| A major cause of conflict between separated parents is lack of
awareness of the other
parent's perspective. All each one knows is that their "ex" is giving them a hard
time and they wish they didn't have to deal with them.
The "residential" parent typically wonders why the children's other parent doesn't contact them at conveniently regular times, or generally "play the game", why they turn up at unpredictable times in a confrontational state of mind. The "non-residential parent" grieves over the loss of their relationship with their children, unable to reconstruct the relationship as an absent parent, feels powerless and at the mercy of the residential parent's whim. There are many issues involved, and different sets of parents have different levels of antagonism between them, are at different levels of personal growth, have more or less developed interpersonal skills and so on. These pages are presented so that non-residential parents can read for themselves what many residential parents are going through, and vice versa. Your ex's story might be here, you never know (although we have attempted to make the stories as anonymous as possible in the interests of free expression and, in some cases, personal safety). There are stories from joint residential parents, children of separated families, step-parents and advice from custody evaluators. It is our sincere hope that by reading these stories, people involved in this epidemic of severed relationships will reach a greater understanding of (and hence some measure of compassion for) the range of issues and emotions that all parties are simultaneously trying to deal with as they struggle to raise happy, healthy children against some pretty stiff odds. Ultimately, if warring parties can bury the hatchet enough to be civil and respectful to one another, at least in front of the children, the fabric of society might stand some semblance of a chance of holding together enough to give the next generation hope of achieving emotional and psychological wholeness. These stories, which are often written at a stressful point (before, during or after a court battle) are thoughts which may be common to others and are presented for the edification of those trying to understand or articulate their own feelings, or the feelings of others in their various situations. Penny for yours. If you would like to add your story to these pages, please
visit this link for separated
parents, or this link
for the children of separated parents. If you are a step-parent, relative,
friend, custody evaluator, judge, lawyer or policy-maker, please use this
link. All contributions are gratefully accepted, and added as time
permits.
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