by tanyabittner | May 28, 2015 | Thoughts & Desires, Today
It’s my belief that kids of divorce should live an equal amount of time with both parents. I feel it’s important to keep everyone as connected as possible. It’s been my experience the courts generally agree with this too, unless there are physical dangers for the children, signs of abuse or neglect, or the distance between the homes is too great. For the latter, that’s what Summers are for – it’s when you can really start to equalize things for the kids.
You don’t need a psychology degree to comprehend the importance of a healthy attachment between kids and both of their parents (especially during divorce), but you do need a heart, some compassion, and integrity to get it.
You’ve seen it before where one parent lacks those qualities and triangulates the kids into the spousal conflict because of an inability to integrate the reality of the divorce into his/her personality type. Dr. Craig Childress, a clinical psychologist in Pasadena, CA says that personality type has a fear of abandonment and inadequacy. Childress says that type of parent puts a great deal of energy into keeping kids away from his/her ex-spouse to “show them” just who’s been abandoned, and who the inadequate parent is. The kids in this scenario lose… BIG TIME.
Why not make it easier on the kids?
Parents who control the amount of time children of divorce spend with their other parent are fostering a new hallmark of the parent-child relationship: Anxiety.
And it’s not just my opinion – studies show kids of divorced parents are far less stressed if they live part-time with each parent.
This contradicts some (vengeful) parents’ thinking that kids who move back and forth between homes have a social disruption and higher stress. Researchers at the Centre for Health Equity Studies in Stolkholm, Sweden wanted to know for sure.
The hypothesis: Kids who lived part time with both parents (of divorce) are less stressed than those who lived with just one parent.
The researchers looked at national data from almost 150,000 12 and 15 year-old students and studied their psychosomatic health issues including sleep problems, difficulty concentrating, loss of appetite, headaches, stomachaches and feeling tense, sad or dizzy.
They found 69% of them lived in nuclear families, 19% spent time living with both parents and about 13% lived with only one parent.
Not surprisingly, kids in nuclear families reported the fewest psychosomatic problems, but the more interesting finding was that students who lived with both of their separated parents reported significantly fewer problems than kids who lived with only one parent.
Translation: kids of divorced parents are happier and healthier with both parents playing an equal active role in their daily lives.
An argument made for anything less is a disturbingly transparent logical fallacy.
Hot topic – more to come,
Tanya B.
by tanyabittner | May 10, 2015 | Today
Mothers’ Day has been bittersweet for almost nine years now. My mom suffered a massive stroke December 18, 2005. She died one day later; six days before Christmas. I often describe events and milestones from my past as taking place “before mom” or “after mom.”
I’ll never forget where I was. Target. First thing in the morning. Pregnant and pushing a shopping cart around with a then four year old Jordyn (Jay) who was laughing and counting the days until Santa comes. It’s not unusual for pregnant mamas to suddenly need to use the ladies’ room – so I left Jay and the cart with her daddy while I raced to the loo.
While in the stall, I reached for my cell phone to see if mom had called. Sure enough I missed it. I dialed her back right there from the stall, but my sister Michele answered and said, “Tani, something’s wrong with mom. She’s talking funny. Her words are coming about backward. I think she needs to go to the hospital, which one should I take her to?” We were living in Vegas at the time, and there are more than 20 hospitals to choose from. I replied, “The closest one. Now hand the phone to her, can she talk to me?”
These were the last words my mother said to me, “anTi, ugh, ugh, darces come”. She was trying to say, “Tani, I’m scared, come”.
I replied, “Jay and I are on our way mama, I love you more than life, the ambulance is coming, I’ll see you at the hospital, I love you’.
I fumbled getting out of the stall and bolted out of the restroom in search of Jordyn and my ex. I told them something was happening with nana and we needed to go home right away. My ex said, “Home?” “Yes. I need to get my mom’s rosary. I’m not showing up at the hospital without it – hurry”.
We somehow managed to get home and make it to the hospital before the ambulance. This has always pissed me off. What the hell took them so long? My mother would visit two hospitals in as many days but I can’t bring myself to mention either one of them.
When they wheeled her in, she was sitting up, looking frustrated and frightened. My mother was the smartest woman I’ve ever met. Quick witted, extremely articulate, fierce (understatement) and she could do the Sunday crossword in about 10 minutes. She was a walking dictionary. I think my mama knew what was happening to her and it both irritated and terrified her at the same time.
I held her hand and gently placed her rosary in it. She looked down, saw it, and her eyes smiled at me. My mother held that rosary in her hand, through procedures, tests, a transport to a different neurological wing of a new hospital, and multiple gown changes by nurses. We pried it out of her beautiful hand (always perfectly manicured) after she passed.
My mother and I were extremely close. We saw each other almost daily, she even had sleepovers with me and Jay every other weekend. We talked on the phone at least 20 times a day and always said good night – every night – regardless of where either of us was in the world.
I remember coming into the house, passing by the Christmas tree all lit up with presents underneath she had already wrapped for everyone, walking up the stairs to the room she used to stay in and tucking her rosary neatly back under her pillow. That’s when I realized she was never coming back.
During my grieving, I remember dropping to my knees, grabbing my pregnant belly, and howling the most primal sounds. So loud. The pain was suffocating. How could I have this little life growing inside of me and lose the very person who gave me life at the same time?
Something felt eternally broken.
I came into the kitchen this morning to find home baked cookies, a new writing chair, an oversized print of my favorite city (NYC), and a tile with the tiny fingerprints of that same baby who was growing inside of me nine years ago. I wept right there. Quietly this time, and with a smile on my face…
What a remarkable journey it’s been. My mother’s legacy didn’t die with her that day – it’s not broken at all.
