to the abuse, well you know how healthy behaviors make you feel. If you look at healthy boundaries, codependency vs interdependence and lists of behaviors that constitute abuse you will be able to start identifying who was healthy and unhealthy in your life.
For me the book Codependent NO More has been earth shattering in terms of looking at all the ways in which I was forced to repress myself, dissolve my healthy innate boundaries and carry the emotional load for others. It is making me able to easily identify abuse, abusers, victims, healthy behaviors, healthy boundaries and where my responsibility begins and ends. I can’t recommend it enough for anyone who has doubts.
If you have DID...you have pretty strong symptoms of abuse, since DID is a survival mechanism that your brain uses to protect you emotionally.
Pain is pain. Pain is never measured against other people’s pain. Each one of us experiences pain differently and on different levels. If something hurt, then it hurt...we don’t compare it to others we address the hurt.
I think the biggest flag I see you flying that would tell me you may have experience abuse....yes even bigger than the DID....is that you think there is a possibility that it’s your fault or not real.
It is the thing that we ALL say....until we have a comparison....then we wrestle with convincing ourselves that everything we knew about ourselves and the rules of the world is wrong.
Come on in....join me...the water is fine...you guys are certainly not alone in those feelings... they are normal, they are your feelings and your allowed to feel them, you are safe to feel them. 😊
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I agree with CH, Brain.
The self-doubt is a flag, a common one but still a flag.
I have never once even contemplated that I was abused in any way as a child bc I wasn't. I KNOW I wasn't. That was my normal. My first experience of abuse came with/from my xh when I was 52 and it took me a long time actually to accept that I felt abused bc I WAS being abused. It didn't sit easily with my own sense of self or how my world worked at all....hence PTSD probably lol.
In my then h's perception and stories of his childhood, I remember two things distinctly. One is that he has/had virtually no memories of it at all until he was sent away to school at about 7. And that this seemed normal to him. Secondly was that he would sometimes tell me a snippet of memory from being about five or six and his stories screamed 'not good or a normal way to treat a small child' but he would just shrug because it didn't feel that way to him. He had no outrage really, no emotional reaction to it at all whereas I did. I think I remember him saying that he didn't realise that other parents and families were different until he was a teenager and would visit friends houses for weekend exeats from school. But he also knew some equally f'ed up families, just with a lot of money...I remember him telling me about one teenage schoolmate whose parents divorced and he turned up at the family home to find out it had been sold. He had no idea where either of his parents were living; their old housekeeper took him in ::)...and these kids told it as a funny story....And even in his 20s with my parents, he would occasionally say that he liked something about how our family worked but that it was odd. He never really understood for instance that I would spend time with my parents bc I honestly enjoyed it, that I liked them, not as a duty until probably he started to enjoy spending time with them too, particularly my father.
As an unwounded child, it is as difficult for me to understand his normal as it probably was for him to understand mine. I had parents who, in their different ways, would have walked through fire to support or protect me; my xh's parents probably would not have walked across the street even if they had noticed he needed something. In fact they probably would have found his needs very irritating and an implied criticism of them as parents ::)...broken folks sadly, gosh how niave was I about how broken my xh was likely to be...but my own life didn't give me the language.
With hindsight, how stupid and arrogant was I to marry him really? Not to love him, but to marry him. Smh now. What an unexploded bomb he was and how silly of me to think that love was enough to heal those kind of wounds. It is doubtless a blessing as well as a regret that we did not have children. Of course just as unlikely that his current marriage or love will do the job either unless he chooses to intentionally get the right kind of help. And you know from personal experience Brain just hoe much courage and effort that takes.
I do believe that broken families may create dented kids, but not necessarily broken ones if they have a strong, stable, sane parent. But broken people do seem to create more broken people....but I think most LBS know that and do backflips to be a strong sane stable loving parent often in pretty difficult circumstances but with much success. Perhaps our own recovery as LBS helps those parents know in their guts what their kids need to recover and live well too?