Participants: Kathy Matthews, David Sedlacek
Series Code: TAH
Program Code: TAH000128
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00:31 Hi, I am Kathy Matthews and this is Thinking
00:33 About Home, and I am glad to see that you are back 00:35 with us again. We've been discussing divorce 00:38 and divorce recovery, and how the spouses can 00:43 handle all of these problems that they go through. 00:46 One of the things that we've been discussing is the 00:49 experience of divorce from a spouse's perspective. 00:53 And the guest that we have again is 00:55 Dr. David Scdlacck from Weimar Institute. 00:57 Dr Scdlacck, thank you for being back again. 00:59 You are so welcome. Now we've talked about 01:02 emotional divorce and we've talked about legal 01:05 divorce and economic divorce, there's other kinds 01:09 of divorce like co-parental divorce and what happens 01:12 to the mind when you're divorced. 01:13 That's right, that's right. Why don't you help us 01:16 understand those. Well co-parental divorce means 01:20 that even though you're divorced from one 01:23 and another, neither of you are divorced from 01:26 the children. The children are going to be there, 01:28 you are going to be need to be actively involved 01:30 in their lives until forever. And so there is going 01:35 to be if you will still a common bond. 01:39 They are going to be needs for you to still talk 01:41 with one another to resolve issues. Yes. 01:43 That relate to the children, and so that reality means 01:50 you can't run still from some type of relationship 01:53 with the person you have divorced. Right. 01:56 And so even though that's painful and it might 02:01 be something, might be the last thing you want to do. 02:05 It's something that you need to face and deal 02:07 with as a part of your new reality as a single person. 02:12 Maturing and growing. That's right maturing and 02:15 growing. The next one that I want to talk about 02:18 is what we call community divorce. And in this one, 02:23 it's like this we've been a part of the same community, 02:30 can we still do that? Can we still go to the same 02:33 church together? Can we still go to the same functions 02:37 together? Can we still have the same friends? 02:40 Can we be a part of the same community? 02:44 Those are difficult questions and sometimes very 02:48 painful questions. And sometimes we can't, right. 02:52 We can't be a part of it, it seems like. 02:54 We can't but when we try to force it then we create 02:59 a whole new set of problems. I know 03:01 one fellow whose mother ran off with the pastor 03:08 of his church, whose father married another woman 03:12 in the church and for a while they went their 03:15 separate ways, but now they're all back in the same 03:19 tiny little church. And it's creating all kinds of 03:24 problems because there are unresolved issues that 03:27 have never been addressed and never been 03:28 discussed and now they are having to try to live 03:31 together and obviously creates a tremendous 03:33 amount of strain on their whole community system. 03:37 So that is an aspect that needs to be really looked 03:41 at carefully. And the final area in terms of divorce 03:45 if we wanna look at is what we call psychic divorce 03:48 and that is my thoughts, my process has been intimately 03:54 involved with this person and now it's not going 04:00 to be involved in that person with that person anymore. 04:03 Who am I, alone now as an individual? 04:08 What are my thoughts now as an individual, 04:13 what will I do with adjustment to life and 04:16 typically women struggle with this adjustment more 04:19 than men do? Men tend to go on about their business 04:24 and not address some of the interpsychic things, 04:27 but women now have their whole identity is wrapped 04:32 up in the home more than the identity of men 04:36 tends to be. And so this whole issue of themselves 04:43 as a woman, themselves as a person needs to be 04:46 addressed and that's what we talk about when 04:49 we mean the psychic aspects of divorce adjustment. 04:55 Well then how can we in the church meet the needs 04:58 of divorcees? I guess as you discussed this sort 05:06 of thing I just think and praise the Lord for the 05:12 Lord's ways that can help us through all of this 05:16 and I think of spouses that haven't been divorce 05:21 to be more sensitive in these areas. 05:26 And it's teaching me something just listening 05:28 to you and I need to be more sensitive in these areas, 05:33 how can I do that? Well again one is by rising above 05:39 yourself, and entering into the experience of the 05:44 divorced person. And we talked about that a little 05:48 bit already but something more concrete that I would 05:51 like to recommend is that if we expect that in the 05:57 Christian church today divorce is going 05:59 to be a reality, even though it's not God's perfect plan, 06:04 it is reality, then we want to begin taking a look 06:07 at addressing it in a systematic way. 06:12 If I expected it is going to be happening in my church, 06:16 then my church needs to develop some type of a 06:19 program to address it. A part of the reluctance 06:22 of church is to do that is because we've not wanted 06:25 to accept it as something that's happening. 