Her passion for living a happy life is indeed alive and well. Love can be found in every corner of this home. Everything is as it should be.
I get to be mom to these beautiful girls.
Happy Mothers’ Day.
More to come,
Tanya B.
by tanyabittner | May 9, 2015 | Thoughts & Desires
Whether you were the one who initiated the D word or your ex-spouse, inevitably: Life. Goes. On. More often than not, it’s happier too.
If you are newly separated, or recently served (yes, we ALL either serve – or – are served) with divorce papers, then this next paragraph is for you.
Divorce rips a jagged, deep trench in your heart whether it was a mutual decision to split or not. Sometimes the pain you feel is guilt for the scars you know your choices will leave on your kids’ tiny hearts and sometimes it’s more selfish. More raw and fleshy. Immobilizing you. A natural consequence of unravelling decades you spent making promises to each other that in the end – kids or not – neither of you will keep. A loss of identity. Who are you now? You will be scarred. No doubt about it.
Silver Lining: Scars represent old wounds. They chronicle your family’s journey, each one with a different perspective of what happened. But they also symbolize healing.
When we allow ourselves to heal, that’s when “life after divorce” can get wildly fulfilling! But you have to try. You can’t be a spectator in your own life.
Sure, you’ll find comfort and support among family and friends at first. They’re the best for having late night phone calls and sharing copious amounts of wine. But sooner or later you will have to sit alone and recreate your life.
Discover new desires, or rediscover buried ones.
Whether you asked for it or not, you have another shot at being your best you. Take the trips you wanted to take, read books (because you have more time now), get healthy, resurrect a career you always wanted, see old friends, hold your children closer, welcome love, and by all means, allow the energy of these new experiences to keep you moving forward.
You’ll know it’s time to let go of your past when you stop confusing your beating heart for throbbing scars.
Here’s (cheers) to having a happier life after divorce! I mean, what’s the alternative?
More to come,
Tanya B.
by tanyabittner | May 5, 2015 | Today
As a divorcee, I do NOT like the term “high-conflict divorce.” It implies both parties have high-conflict personalities. In my experience there’s been just one party who’s high-conflict. Family Law attorney, and former psychotherapist, William A. Eddy, LCSW, JD says this is pretty common, “… sometimes both parties to a dispute have High-Conflict Personalities, but in many cases there is only one High-Conflict Personality – the other party is fairly reasonable, simply trying to avoid the conflict or trying to get it under control”. Sometimes the only way to get it under control is to ask the court for help.
Bet if you do some digging, that same one party has likely displayed controlling, high-conflict personality traits toward friends and family (maybe even co-workers) for decades as opposed to being accommodating, calm, reasonable, and logical.
Don’t get me wrong. Divorce brings out THE WORST in people. But imagine someone has behaved manically since young adulthood (or younger) and has become rigid and inflexible with age. Then hit her (or him) with the reality of an impending divorce and heads – along with bank accounts – Will. Roll. They’ll use anything and anyone to seek revenge on you for leaving them, including their own kids.
I’ve identified a few traits of someone with a high-conflict personality based on eye witness accounts of a gnarly divorce, research and many private sessions with therapists extremely knowledgable about these types of personalities:
- Manic mood swings
- Responsibility avoidance (they never take responsibility for their role in anything – ever)
- Inability to reflect on their own (bad) behavior
- Grandious thinking (that, “I’ll show him” mentality)
- Blaming others (it’s always someone else’s fault; never theirs)
- Controlling behavior
- Manipulation
- Alienating kids from the other parent
- Insecurity
- Inability to empathize with others
- Fear of abandonment
- Lying (they distort the truth or make shit up all together)
- Even, stalking (or vandalizing… ie: throwing eggs at your car in the dead of night)
This person is a master manipulator. They’re cunning and they thrive on conflict. It’s their way or the highway. And you get sucked in. You become defensive. You want to point out how unreasonable and rigid they’re being. STOP!
These high-conflict personalities have absolutely no awareness of their own behaviors and they’re illogical. If you disagree with them or call them out on their bad behavior they feel “harassed.” It’s perceived as an attack. Though they will spew venom your way like nobody’s business (see bullet three above).
Virginia Gilbert, a marriage and family therapist (MFT) in LA offers this succinct advice,
“D I S E N G A G E.”
If you’re trying to get on with your life after leaving someone who has a high-conflict personality, here’s an analogy that worked for me with some more nuggets of advice folded in:
Your life, with its perfectly imperfect characters, is playing on broadway. The high-conflict ex’s life is playing off-broadway. She/he has created their own story lines, similar characters including one for your role. When you don’t say the right lines, the ones scripted for you – when you stop “acting”, the audience stops coming… and when the off-broadway show no longer has an audience… the curtain closes.
More to come,
Tanya B.
“It’s All Your Fault”: http://www.continuingedcourses.net/active/courses/course075.php
“What Therapists Don’t Tell You About Divorcing A High-Conflict Personality”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/virginia-gilbert-mft/what-therapists-dont-tell_b_2622776.html
by tanyabittner | May 1, 2015 | Today
I love May! It’s one of those transitional months in our calendar year, tucked in nicely between Spring and Summer.
It heralds fresh start!
Get after what your heart desires this month.
Be the person you envy.
Align your life to receive greatness.
Enjoy the moments on your journey :).
More to come,
Tanya B. 
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