#093: Radio Interview: In Divorce, the Kids are Not Okay and Here’s Why
Two things we’ve learned about divorce from scientific studies and stories of people like us:
Almost always, divorce is traumatic and damaging for the children
The effects are typically serious and long lasting
In this episode, you’ll hear a radio interview I did that elaborates on each point:
How divorce is traumatic for the children
The specific pain and problems it brings into our lives
A resource that you can use to navigate through the pain and problems and even find healing
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
Two things we've learned about divorce from the scientific studies and listening to stories of people like us who come from divorced families. The first is almost always, divorce is traumatic and damaging for the Children. The second is the effects, the symptoms are usually serious and long lasting. And along those lines in this episode, you'll hear a radio interview that I did about that topic, how divorce is traumatic for the Children, the specific pain and problems it brings into our lives and finally a resource that you can use to navigate through the pain and problems and even find healing. So, keep listening. Welcome to the restored podcast, helping you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents', divorce, separation or broken marriage so you can feel whole again and break the cycle. I'm your host, Joey Panelli. This is episode 93. If you found this podcast helpful in navigating the pain and problems from your parents', divorce or broken family and even finding healing. I'm thrilled to announce that we have a new resource that's going to help you even more. We'll be releasing two video courses. The first is about trauma. It answers what is trauma, how does trauma in general? But also the trauma of your parents divorce or a dysfunctional family affect you. We get into the, the science, even the neurobiology. Really fascinating stuff. What can you do to heal from it and even prevent yourself from being traumatized in the future? And so much more, so many more questions that are answered. And the course is actually taught by a trauma therapist who's been treating trauma, helping people heal their trauma for over 15 years. The second course is all about how to confidently help someone who comes from a divorce or broken family. It answers what struggles do, Children of divorce or dysfunction typically face what should you say and not say do and not do in order to help them. How do you start those difficult conversations? What if they seem like they're fine? Like what should you do in that case? And some special tips, especially for parents and so much more. And that course is actually taught by me. The content is based on a lot of research but also on a restored article that ranks top three on Google and receives over 3000 views per month on that topic. And so more details will be coming soon such as the official titles and the launch date. So stay tuned for that. But if you want to join the waitlist to get notified first and be given special advanced access to the courses, just go to restored ministry dot com slash courses. Again, restored ministry ministry singular dot com slash courses or just click on the link in the show notes. And by doing that, you also get a bonus on building healthy relationships and a strong marriages when you do sign up for that wait list. So again, go to restored ministry dot com slash courses or just click on the link in the show notes before playing the interview. A quick disclaimer. I do interviews on various podcasts and radio shows. Some of them are secular. Some of them are religious. This one happens to be religious. It's a Catholic Christian radio station in the Denver area. And so just a disclaimer there. If you're someone who, you know, doesn't believe in God or you're not Catholic, you're not Christian. I'm so glad you're here. You're still gonna learn a lot from the interview and you can even skip the God parts and you're still gonna benefit from it. So, with that, here we go today, our special guest is Joey Pontarelli. He's the author of, it's not your fault, a practical guide to navigating the pain and problems from your parents' divorce. He's also started running a successful website called restored Ministry dot com and uh Joey, thanks for joining us today, Deacon. It's an honor to be with you. Great to talk with you again. Well, you know, we had talked jeez probably a couple of years ago. I can't even remember how long it was about, uh you know, your, your ministry about really working with young people uh to deal with the pains of divorce and you put this book together and, you know, reading the book. You know, I can kind of, you know, you can feel your pain but you can also feel, you know, how much you really want to try to help young people, try to navigate this because way too many young people are told, you know what you're young, you're resilient, you'll get over it and they just kind of get brushed off. Absolutely. And I, I think that's one of the biggest myths when it comes to divorce. I think intuitively, a lot of people know that divorce is like this ugly painful thing. But so often we focus more on the parents who are going through the divorce than the Children. And when it comes to the Children, kind of the cultural belief is that like you said, they'll be fine, they're resilient and the truth is they won't be fine and they're not as resilient as we think. And we can get into some of the research. But the truth is that so many of them struggle in very serious ways with emotional