06:29 We wanted to put our head in the sand but 06:31 if we got into the point of simply being realistic about 06:34 it and being realistic doesn't condone it by the way 06:37 that's a part of what people think they'll be doing, 06:40 but if we are simply being compassionate with people 06:46 then we'll want to build in some type of divorce 06:48 recovery programs in the churches that address 06:52 these needs. Sometimes singles ministries in 06:55 churches have begun taking to look at some of these 06:58 issues because a lot of people in singles ministries 07:01 are people who have had a history of divorce. 07:03 Right. But I would like to see it not even 07:06 in the context of the singles ministry but simply 07:09 in the context of a church family embracing 07:14 the people who have found themselves in this situation. 07:19 Coming up alongside of them inviting them home, 07:26 not emotionally distancing themselves and again 07:30 some of the people who struggle the most 07:33 are children in divorces. We are gonna talk about 07:35 in a few minutes. But children have tremendous 07:39 needs, not just spouses in the marriage 07:42 and an effective church ministry is going to build 07:47 programming in for spouses and for children, 07:51 it's gonna invest time in these taking a look 07:55 at real needs that the spouses have. 07:57 Taking a look at real needs of the children have 08:00 and investing time and investing themselves people, 08:05 in these people who are hurting at this particular 08:08 time in their lives. You know the whole subject 08:13 makes me sad just talking about it makes me 08:17 realize how inadequate really I have been 08:20 in touching someone's lives this way. 08:27 And the faces of people when they are pretending 08:30 to be okay, I'm the kind of person that you might 08:32 consider the rescuer if I know the problem. 08:38 And I would like to be able to help people in this 08:43 area great deal more. Let's talk about the children now, 08:48 can we do that? Yes we can. What can we do 08:52 for the children who have gone through this 08:54 experience? Well I would like to talk about the experience 08:59 of a child going through it and I might begin by 09:04 talking about the experience of my own children 09:07 going through it for a few minutes. 09:11 Again I shared earlier that when we told them that 09:16 there was tremendous pain and they don't know 09:23 what's going on. Again our children never saw us 09:28 fight Cathy. They never saw us arguing and yelling 09:32 and screaming at each other sometimes children 09:34 do and they know. Sometimes children honestly 09:38 have said man you guys should have gotten divorced 09:41 long time ago would have been easier on us. Yeah. 09:43 Okay. But in your case it sounds like it would have 09:46 been in tremendous shock to them all the more 09:47 because they didn't see that. That's right. 09:50 Everything was underground and so it came as a 09:54 tremendous shock to our children. 09:57 And they first of all go through their own 09:59 grief process of this can't be happening 10:03 and they go through magical thinking which is you know, 10:10 was it me? Well that's a part of it, am I responsible, 10:14 what did I do wrong that caused mommy and daddy 10:17 to get divorced. But also the other aspect of magical 10:20 thinking is well somehow we are going to be able 10:24 to get mom and dad back together again, okay. 10:28 And so that's a part of their belief system 10:30 and I know my children for years held on to that longing 10:37 for us to get back together again, 10:40 because they love both of us. You know deeply and 10:43 dearly and, unfortunately in my situation as often 10:48 happens, my spouse had difficulty embracing 11:00 the need to hold me up before the children. 11:02 There was a lot of suspicion, there was a lot of 11:09 questions about dad, a lot of you know when you 11:14 come back home you tell me what you know, 11:16 what was going on kind of thing. 