00:00:00- You talk about divorce as something that children
00:00:03experience almost like a death in the family.
00:00:06What's being lost psychologically?
00:00:08- So when we have, again,
00:00:14another politically incorrect thing
00:00:15or maybe politically correct thing to say,
00:00:17it's better to have two parents.
00:00:20It's better to have a mother and father
00:00:22because they serve different functions.
00:00:24But as they say in the UK,
00:00:27better to have an heir and a spare, right?
00:00:29So the idea that you have two parents means
00:00:31that if you lose one, you have another.
00:00:33But the concept is when you have a nuclear family,
00:00:37when you have two parents,
00:00:39you're under the illusion that it's a safe nest,
00:00:42that it is a safe, stable environment in which to grow up.
00:00:46And that stability provides you
00:00:49with the emotional security you need
00:00:50to develop in a healthy way.
00:00:53When that sense, that illusion,
00:00:55you know, there is an illusion
00:00:57because there's no permanence in life, right?
00:00:59I mean, your parents could die.
00:01:01They could get sick.
00:01:02They could, you know, get hit by a bus.
00:01:05You know, I mean, there's no permanence,
00:01:06but we're born with a sort of a need
00:01:08for that illusion of permanence.
00:01:10And in fact, people with very healthy defenses,
00:01:13me included, with everything that's going on in the world,
00:01:16as you know, which could be crazy making,
00:01:20I, my defense has helped me not to obsess over it
00:01:24or focus on it because I can stay optimistic
00:01:27my resilience allows me to cope
00:01:30with the adversity of the world.
00:01:32It's like having shock absorbers, right?
00:01:35And so it's that sense of stability and permanence.
00:01:40When you divorce, that permanence is,
00:01:44the children are disillusioned in a way before they're ready.
00:01:49I always say every child is born
00:01:52with the need for a sense of omnipotence in their parents.
00:01:56They need to believe their parents are perfect.
00:01:59They can do anything.
00:02:00They'll protect them.
00:02:02They're, yeah, and so I always tell this story.
00:02:06My husband, when he was a little boy,
00:02:08his father always drove, was more traditional.
00:02:10His mother never drove when the father was in the car.
00:02:12And he would sit in the back and he said,
00:02:15"I always felt like my father knew every road
00:02:18"on every map in the whole world."
00:02:22That's what childhood is,
00:02:24is a sense of feeling protected
00:02:26and as if your parents are bigger
00:02:28and bigger than life characters.
00:02:31When they divorce, you see the imperfections of your parents
00:02:34and you start to see them as human before you're ready,
00:02:37but also the impermanence of relationships
00:02:39and the lack of trust, right?
00:02:42So then you no longer necessarily trust
00:02:45in the permanence of those connections,
00:02:47of those romantic connections.
00:02:48So, you know, many kids from divorce have trouble
00:02:55trusting in the permanence of marriage
00:02:57and connections later on, not all.
00:03:01So the reason I wrote this book is how do you help them
00:03:06the way you talk to them, the way you treat each other,
00:03:09the way you care about each other as a divorced couple,
00:03:12the way you work together and collaborate
00:03:14and cooperate and communicate?
00:03:16That's going to determine, you know,
00:03:19that you can put them first and sacrifice your desires
00:03:23and needs for fairness and put them first.
00:03:26All of that is going to dictate whether that child
00:03:29in the future can see relationships as trustworthy.
00:03:34- Isn't it crazy the idea of fairness
00:03:38that that needs to be put to one side,
00:03:40that there is something unfair to the parents
00:03:42that is adaptive for the kid, that's good for them,
00:03:44that's good for their upbringing.
00:03:46I think a lot of children blame themselves
00:03:49for their parents' divorces.
00:03:51Why do you think that's such a common pattern?
00:03:53- It's magical thinking.
00:03:54So children who are very young,
00:03:57there's a great commercial on television,
00:04:00a little boy is in a Darth Vader outfit
00:04:03and he's got a wand or whatever it's called, a lightsaber.
00:04:08And he has- - Fucking wand.
00:04:10- Yeah. (laughing)
00:04:12A lightsaber.
00:04:14- Darth Vader going, "Expelliarmus."
00:04:15(laughing)
00:04:17- A lightsaber.
00:04:18And he flashes it towards his car,
00:04:20the family car and the father is behind
00:04:24with the remote control and the father presses it.
00:04:28And the little boy goes, "Oh my God,
00:04:30"I turned it off in my lightsaber."
00:04:33That's magical thinking.
00:04:34Magical thinking is something children have
00:04:37when they're very little and they outgrow,
00:04:39which is the belief that they are
00:04:40the center of the universe.
00:04:42It's a good thing.
00:04:43We're born if our parents focus on us
00:04:47as if we are the center of the universe,
00:04:52then we believe that we are the center of the universe
00:04:54and that gives us a sense of steadiness
00:04:57and stability and security from which to develop.
00:05:00We outgrow magical thinking where we feel
00:05:03we're in control of everything,
00:05:05but it helps us to feel secure when we're little.