problems, unhealthy, coping relationship issues, difficulties in their relationship with their parents. The list goes on and on. There, there are very real problems that they deal with. But for some reason, as a culture, we've just overlooked this trauma that they've endured and the uh life lasting effects that come with it. Yeah, I just think, you know, you really hit the nail on the head about, you know, all the things that can go on again. We'll get into some of the details. And you mentioned Leila Miller in your book, we've had her on the show and you know, we have her book, Primal Loss, which is a, a bunch of people's stories about divorce. But yours is so I highly recommend that book. But this book is really specific in terms of not only the pain that you went through, but what people can do to kind of navigate this really difficult time in their life that really can't be minimized. And, and as you mentioned, right, kids can't be a second thought on this. This should be the primary thought. That was my story. You can, I came from, I come from a broken family when I was 11 years old, my parents separated and later got divorced and it, it just shattered my world. It brought so much pain and so many problems into my life. And after a while after I had, you know, got fallen into pornography as like my way of coping. I had had a lot of relationship struggles and dealt with emotional problems, like anger, anxiety, depression, loneliness. I realized I I'm broken, I need some help. And so I looked around for some resource some guidance on how to navigate the pain and the problems that was very real in my life. And I was shocked to find that there was nothing practical for young people like me. And part of the reason it shocked me was because I looked around and I saw how my siblings were struggling. I saw how friends of mine, close friends of mine who were going through their parents divorce were struggling. And so it just baffled me that there was nothing out there for young people who came from broken families. And so years later, after going to Franciscan University and growing a business, I decided to start this ministry. And uh you know, like you said, we help young people, teenagers and young adults from broken families to heal and grow so they can feel whole again and thrive. And the the problem is if, if we're not giving guidance on how to navigate the pain and problems from our parents' divorce, we're just going to continue to struggle in numerous ways. And for so many of us, the sad reality is we end up repeating what we saw in our own family. We would end up repeating that dysfunction. We end up repeating those broken relationships and broken marriages. And so if we want to prevent that from happening, which I know I do with all my heart and I want to help other people. We need to heal, we need to grow, we need to be given strategies to navigate these pain and the problems. Well, that's why I think what you put together is really such a helpful guide. I, I recommend people getting it. I'm sure they can get it at Restore Ministry. Uh But where else, where else can they get this book? Because I'll, I'll finish this interview and forget to ask you. No, no, you're totally fine. So if they wanna buy it, um they can go to Amazon and just search, it's not your fault. Um If they wanna put Joey in there, they can. But the first result should be our book. It's not your fault. Uh If they want the first chapters free, we're giving those away for free at restored ministry dot com slash books. Again. Restored ministry ministry singular dot com slash books. They could just click on the, the button there that says get free chapters and then we'll email them, uh, the free chapters. Well, you know, I think really when, when you read this book, you hear not only your story but you hear numerous other stories. It really just goes to show you how evil divorce is and really how selfish it is. Now, granted, there's people who get divorced because there's abuse issues. Absolutely right. We're not saying people should stay in an abusive marriage. But if you get married, it is for advert to quote sandlot. It isn't, you know, until we're tired of it and we wanted to do something else. And there's nothing that irritates me more than when somebody says, well, you know, we just kind of fell out of love. Well, look, you weren't abducted by aliens. Love is a choice. Right. Love is an act of the will. And I've been married for over 30 years, I'm sure my wife has been ready to bing me over the head many a time. But you know what, our marriage is stronger because we battled through the instead of being quitters and giving up like this culture tells you to do. Absolutely. And I think that's the true test of marriage. I'm 3.5 years into my own marriage. We have one baby girl at this point and it's certainly been challenging and I, I know people who come from broken families, typically, statistically, we struggle more in our relationships. But I have to say it's so beautiful and it's so good and it's so possible to work through a lot of the problems that you face and to build something really, really beautiful and it's always a work in progress. But uh I think it is possible to, to build love that lasts and that's the message that so many of us need to hear. And when it comes to divorce, like you said, there's certainly situations where uh a legal separation is necessary in order to protect the spouse or the Children. That's one of the first things that comes to mind. And in fact, I, I know the people listening right now are thinking of that like, well, what about abuse? What about violence and all