11:17 Yeah. And a lot of put downs and that really hurt 11:22 the children a great deal. And so children again 11:28 need to be supported and parents who are matured 11:31 in spite of their own pain will rise above that 11:36 to the take a look at the needs of their children in 11:39 their particular situation. One of the things that 11:44 children need very, very much is to know that they 11:47 are still loved by both mom and dad, 11:52 just because they're apart, it doesn't mean that 11:56 the children are still not precious and valuable 11:58 and very deeply loved by both of them. 12:02 I know that was very, very important for me. 12:04 I made at a point of calling my children 12:07 every single night. Really. For a period of time 12:10 until I knew that they knew that dad was gonna 12:15 be there and for them. And I would have them 12:18 come over you know on weekends and see them 12:21 as often as I could see them. And again I don't want 12:26 to say that I did everything perfectly because 12:28 I didn't I know that many things I did hurt the 12:32 children too, it wasn't because I intended to and 12:35 you know that's what happens most of the times 12:37 is that we don't intend to hurt our kids when 12:40 we go through a divorce but we either are not aware 12:43 of their needs, we are not sensitive to their needs 12:46 and so annoyingly we end up hurting our kids. 12:51 Well you were talking about one of the main problems 12:54 was selfishness. That's right, you know, that's right. 12:57 So you wouldn't at that time really be thinking 13:00 of the children as much as you should be. 13:03 As well as immaturity. Yes so that was one of the 13:06 other things that we talked about. 13:07 You know the natural tendency when we get 13:09 divorced is to blame the other party. 13:13 You have to blame your spouse and sometimes they 13:16 can tie-up bring our children into that you know 13:19 and you know, do you know that momma did this, 13:23 and this is, you know she was such a rotten person 13:25 in this area and that's why we got divorced. 13:28 You know, and that is totally destructive to our 13:31 children and I know as a part of my own growing up, 13:35 you know I saw that a lot of the responsibility 13:41 for the divorce was mine. You know every story, 13:45 every divorce that I ever come across it's never 13:49 just one person, never is. There are always two people 13:53 involved and each of them has responsibility 13:56 and I know that the day came when the Lord showed 14:01 me very clearly how I contributed to this divorce 14:05 and you know he told me to do? What? 14:08 He told me to write a letter of apology to my wife, 14:13 to my first wife. Did you find that difficult? 14:15 Well not at that point, earlier on it would have 14:20 been difficult. You would have. 14:21 Because I was just wasn't there. 14:23 You know it was it was her. But when the Lord 14:27 showed me, me and I was broken by that, 14:30 there was no more of that pride and no more that 14:33 blaming it was look, I am so sorry because I did 14:39 this and made it difficult for you in this area 14:43 and I was in touch with myself and so many things 14:46 that you tried to help me see I wasn't ready to see 14:49 at that point. And I just wanted, 14:51 I want to acknowledge those things to you and I 14:56 want to ask your forgiveness. 14:57 Right and when you did that, that's probably not 14:58 to say that whatever was your spouse's problems 15:04 that you approved all of them, or condemn them 15:06 or thought that they were not a problem anymore. 15:10 It's just that you are talking about the part that 15:12 you played in it. Well that's true, that's true, 15:15 but you know from my perspective I needed to 15:19 almost accept a 100 percent responsibility even though 15:22 realistically I know it wasn't? But for me in terms 15:26 of my own psychic dynamic, you know if I was going 15:29 to get away from blaming her at all I 15:31 needed to accept it as if it were mine. 15:34 Really. Totally, yeah and so. And this helped you 15:37 to heal. It surely did, it surely did and so today 15:41 I can look objectively at the situation but there 15:45 is no more bitterness there, because I have taken 15:48 a look at my part and brought it before the Lord 15:50 and forgiven. Yes and made restitution by the apology. 15:55 Yes. What other things do the children go through 15:59 that we can talk about? Well first of all children 16:05 go through a period of confusion. 16:10 Where are my loyalties in this now, 16:14 should I live with mommy? Should I live with daddy? 16:19 If I go and live with this one, 16:21 will this one stop loving me? You know, 16:24 am I being disloyal because I choose this particular one. 16:29 Children are put in tremendously difficult 16:32 spots. And some children are furiously loyal. 16:34 That's right, that's right, and sometimes legally 16:38 children don't have choice about who they are 16:42 gonna stay with but other times they do. 16:46 And so that the sensitivity that we need to have 16:50 to the position that we are putting our children 16:53 in and making decisions like that and the confusion 16:57 that they have in making those types of decisions 17:00 is something that we can really help them 17:04 through by being aware of it, by being aware of it. 17:08 This must be really hard for you right now and even 17:13 though I would love to have you come and live 17:15 with me, I want what's best for you? 17:19 That should be your attitude. That's right; 17:21 always what is best for the child. Another area. 17:26 Well another area is children have a gut feeling 17:35 that they've been let down by both parents 17:40 and they sometimes don't have words for that? 17:44 They don't know how to articulate that very clearly? 