♪ How to talk to your kids about dating after divorce ♪
Yay!
(upbeat music)
Welcome to "Mended Light",
I'm Co-founder and CEO, Alicia Decker.
And this is...
- Co-founder and Clinical Director, Jonathan Decker.
- That needs no introduction, because he is in
every single video.
- They're like, "Oh, this guy again."
- We are here to talk today about how to talk to your kids
about dating after divorce.
- Are you good?
Are you about to break up with me?
- Not today. - Okay.
(both laugh)
(sobs)
But you've been divorced.
- I have been divorced! - So cheerful.
(both laugh)
- So when we were dating, I had a child, small child.
- Yes. - He was adorable.
Still adorable. - Yep.
- A lot taller. - You were divorced,
we were dating.
- So you're sharing your professional perspective,
but we're also sharing our real-life perspective.
- Our story, for sure.
Well, you- - Who wants to start?
- You start, no, you've got the lived-in experience.
I'll drop some clinical nuggets here and there, but...
- Okay, so it's totally gonna depend on your circumstances,
on your kids' age, there are so many factors.
So you need to do what works best for you,
and what you feel comfortable with.
And keep in consideration, your kids' needs, too,
and balance those, right?
Like as a parent, we're always trying
to balance, like, what are our needs,
with what our kids' needs are?
And if we go too far in any direction,
that's where it gets unhealthy.
- Well, we have to consider the age of the kids.
If they're adult children, - Right.
- or if they're teenagers, or if they're kids.
And then also, there's extremes, right?
There's the extreme of not telling them...
not telling them at all.
- Anything. - Not telling them at all,
anything, or like second date,
you're now making introductions, right?
- Right. - Which I think
is another extreme.
I love when people say, "Well, we're gonna date for a while
before I introduce you to my kid, like,
we're gonna ease into that, and see where this goes,
because kids can get attached."
- Right.
- And dis-attached, and attached,
and dis-attached to many suitors, and...
- Yeah, so my son was quite young, right?
And so he, like, he understood, his dad and I were divorced.
He wasn't gonna understand like, here's mom's friend,
and here's a different friend,
and where did that last friend go?
- Because you had a few dates.
- Occasionally, I dated occasionally, but...
- Never had to pay for a meal.
(Alicia laughs)
- But I did not introduce my son to someone,
unless marriage was on the table.
Like, unless that was in consideration, not,
"Oh, we're going to get married," because for me,
that was too far down the road.
- Right, but could this be going that way?
- But unless we were considering marriage,
like, they were never meeting my child, right?
And that's what worked for me,
and that was my morals and my values.
So I didn't date unless he was with his dad, right?
Or if he was somewhere else, I didn't go out on dates.
- Her son, not her date.
She didn't go on dates with her dates, and their fathers.
(Alicia laughs)
- Thank you, thank you for clarifying that,
I appreciate that, this is why I keep you around.
- Yeah, to state the obvious. (laughs)
- So there was a bit of a funny moment.
You and I had been friends for a while,
we'd been dating for a few months,
and I was actually going to Arizona to meet you,
'cause we lived in different parts of the country.
We are meeting up in Arizona so-
- Here's the funny moment. - so that I could
meet his family.
And I was bringing my son with me,
which I knew, that meant like, marriage is a possibility.
This is on the table.
But I realized, as I'm driving there to Arizona,
it's like a six-hour drive or something,
and my three-year-old's in the backseat,
that I had never had the conversation with you
about what this meant to me.
And I started panicking. - Yeah.
- And I'm not a panicky person.
- No.
- I don't panic, I don't get anxiety.
I was panicking.
And so I get there, I have decently high anxiety.
- You feel anxiety, you don't have anxiety attacks,
but you... - Right.
Yeah, and so I'm panicking, I'm a bit anxious.
We're a day or two in, we go for a walk around the block.
You know, we're staying, at his parent's house
in two separate rooms.
- Here's my quick set up.
- Very reputable.
- Before she sets up the punchline,
she had told me two months earlier,
"Just so you know, I'm never getting married again."