that? And like you said, the church that both the catechism and canon law, it's very clear that if you're in that situation get to safety, that's really, it should be a no brainer. Um But we need to say that because a lot of people I think, um think that we're saying no, stay in an abusive situation. That's not what we're saying. But one of the leading researchers deacon on this topic of divorce says that about 70% of marriages that end in divorce are low conflict, divorces, meaning the spouses had problems not to minimize their problems at all. But it wasn't abuse, it wasn't violence, it wasn't the threat of death in those cases. Essentially, they just decided that we don't want to keep trying. Now, in about 30% of cases, this one researcher says that that's those cases where a separation would be helpful to protect the spouse and the Children. Now, even in those cases, canon law says the goal is always to reunite the spouses and to heal the marriage. So for example, I know someone who's going through this right now, the husband is an alcoholic, he's abusive, bad situation. She had to separate, she had to take the kids and get out of there. She filed for a legal separation to protect the kids, but she has no intention of not staying true to her wedding vows. And so she's staying true to her wedding vows even though her husband might not be. And, uh, and that's such a heartbreaking and difficult situation, but she is heroic for what she's doing. And so we really need to support those people going through that. And instead of just telling them, we'll just get divorced and move on, move on with your life. We need to really help them to heal the marriage if it's possible. Well, I think that's, you know, this book should be required reading for anybody who goes in and says I want a divorce, right? If you have Children, they should have to read this book because they need to understand potential. Not, not, we're not gonna paint with a broad brush. Everybody doesn't have all these things, but we are going to inflict this in all likelihood on our Children that is attempted suicide, struggle, romantic relationships, getting divorced, right? Struggling with school, acts act out in violence, not having Children, not getting married, dropping out. I mean, I just went through a quick list and you have a, a more comprehensive list. This, this is something people need to know. Look when we do something. So there's going to be a reaction to it and to think that we're gonna lift a vacuum and that we're just gonna go off and find another mate and everybody's gonna live happily ever after is a fantasy one. It is absolutely a fantasy. And honestly they can, I, I think most parents, if they actually knew how damaging that the divorce and separation could be to their Children. I, I don't think they would go down that route. I think so often. They have no idea. And there's this myth that if divorce is better for the parents, it's better for the Children too. And there was a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, you know, not exactly a conservative stronghold, but they studied this problem of divorce for over 25 years and they published their findings in a great book called The Unexpected uh uh yeah. The Unexpected legacy of divorce. The unexpected legacy of divorce is the book. And what she found is that no divorce absolutely is devastating and damaging to the Children. In fact, going into the research, excuse me, going into the research, she expected to find that divorce had a minimal effect on the Children and that if it even did have a bigger effect, that effect would be short lived and, you know, uh temporary. And so what she found through the research is that that's absolutely not true. In fact, she said that that the effects from divorce are life altering and they last a lifetime and they're often injured in silence, which is part of the reason why I think parents aren't aware of this one, I think as a culture. We've just normalized divorce but two um they, no one talks about it. And so I'm glad we're talking about it on the show. Um We, you know, have a podcast where we bring people on to the show to share their stories about how their parents divorce has affected them. And it's never done one thing. I want to clarify to everyone listening. It's never done to hate our parents. I don't hate my parents. I love my parents. I ask my guests, do you hate your parents? They always say no, they love their parents. But in order to kind of work through this and to heal and to grow and to hopefully strengthen our relationship with our parents, we have to face these hard truths, these uncomfortable truths that we were damaged by people who love us. And so again, if parents knew how devastating this could be for their Children, I don't think they would go down that route. And that researcher from the University of California Berkeley, she proved that. She says that parents like to believe that if they are unhappy in their marriage, the Children will also be unhappy. Conversely, if divorce is better for them, it will be better for the Children. But she says things don't work that way. You know, Children frequently do not share their parents concerned with the problematic marriage while divorce brings pain into their lives that until now has gone unrecognized. And she says that we are allowing the Children to bear the psychological, economic and moral brunt of divorce. Yeah. I mean, it, it, it's, you know, you can look at study after study what broken families do do. Right. Especially to, especially to Children, whether it's the pregnancy rate, the crime, you know, being