00:05:08So if something bad happens to our parents
00:05:12when we're angry at them,
00:05:13like if your father or mother get into a car accident
00:05:16and die, let's say, when you are really angry at them
00:05:20because they didn't give you that toy
00:05:22or when you have terrible fantasies and thoughts as a child
00:05:25that you wish they would die,
00:05:27which aren't so terrible, they're just fantasies,
00:05:30and that parent actually does die,
00:05:32that child then feels responsible for that death.
00:05:34That's magical thinking.
00:05:36So basically they believe they control what's around them.
00:05:40So it's very common for children to believe
00:05:43that they are responsible for the breakup of their parents.
00:05:46And so that's one of the things in the book
00:05:48that I talk about.
00:05:49How do you talk to children
00:05:50so you disavow them of those illusions,
00:05:54that they are not responsible,
00:05:56that you will always love them?
00:05:59Because again, that destruction of that sense of permanence
00:06:04in a relationship and that breaking of trust,
00:06:07children can easily understand parents' breakup
00:06:11as something parents could do
00:06:12if parents can leave one another,
00:06:15then can't they leave them as well?
00:06:18And so there's a lot of things that parents need to consider
00:06:21when they talk to their children.
00:06:23And there is a way to talk to children about a divorce.
00:06:26- Is there a sense as well,
00:06:28like how a lot of attachment wounds from early childhood
00:06:30get replayed in adult relationships,
00:06:33that if I can redeem myself in this situation,
00:06:36I will fix the wound that existed before
00:06:38that sort of classic Luke?
00:06:39Is there something similar to that going on
00:06:41with the magical thinking from the kids
00:06:44that if I caused it, I can fix it?
00:06:47This line that I wrote in an essay a couple of weeks ago,
00:06:50which was if as a child you're taught
00:06:54that you need to work hard to be loved,
00:06:56if you don't feel loved, you just need to work harder.
00:07:00And it kind of feels a little bit similar to that.
00:07:03- Yeah, absolutely.
00:07:04I mean, again, I think it's very important, I'll say this,
00:07:08that if you're going through a divorce,
00:07:11that you get support.
00:07:13And I'm not gonna be one of those therapists
00:07:15who says like, "Everybody needs therapy."
00:07:17Not everybody needs therapy, but a lot of people do,
00:07:20particularly if they're going through life transitions
00:07:23or traumas or, you know.
00:07:26And so if you think about divorce is a trauma for everyone,
00:07:29for parents, for children.
00:07:31And so parents need support.
00:07:34One of the main reasons they need support
00:07:36is so they don't leak all over their children.
00:07:38'Cause it's very common for parents
00:07:40to overshare their pain with their children.
00:07:43To leak all over their children.
00:07:45- Treating the kid, the kid of the separation
00:07:48as the therapist for the separation.
00:07:52- Yes, and also just as a container dumping into them
00:07:56about, you know, either oversharing about their loneliness
00:08:00or their pain or their sex lives or...
00:08:05So basically parents need therapy so they can raise children
00:08:10without burdening those children.
00:08:13Children need therapy because they can't always go
00:08:17to their parents and tell them what they're feeling
00:08:19and thinking because they might feel uncomfortable.
00:08:22And so they need a safe space that isn't either parent
00:08:27to bring their feelings.
00:08:30That doesn't mean that parents aren't also safe spaces,
00:08:33but children need to have therapy to make sure
00:08:37that you're addressing these conflicts
00:08:38and these traumas early on.
00:08:40So as you say, they don't carry them into adolescence
00:08:43and young adulthood and adulthood.
00:08:45- What are the typical stages that children go through
00:08:47emotionally during a divorce?
00:08:49- It's the same stage as any mourning process.
00:08:53Think of it as grief.
00:08:55They go through the same Kübler-Ross.
00:08:57How we say grief is grief, mourning is mourning.
00:09:01It's a death and so when someone dies,
00:09:03you go through the disbelief and you go through the sadness
00:09:07and you go through the anger
00:09:09and you go through the acceptance.
00:09:11And the problem is if your child gets stuck
00:09:15or if you as a parent, as an adult,
00:09:18while you're going through a divorce, gets stuck.
00:09:20I've had patients who've gotten stuck for a decade in grief,
00:09:25meaning they get stuck in anger
00:09:27or they get stuck in sadness and despair,
00:09:31where they can't, you're meant to move through grief.
00:09:34So I'm Jewish, so we say, you know, mourning is a year.
00:09:37You know, from the moment someone dies,
00:09:41we don't unveil the stone.
00:09:43We don't take a cloth off the stone.
00:09:44We don't put the stone up actually for a year.
00:09:47So it's a year, but we have a year
00:09:50to go through the process, right?
00:09:52But then we're meant to unveil the stone
00:09:54and move on with life.
00:09:56What's happening is that people are holding on.
00:09:59They're getting stuck,
00:10:00almost like a scratch in an old LP record.
00:10:02They're getting stuck at certain stages
00:10:05of the grief and mourning process.
00:10:07And they'll either get stuck in the depression
00:10:10or the disbelief or the anger,
00:10:12but many don't get to the acceptance stage.
00:10:15And children also aren't getting to the acceptance stage.
00:10:18They're getting sort of stuck
00:10:19in one stage of grief or another.
00:10:22- Before we continue, as you're probably aware,
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