And I'm like, "Wow, that's intense."
And I'm like, "Okay," and in my mind,
I'm like, "Well, I will respect that.
Maybe if she falls in love with me, she'll change her mind.
And maybe she won't, like, either way I'll respect that.
But I am interested enough
that I want to see where this goes."
So I very respectfully, never even-
- Started marching around the walls of Jericho,
hoping they would fall down. - Yeah,
blowing my trumpet, but I didn't bring up marriage again,
because she told me, straight up,
she's never getting married again.
And then she's having a panic attack driving down,
that I didn't know about, and then...
- So we're walking around the neighborhood,
his dad's neighborhood, and there's a little park,
and we stopped so my son can play at the park.
And I say to you...
- Very pointedly, and kind of upset with me,
"So why haven't we talked about marriage?"
(both laugh)
And I'm like, "Oh, I guess we can have this conversation.
You said you didn't want to."
And you're like, "Well, I brought my son down to meet ya."
(Alicia laughs)
"So doesn't that show you?"
I'm like, "Okay, let's have that conversation."
- So that's how marriage became on the table.
Communication is really important in relationships,
just in case you're wondering.
- So we started talking about marriage, and, you know,
I said, "Yes," when she asked.
- I didn't ask.
- You put it on the table, and I said, "Yes."
And then I formally asked later.
- You're so good. - Anyways,
but then you pivot to, you need to talk to your son,
and to your ex, because he's gonna be
in a co-parenting situation.
Now tell me about those conversations.
- Yeah, well, and I think in life,
in parenting and relationships,
like there are always important conversations
that are going to come up.
There's always important conversations
that you need to have.
And so it's more about having the habit
of having those conversations,
but the way you have the hard conversations
is you have the easy conversations regularly, right?
Knowing what's going on in your life, "How's your day?
You know, what was the best part of your day?
What was the worst part of your day?"
- You're talking with your son now.
- Right.
"What was the weirdest part of your day?"
And just regularly having that connection
and that communication.
And then when you're having
one of your normal conversations,
you can bring up one of the harder conversations.
Like, and so my son, his whole life that he's known you,
has always called you Jonno.
Not because he didn't feel close or connected,
or that you weren't a parent to you-
- I've always been a parent, but I'm not his dad.
- Right. - Yeah.
- And so having that conversation with him, of,
"This is what we're doing,
is that something you feel comfortable with?
Is that okay with you?"
- Yeah, and that's a choice he made,
by the way, to call me Jonno.
Cause when we were gonna have other kids, I said,
"They're gonna call me dad."
And he's like, "Well, I want my Jonno to be my Jonno,
and my dad being my dad."
And I'm like, "Okay," if we let him make that call-
- Nobody else has a Jonno, just him.
- Yeah, well, you have a Jonno.
What did you...
what about your ex, like how did you...?
- Yeah, I mean those conversations, once again,
never easy to have, but I always made it a priority
to have the important conversations.
And so letting him know, - Yeah.
- "Look, this is what we're planning to do.
This is when we're planning to do it."
- Speaking to having the small, regular conversations,
so that you can have those important conversations,
the big ones, in the moment.
For kids, I think, if you've been dating someone
for long enough, that marriage is on the table,
then they're gonna get to know that person,
and they're gonna be seeing them regularly.
And you might think,
"Well, it's just gonna be a natural transition."
But those small conversations of,
"This is the person that I'm dating,
and now we're talking about marriage,
and you know, now we set a date, and now this..."
Having the kid involved in all of that
makes every little pivot easier to make,
because there's not any big, great leap, right?
It may not be pleasant to have those conversations,
but they're gonna happen sooner or later.
So it's kind of like a bandaid, like do it.
- Right. - Because I can think
of someone in your family who didn't.
- So, I have a family member who was getting remarried.
And her adult child, one of her adult children,
was living in another country.
And he was coming home from living in another country,
and she didn't tell him she was dating,
she didn't tell him she was engaged.
And she was getting married, like...