incarcerated, it just goes on and on and it's just so sad and I think, you know, and I've told my kids this, um, look, you're gonna marry somebody who comes from a divorced family. I'm not saying you don't ever do it, but you better work out really hard before you say I do. How have they coped with it? Can they get the help? I mean, make sure that you're marrying somebody who understands really the trauma that they've gone through and they're dealing with it in a realistic way because as you mentioned in your book, the high, the, the likelihood of being divorced after coming from a divorced family is, is significantly higher. It is. Yeah. And some estimates are 2-3 times higher than a normal person, which is already high, especially in the United States, which is terrifying and I love what you said and, and that's why this conversation isn't just relevant to parents who have been divorced and have seen how their kids have been affected by it. It's not just relevant to the kids themselves who have gone through it, but also like you said, any future spouses maybe you're dating someone right now or engaged or married to someone who comes from a broken home. And this, having insight into this problem into this trauma, which we need to call it a trauma. It's very much so a trauma, having insight into it will help you to love them better. It will help strengthen your relationship. It will help you to encourage them to heal their Brokenness. Because deacon, one of the things that I've learned in marriage is that I am the lid on my marriage. My marriage will only be as healthy, happy and holy as I am individually and my spouse as well. But if I'm broken, if I'm struggling, then my marriage is going to be broken and struggling too. Our relationships tend to reflect our personal personal condition. And so if we want great marriages, but I think we all do. We want great relationships, meaningful, driving intimate relationships, we got to do that hard work of digging into our Brokenness. And so often what I see is, people aren't even aware of how broken they are and they certainly don't connect the dots between the, the Brokenness, what they struggle with today to the breakdown of their parents', marriage and their family. And I can tell you with 100% certainty, there is an intimate connection. And once you go into that, whether that's through counseling or through some sort of a community or even just on your own, through prayer and through reflection and just hearing good content on the topic. Unless you go into that, uh, we're not gonna grow, we're not gonna heal, we're not gonna move forward and, and we're really gonna struggle to have those relationships, those marriages that we all of us long for. Well, and in the end, right, as spouses, we're supposed to be helping each other get to heaven and modeling that and helping our Children get there as well. We don't model it when we cut and run the first time things get difficult. We don't model a marriage with Christ at the center when it's all about me, myself and I are my three favorite people that just leads to a path of destruction. So it really is. I think this book is a great reminder to us about, you know, what we need to do. But you talk about the spiritual aspects of it too and the importance of having a good faith life, a good spiritual life. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. Absolutely. I, I think on a human level we can heal a lot. The world of psychology has a lot of great things to offer us, the self help, self help and that world has some good things to offer. I think God gave them a lot of gave us a lot of those things. Some of them get a little bit weird. So be careful. But, um, but I think there's a lot of good things on a human level, but ultimately, we're gonna hit a ceiling. We're only gonna be able to go so far on a human level. And so we really need God's grace in our lives. We need God's life in our souls and he could heal us in ways that we can never heal ourselves. And so often what I see, it's young people who come from broken families, they're so often opposed to a relationship with God because of really what they went through in their family. Um One way to think of it is this way when we're Children, the most powerful creatures that we know are our parents. And so we tend to think well, if they're like this, then God must be like this too. And so we project, you know, their image onto God. And so we can have this extra distorted image of God, which we need to work through. We need to first, you know, identify, become aware of, ok, God's not gonna be like my dad who just upped and left with another woman one day. But like on a subconscious level, so many of us are dealing with that. And it's a serious barrier in having an intimate, deep relationship with God. And again, a lot of people aren't even aware of that. So we have to, we have to first recognize what those issues are and then try to seek the truth whether that's through the sacraments through scripture, through the lives and the writing of the saints. But we really do need that intimate relationship with God. And so one of the things I would encourage anyone listening, who especially comes from a broken family, talk to God about the struggles. You've been through like one of the things I've done at through years of prayer and spiritual direction is I've had to ask God like God, where were you in the midst of all this Brokenness and drama and tension in my family? Like where were you? Because honestly, I felt like he just abandoned me. I felt like he was just sitting on the sidelines of watching me get my teeth kicked in