Relationships, divorce

[Sandra Dodd]

In another folder I wrote something about divorce-avoidance without realizing I was in a single parenting area.

My computer is very touchy and I've lost three pieces of writing now, trying to get this somewhere. What I'm going to do is bring bits from various places and leave them here as data to consider for anyone whose relationship could be strengthened, for anyone who feels a separation would be helpful, and anyone who's in a position to encourage or discourage others in similar situation.

[Sandra Dodd]

I asked Sylvia Toyama if I could quote what she had written in another folder, and she sent this:

Here you go -- cleaned up in its entirety, just take what you want.
****
I used to disagree with Sandra over the idea that divorce should be avoided whenever possible. I grew up in a home with two parents who should have never married. It wasn't entirely hellish, but close enough that I used to wish my parents would divorce. They finally did when I was 18, just after I left home, and it was beyond hellish for my younger brother & sister who wanted nothing more than to survive long enough to leave home (as I had).

I'm divorced myself, tho I'm married now. I left an abusive marriage when my then-dh hit our infant son. I used to argue that there were good reasons for divorce aside from abuse. I could even say that sure kids can turn out okay in divorces -- my oldest son Will and many other kids have turned out okay. But now that I look at Will -- he's 23, and I remarried when he was 10 -- I see the damage a divorce did. Even a good, necessary divorce. In many ways, he is defined by the years he spent as the child of a single mom. His perspective on the world is shaped by that. And he didn't grow up with parents fighting over him (we had only one contact with my ex after we left) or grandparents dissing Mom.

In recent years I've watched a few marriages end in divorce, in unschooling families (heard of at least one other) just in my own city, and it's changed my perspective somewhat. I've also factored in the damage I see in my younger siblings, and the long-term effects on Will. Absent abuse (adult or child), I would encourage everyone else to stay married and find a way to work it out.

Not a Christian perspective from me. More a pragmatic one. Even in a 'good' divorce, kids have to leave their childhood home on a rotating basis, negotiate new household expectations, spend holidays with only one parent, meet new partners.

In the past few years, I've really come to appreciate the example my in-laws give us, and Gary as a child, about what really is involved in a good marriage. They weren't as good at putting it into words as I might have liked, the but the way they live their marriage is a wonderful example. I can see where I missed huge and very essential lessons in marriage as a result of the fact that neither of my parents were willing to do what it takes to make marriage work.

I hope we can be an equally good example for our kids when they choose partners and get married.

Sylvia

[Sandra Dodd]

Every year or so someone seems to recommend divorce as a good idea, or expresses the idea that unschooling would be easier if the husband just wasn't around.

The easy answer is that unschooling is way more difficult (and sometimes impossible) if parents are separated and one doesn't think the unschooling should continue.

Here are some saved parts from prior exchanges, and links to other things too.
http://sandradodd.com/divorce

[Sandra Dodd]

From e-mail yesterday, another mom wrote:

"Making the shift on divorce was a hard fight for me. Both my parents' marriage and my first marriage pointed to 'divorce can be okay' -- but in the past 5 yrs I've seen/heard of five divorces just in the unschooling community here... and we're not a big group of folk!

"I find, too, that the longer I'm married, the sadder I feel to see any marriage fail, especially when kids are involved."

[Sandra Dodd]

Sylvia has expanded this writing on her outside blog here:
http://mysquareone.blogspot.com/2008/09/from-recent-discussion-on-d...

[Sandra Dodd]

I keep wanting to write about my own first divorce, and other "certain knowledge" aspects of divorce, but it seems so important I keep stalling for the right moment. I'm still stinging from having lost that first clear writing.

[Sylvia Toyama]

I saw this posted over at Peaceful Partnerships on yahoo, and asked for permission to post it here, because I just love the sentiment and what really adopting it could mean for people who are unhappy in a marriage and contemplating a divorce.

"John and I have never forgotten the promises we made weren't promises to G-d as much as they were promises to the children we brought into this world and our family. We promised to love each other and keep our home together."

The idea that marital vows are really promises to one's children is just so beautiful and loving. It's easy to think of marital vows as promises made to each other, which makes it easy to release those vows if you feel the other person hasn't kept his/her promises to you. It's much more difficult for a parent to release a promise made to one's children.

[Sandra Dodd]

I had never heard an interpretation like that and it is truly beautiful. I'm glad you found it and brought it!

