Do you intend for your children to know and trust that your love for them won’t fade? Do they feel that, while they are experiencing your animosity towards their other parent?
Humans are designed to be living, loving caretakers. As children, we all understood this and expected to be nurtured. When we didn’t get held, fed, or changed, we made a ruckus to get the care we needed to survive. Most of us got enough of what we needed to become resilient and pretty good partners and parents, ourselves….but some didn’t.
Infants and children who didn’t get enough nurturing often learn to protect themselves by developing “attachment disorders”. These disturbed ways of relating can affect people into adolescence and adulthood. They can bleed into work relationships and marriages, sometimes even leading to divorce.
This brief article is an encouragement to be the loving, strong, wise being you truly are by nature. As you get away from “that awful person you used to love”, keep in mind that your nature hasn’t changed. Right? You’re still a kind-hearted, good person.
As a good parent, also keep in mind that your child is watching, listening, and feeling.
This process runs the risk of creating an attachment disorder in your child, one generated from within you or your spouse.
In me? Not in me!!! My soon-to-be-ex is the problem!
Yes, you!
Who treated you unfairly in your childhood? I ask to acquaint you with an example of an attachment disorder still alive in your body, mind, and emotions.
As you separate and divorce, be kind to yourself, as well as your spouse, as you go through the process.
Your tender child, almost regardless of age, needs acceptance and understanding. If they see you don’t love their other parent, how will they know your love for them is assured? You can secure love for your child by committing to the acceptance and understanding of your self, your child, and your spouse.
You didn’t marry this person because they were awful; you married the potential for them to bring their past into your relationship.
So drop rejection and confusion in your thoughts and feelings towards your spouse. Those confusing, fearful, angry feelings, thoughts, and words will attach to your child. Commit, instead, to being kind, wise and helpful. Your experience of attachment is alive and flowing through your child right now.
A version of this post was previously published at The Father Connection and is republished here with permission from the author.
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