17:49 You know children know. Would that manifested self 17:51 and anger? Oh yes, okay. And again remember the 17:56 normal grief process for the child, 17:58 a part of that is anger. But a lot of times you know, 18:02 if we and our sanctimonious Christianity say well 18:06 it's not the case for you to be angry, 18:09 what we do is we prevent our children from having 18:12 that which is normal and healthy for them to have. 18:15 Okay, when we say that isn't? 18:18 Not that its that you can't be angry, 18:22 but how you handled the anger, 18:23 how you express the anger that we want to teach 18:26 them. In Ephesians Jesus told us. 18:28 I mean if you understand it. He told us be angry 18:30 and sin not, okay. And so there is an appropriateness 18:33 you know of anger, how to handle the feelings. 18:37 Without sinning? Exactly not to jump on either one 18:42 you know not to condemn either one but to be able 18:45 to express, you know mom, dad, you know when you 18:50 got married and you had me you are committed to me 18:54 for life in the context of a marriage and now 18:58 I'm being robbed of that experience. Yeah. 19:03 And I'm being put in the position where kids at school 19:07 are talking about me because your parents got divorced, 19:09 didn't they? And they hardly know how to say that 19:12 sometimes. Exactly, and children need to be given 19:16 permission to have a voice to talk about what 19:20 is going on even if it means their talk telling you. 19:24 About you. I am angry at you for how you let me down. 19:29 You know Cathy I've had to go to my children 19:32 individually and I've had to acknowledge to them 19:37 how I let them down, how I hurt them through 19:41 this divorce. And I have had to go to them and 19:43 I've had ask their forgiveness for what I have 19:47 done to hurt them and that has been tremendously 19:52 healing for the kids. Has it? It has been. 19:56 Of course it would. And the strain in the relationship 20:00 has been healed as a result of that and 20:03 it's still frankly an on going process 20:07 it's been now about fourteen years that they 20:13 have lived in a divorced situation. And 20:18 it's still, there is still process even now today 20:23 of talking about some of those old things that come 20:26 up because remember children don't want to think 20:29 badly of either parent. And what that does is puts 20:33 them in the position of denying the reality of their 20:36 own situation. And so many times it takes years 20:41 for them to get a handle on or to put words on their 20:45 own process. What's going on for me? I'm 20:49 just getting words for it, sometimes just through 20:51 reading a book or, and realizing something, 20:55 yeah a light will come on through a conversation 20:57 with the friend. But you know it shouldn't have 21:00 to take so long, yes. If we dealt with more effectively 21:04 as a church, then it would not have to take so long, 21:08 okay. And certainly that affects the church by 21:12 you having to go through it so long. It sure does. 21:14 In lots of areas. It surely does. 21:16 Even in the marketplace. Even in the marketplace. 21:20 And your work. That's right, yes. 21:24 What else? Well again we eluded to the fact before 21:28 that sometimes parents use children for their own 21:32 purposes and they ask the children to almost 21:37 be like little spies on the other one and that's putting 21:42 the children in an impossible situation. 21:46 You know to find out, you know how much daddy 21:47 is making, to find out if he is dating somebody else, 21:52 that is wrong. Yes, it's harming their character 21:56 and their growth for maturity, 21:58 I mean the growth toward maturity would be crippling 22:02 them wouldn't it. That's right, and again children 22:06 need to be empowered to be able to say to the parent 22:10 who is making that request that's not you know 22:15 that's not, you know that's not my position to do. 22:17 I am a child here, I am not a spy, you know 22:20 and I want to go and love mommy or love daddy without 22:23 any kind of interference from you. 22:25 That when you take an exceptional child to be 22:28 able to voice that. To be able to voice that. 22:29 Yes, I can imagine, an exceptional child, 22:33 I was just thinking that, okay. 22:34 But you see if we had some type of divorce recovery 22:36 system built into our churches then children would 22:41 have a forum to be able to talk about those things 22:44 openly and could get guidance from facilitators 22:49 or even from other young people who've gone through 22:52 it for a longer period of time. Yeah. 22:54 You know further along in the process. 