[Meredith]

That's interesting to me bc George and I aren't married, but we did have a couple very clear discussions, early in our relationship, about making a committment to our kids, and how important that was to both of us. We've both promised to provide a peaceful, loving home for our kids, first and foremost - and that leads to us working on having a peaceful, loving relationship between the two of us.

[Amy Childs]

There is a lot I could say about this very interesting (to me) and important topic, too much to write it all here. I wrote a little bit about it for my website, and below is an excerpt of some of the more pertinent parts with some additions. For a bit more on the subject see:
www.amychilds.com/howibecame1

www.amychilds.com/faq5

Someday I’ll probably write a whole book but until then a few paragraphs will have to do.

For 15 years I lived the life of a mother and “happily married” wife. This required severe repression of some parts of myself, but at the same time it strengthened my ability to make life fun, no matter what. Although I did not experience true inner partnership with my husband, I worked to build a friendship with him that supported our common desire to raise our children in a peaceful and nurturing home.

When I was in my early 30s, something inside me rebelled and stopped being willing to suppress myself and pretend in order to be loyal to a marriage that I didn’t deeply believe in. I was then faced with a grueling dilemma, as I very much wanted to remain friends with my husband, and I enjoyed being “family” with him.

After months of grieving, emotional upheaval, deep breathing, family discussions, counseling, community processing and truth-telling, we reached a new understanding about our lives and our relationship. We had a funeral for our marriage and declared ourselves divorced. We melted our wedding and engagement rings and had five “Friends and Family Forever” rings fashioned from the gold, one for each of us and our three children. We had a ceremony dedicating ourselves as friends and family forever.

We established new agreements with each other and continued to live side by side for several years in our family home. We worked on our relationship within a new paradigm - not as married partners, but as parenting partners and friends based on the truth of who we really are.

Our children (then ages 8, 10, 13) barely batted an eyelash at the transition. Certainly we had many family meetings, they shed a few tears here and there. But 98% of the pain, confusion and difficulty was taken-on by my husband and myself, and we were able to leave our kids to continue to live their lives in much the same way their lives had always been. They knew they had both of us, that we were always there for them, and that they were not going to have to lose anything just because our marriage was over.

Several years later, my ex-husband married another woman and moved in with her a few miles away. For a few years after that, he would come stay at our family home every few nights, and still the kids’ lives were not drastically altered in any way. Sometimes daddy was there, sometimes not. But they didn’t have to pack up and go back and forth between houses, they didn’t have to take sides.

I won’t pretend it was all peaches and cream. Lots of times, it was HARD. There are many things I learned, that I wish I had a chance to do differently. But it always felt good to know that even when it was hard for me and my adult partner- the young innocent ones in our household were doing just fine and were getting pretty much everything that every child wants and needs.

[Amy Childs]

I am not sure how to make hyperlinks work in here, so I'll just leave my website link here.

www.amychilds.com

There I have written some things in "about amy" and also in FAQs

[Heather Greek]

I have a question. Someone said if a husband/wife get divorced that even if the mom has sole custody and homeschools, the judge can demand she put the kids in school. How can that be if homeschooling is legal? I guess if the mom and dad disagree over how the kids are educated it would cause it to go in front of a judge but still...If i had sole custody that should mean no judge can change the law..right?

[Sylvia Toyama]

Heather, in recent days, it's almost unheard for one parent to have complete sole custody. There are two different custody categories -- physical and legal. Where the child primarily lives is physical custody; decision making about the child's life is considered legal custody. In many cases, parents have joint custody, both physical and legal.

In cases where a child lives primarily with one parent, generally legal custody is Joint. Joint Legal Custody means both parents must agree on all major issues -- education, health care, religion, whether parents can move away from the child or each other, visitation, etc. From what I've seen in the divorces I've witnessed over the past several years, the only way one parent gets sole LEGAL custody is if the other parent is judged to be entirely unfit. It's very hard to get that kind of judgment -- judges are very reluctant to cut out either parent.

I do know of one divorce, in an unschooling family, where the judge was happy to sign off on homeschooling, but she did require an 'education plan' from the parents, with both signatures and clear guidelines. Now, two years later, one parent is considering challenging that agreeement, and I'm pretty sure that any judge would listen more favorably to a plan that had the kids in school, because school is the norm.

The odds you'd get sole legal custody and unfettered right to choose home or unschooling aren't a good bet. Really.