- Two weeks after he got back?
Three weeks after he got back?
- Yeah, yeah, maybe 10 days, who knows.
- And she kept putting it off,
because she was afraid, or...?
- Yeah, yeah, she just didn't...
It was more of a difficult conversation,
maybe hard or uncomfortable,
or it could bring up something hard or uncomfortable, right?
- Yeah.
- Because you need to allow the other person,
the space to say, "Well, I don't like this," or,
"This makes me uncomfortable," or,
"I'm not happy with that," right?
And it's okay for another person to not like something,
or be uncomfortable, or not be happy.
- I don't have to change my major life choices
to please somebody, but I am gonna show them
the respect of telling them,
and letting them work through it.
- Well, and ideally, if there was a problem,
there would be talking about solutions together,
like being seen, heard, and understood, and then saying,
"Okay, I get that, I understand that.
What can we do, like, to support you in this change?"
- It's okay for kids to struggle with the transition.
That doesn't mean I'm not gonna be with this person,
it just means- - It's all about
the balance we talked about, right?
- Yeah, it just means I'm not gonna pressure the kids
to be okay with it, or to make them call this person, Dad,
or call this person, Mom, or,
"This is what's happening, so get with the program."
It's what you were saying, of, it's okay to feel things.
It's okay to voice that you're unhappy with it,
it's okay to be unhappy with it.
That I find that people will transition easier
if no one's telling them what they have to feel,
in any given moment,
that they can allow to have their process.
And oftentimes when you're dating post-divorce,
especially if you have multiple kids,
some kids are on-board faster than others, right?
And so allowing everybody to have the time that they need,
and to respect their feelings in that process,
instead of telling them, "This is what you're gonna do,
this is what you're gonna feel."
- Well, and that's an interesting perspective
that you bring up, because my parents divorced
when I was an adult,
- Yeah. - Right?
- 'Cause they started dating again, you know?
- Right, right, 'cause they started dating again.
And so for my dad, who was more interested in dating,
like right away, some men just have to be taken care of.
(both chuckle)
You know, he let us know, like,
"I'm dating someone, and I'm exclusively dating her."
And we were like, "Okay, that's great."
And none of us lived in the same town.
And so, you know, when he felt like it was a little bit
more serious, he was like, "I would like you to meet her."
And we were like, "Okay, sounds good."
And so I would say he did a very good job
of like, talking to us about what he was doing,
but also, we weren't expected to,
you know, do anything a certain way, or respond in any way.
- Be super on-board, or just immediately love her.
I mean, everybody loves her, but my under...
I wasn't there, but I've heard the stories,
like it took people time to get used to,
"Oh my gosh, Dad's with...
he's got another wife."
- Right, right.
So he got remarried first, and it definitely took
some of my siblings a decent amount longer
to think, "Oh, my dad," even though they were adults,
"My dad's now married to someone who's not my mom," right?
And everybody was just very allowing of that, right?
And very understanding.
- You guys take your time, and feel what you gotta feel,
Yeah, for sure. - Yeah.
- Well, thank you, this has been awesome.
There are lots of things about your experience
that I already knew, but there are new revelations today.
- All the time.
- And hope that this was very helpful for you,
watching at home.
- It's worth it to recognize that a divorce,
no matter how right it is,
there are challenges that come along with it.
It is so hard, and I...
it's not something that I would wish on my worst enemy,
even if it's the right thing for you,
even if it's the right thing for your children,
it is so, so challenging.
But with those challenges, provide so many opportunities
for growth and for empathy, and for understanding.
That give yourself grace, take the judgment out of it,
for yourself, for your children, and just be understanding.
- And to that end, we have a free resource for you.
Go to the description, there's a link
for our free, "Hope After Divorce" resource,
where we give you tools to make it through this journey,
and come out, like you're saying,
with growth, and stronger on the other side.
And we also want to invite you to check out this video,
"Can You be Traumatized and Not Know It?",
little resource for you right there.
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And until next time...
- Remember to keep shining, we need your light.
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