Divorce with children: how can we deal with its implications?

Recommendations and key ideas on how to help children adjust to their parents' divorce.

A divorce or breakup is one of the most stressful situations in a person's life. In fact, it is a mourning or breakup with a partner, with a way of life, which gives rise to numerous implications in the personal, family, social and work spheres.

A divorce involves leaving behind feelings, assets, common projects, or at the very least, relocating them in your life, and facing a new situation, which is uncertain and unknown. And of course, ...the new is scary and frightening!

If there are no children, the divorce will probably be a more agile transit by affecting fewer people and reorganization will be easier. In any case, it will fully affect your own emotions and the material and immaterial goods that you have in common with your ex-partner.

As an example of a tangible good, we would have the decisions to be made regarding the house (selling it or who will keep it), which would imply a change of residence and a labor readjustment when having only one income. Nor can we forget those intangible aspects such as the need to clarify and redefine family and friendship relationships (especially if they are common).

The psychological implications of divorce with children

The divorce with children implies a more complex situation than the previous one on having affected a major number of persons. In these cases when one considers a breakup there are a series of subjects that arise and that it is convenient to have made a previous reflection.

1. What will be the repercussion of our decision on the children?

Here we refer to the concern about whether our breakup will affect our children and whether there is the possibility of any future sequelae and what they may be.

2. The way we communicate it to our children

The way in which we communicate it to the children is another of the key aspects that we question in the pre-separation stage.

What we tell them and whether they will understand is a common question that arises in the parents' minds.. Many times it involves overcoming the fear of our own emotions (not being able to speak, not being able to stop crying, or not knowing how to contain our children's emotions at the moment when we tell them about our decision).

The optimal choice of the moment to communicate it to the children is also essential. However, before telling the children, you should think about the changes that will take place in your family life and what the future organization will be, since your children will ask you about it.

3. The need to develop a new way of coexistence

The Parentality Plan is the document that would gather this new design of coexistence after the breakup.. It has to reflect who will have custody of the children (will it be exclusive, shared), how much time the children will spend in each of the houses (weekdays, weekends and vacations), how the communication between the parents will be (important issues, what is the best way to communicate - WhatsApp, telephone, mail...) and how the relationship of the children with the father / mother with whom they are not at that time will be articulated.

The challenge of adapting to the new situation

Nowadays we find more and more cases in which it is the parents themselves who reach agreements on shared custody or it is the judge who grants it. Thus, the data for 2019 published in the INE survey reveal that shared custody has been the custody system that governs in 37.5% of cases of divorce and separation of couples with children..

As we have anticipated, making the decision to break up is not easy. The more children you have, the more complicated the decision is likely to be, although other factors such as the age of the children, if any of them is in a special situation or has a degree of vulnerability (sensory, physical or emotional difficulties) obviously play a role.

Another factor that can complicate and delay the emotional and legal process of separation (with children or without children) occurs when common areas are shared between the two people involved in the break-up.

An example would be if one has a working relationship with the other. In these cases, whether you continue working with your ex-partner or you leave the job and look for a new job, it is an extra source of stress. In the first case you are going to meet him/her in the workplace and the boundaries have to be redefined; in the second case, a job change involves a process of searching and then adapting to the new organization and job.

Having the same network of friends could also complicate the breakup and post-breakup period.Either there is a maturity between the separating persons themselves and the friendships, in the sense that they do not position themselves with either of the two, or else one of the two persons has to stop relating to them and has to build a new network of contacts; and this implies time and extra effort.

Eighty-seven percent of separations and 79% of divorces in 2019 were by mutual agreement, without differentiating whether these were with children or without. This percentage is encouraging and indicates that most people start a new chapter of their life having agreed in a "civilized" way to break up. In fact, this issue allows one to "close this chapter of one's life", the past, with a certain maturity, and focus on all the issues that arise in the present and future.

What to do?

In the event that you are thinking of separating, and especially if there are children, it is important to consider these issues:

• Try to find a viability to the relationship. This will help you in the future to be calm because you have done everything in your power to make things go well.
• In case it is not possible and you decide to go ahead with the breakup, consider the issues we have mentioned: impact on the children, new organization (parenting plan), changes of residence, work, friendships.
• Agree and agree with your partner on as many scenarios as possible. You are the ones who know perfectly your life, your children and the emotional issues and particularities of each one of them.
• If you need to resolve emotional questions or questions related to the children, you can ask them to a psychologist expert in family and in separations and breakups (forensic psychologist). If the questions are related to legal proceedings, ask them to your lawyer.

Once the physical separation takes place, try not only to be attentive to your emotional, financial and social recovery, but also to the way your partner is developing. be aware of how your children are evolving emotionally..

Certain of their behaviors can be misinterpreted if the post-breakup period is not contextualized, and could be adaptive. However, if after some time you continue to see that the attitude and behavior show signs of discomfort and lack of adaptation, then it is time to consider asking for help from a professional expert in the field, for detection and subsequent solution.

In conclusion, a breakup does not always have to be something negative, since in many occasions it is the only viable solution. If this alternative is chosen in a shared way by both spouses and is carried out from a mature point of view, surely your children will undergo a process of functional change..

And remember: children's adjustment to a breakup process is proportional to the adjustment of the adults. If you are well, they will be well.

At PSICOTOOLS we offer psychological counseling services, mediation and coordination of parenting by professional experts in the field. Contact our Center and request a free orientation visit, without obligation.

Author: Marisol Ramoneda, Psychologist.