22:57 There would be a forum for them to say, 22:58 well wait a minute that's not appropriate 23:00 and I want to support you invoicing your objection 23:04 to that kind of a request. Yes, we've got some more 23:10 to come for don't we? Well there is a lot more to say 23:13 about this. Children who are in this kind of a situation 23:21 need to be affirmed. They need to have someone come 23:28 in the church family almost take them under their 23:31 wing and be a surrogate parent to them and 23:39 especially in a situation where the divorced, 23:42 one of the divorced partners may move away 23:45 a long distance away that adds a whole set 23:49 of unique challenges to children 23:52 living in divorce situations. 23:55 If you are close enough where you can see people 23:57 like on weekends or have, you know visitation 24:00 on a regular basis right there. 24:03 That makes it easier when mom and dad are talking 24:05 and negotiating and working things out that makes 24:08 it easier. Even at best. Yes. You know there are 24:12 so many situations where there are not as calm 24:15 as what you're sounding like. There are some 24:17 tremendously violent situations and they I can see 24:21 how the child would need a great deal of support then. 24:26 That's right. But it will need a great deal of support 24:29 anyway even in a mild situation I would say. 24:32 That's true, but let's talk for a little bit about some 24:34 of the more severe situations those were maybe 24:37 there even has need to be a restraining order 24:40 to keep you know the parent away or whether 24:44 has been just subtle control and subtle force, 24:49 that kind of coercion which is always underground 24:52 but is such a powerful factor in creating the divorce 24:56 and where one of the partners wants to really 24:59 be controlling and manipulative of the situation. 25:03 That adds such tremendous complexity even from 25:06 the partner's point of view as well as from the 25:09 children's point of view. I've had situations Kathy 25:12 where the children frankly don't want to have 25:17 anything to do with one of the parties because 25:20 it's been so awful and are totally bonded to the other. 25:28 And it makes that, it makes it damaging to them 25:32 and you have the one partner saying to them, 25:35 boy you know I have these rights to see you but 25:38 the kids don't want to see him because every time 25:40 he talks to them he tries to manipulate and control 25:43 and work his way back in and that's what they 25:46 experienced their whole time with him, 25:48 and they don't want it now. Yeah. 25:50 And it makes it extremely difficult. Yeah. 25:53 And long distance relationships where 25:55 you can only see them on vacation times or holiday 25:58 times that makes it difficult and another factor 26:03 that often happens is that, is that if you have like 26:07 a custodial parent. The custodial parent almost 26:10 has to be the heavy, and do the day to day discipline 26:13 of the children and then when they go to the 26:15 non-custodial parent. Yeah. 26:17 They can live it up and have a great time and think 26:19 wow he is the greatest you know, 26:22 and so many times if the mother is a custodial 26:24 parent she ends up looking like the witch, yes, 26:28 you know that the tough one and they grabs 26:29 the wonderful one. And so I want to go live 26:32 with dad because we have great times with dad. 26:34 Yeah. And the children don't see really that mom 26:39 is loving them in a way that they really need 26:41 to be loved. And that's how we need to love 26:44 them too, I mean, well we need to love them 26:47 in a way that they can see Christ so much 26:49 in us the example that they won't be ruined 26:52 for life because this is happened to them, 26:54 or just think that they might have to go through this 26:57 too, it could be different for them. That's right. 27:00 Now I suppose we need to wrap this up, don't we? 27:03 Yes we do. And this is a difficult subject but 27:07 I really pray for our viewers that they are going to 27:10 benefit from the information that you have given them. 27:14 We want to have you back again and it's not going 27:19 to be on the subject of divorce, 27:21 it's going to be on the subject the right use 27:23 of the will. And I think if we use what were coming 27:26 to we might avoid some of these things 27:29 in the future right? That's right, yeah. 27:31 So you'll be back with us again. Yes. 27:34 The subject we are gonna talk about is one 27:36 of the most favorite subjects that I have in 27:40 all of my studies. I want to invite you to be back 27:43 with us again, and don't miss this next program 27:48 that we are gonna have on the right use of the will. 27:51 I think you will be interested in it and you can use 27:52 it in your home. Dr. Scdlacck, 27:54 would you pray with us. I will. Father, 27:57 we thank you for loving us. We thank you. |
Revised 2014-12-17