because I was struggling in so many ways with the breakdown of my family. And so what I learned after, you know, years of just wrestling with this and prayer is that he wasn't just there sitting on the sidelines watching me suffer. He was right there with me in the midst of it. And so I learned that, you know, sometimes God's only response to our pain is his presence. I learned that from Father Mike Schmidt. And I think it's so true. And so we really need to go back into those memories into that trauma and see like God, where were you, where were you? And if you feel anger towards God, I think that's understandable. Um But, but don't make that uh allow you to run from him, like, draw close to him, take that anger to him, talk through it with him. And for me and a lot of the people that we work with through restored, uh, it's so fruitful when you actually do that, it's not a one and done conversation, but it's something that you can go back to again and again, I think for a lot of Catholics especially, we kind of put on this pious face of, well, I just need to kneel straight and keep my hands folded and, you know, I just need to obey and I think that there's something really good about that and beautiful, but we really need to go into those difficult parts of our lives and into our hearts and bring that stuff to God because he sees it anyway. He knows what we're feeling. He knows what we're thinking. We might as well just give him something that he doesn't have, uh which is our hearts because so often we just hold back. Um because of the pain and suffering in our lives, which, you know, deacon as, you know, what the biggest barrier to face is that problem of pain. And so we really need to bring that to him and talk through it with him and a good spiritual director. Yeah, I mean, the church does talk a lot about redemptive suffering and so we do need to look at that those suffering is, is wasted right in, it's all about the cross that we've been given to draw closer to Christ. The reminder is when we hide it, when we try to deny it, then we're playing right into the hands and the lies of the evil one who says, don't shine light on this, right? You're the only one going through this, you're just gonna have to suffer. And I think this book kind of shines the light. I mean, people need to hear that they're not the only ones going through this. And that's a lot of times what we think when we come into a struggle that we're the only ones and no one will understand. That's why to go to your website to read your book, to read Leila Miller's book. These things will shed light on you're not alone. And I think that might be one of the most important messages people need to hear. Absolutely. I recently interviewed a guest on our podcast and it brought her to tears to, to hear that she's not alone and there's nothing wrong with her for feeling the way that she does about her parents', divorce and the breakdown of their family. So often, you know, when we feel rejected or not enough or abandoned by our parents, we tend to think something's wrong with us, especially because well intentioned people will come up to us and say, well, it's for the best. Everyone's happier, you know, like now you have twice as many Christmas gifts and two homes. And, you know, they try to make this into a really good thing. And, uh, again, I think they're well intentioned in saying that, but it's actually really harmful. And so it's really free, like you said to hear, you're not alone and there's nothing wrong with you for feeling the way that you do. Uh, Victor Frankel, the Austrian psychiatrist who wrote a, you know, man search for meaning an incredible book. He said that an abnormal response to an abnormal situation is normal. Meaning, you know, if you feel broken and hurt by the breakdown of your family, there's nothing wrong with you. It's your, in fact, your your mind, your body is, is reacting properly uh to a very traumatic event in your life. And so anyone listening out there who's been through this, just know that you're not alone, this is not your fault. There's nothing you did to cause it, there's nothing you could have done sadly to prevent it from happening. And you know, as much as you might want to, uh you can't fix your parents' marriage. That's something they have to do on their own. You can certainly try to influence them in positive ways and just be a good example to how you would hope they would live their lives, but you can't do it for them. They have to take ownership of that. And so hearing, hearing that you're not alone, hearing that it's not your fault hearing that. There's nothing strange with you for feeling that way, I think is really helpful. And if, if you want to hear more um encouragement like that, our podcast is a great place. It's called Restored, Helping Children of Divorce. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find it again, that's restored, helping Children of divorce. And that interview that I mentioned with that uh young woman, it, it was really free for her to hear that and I hope it would be for you too. Yeah. No, I strongly encourage people to go on your website, listen to the podcast. I've done that and, you know, I've been fortunate, I haven't come from that environment, but you can. But I think even if you haven't listening to it, you'll feel the pain that people have and you'll be able to address it in a way which is more helpful. Unlike what you're saying, let's just throw material things at it and say that fixes it. I think the other thing that your book does a really good job on and we only have a couple minutes. I can't believe it is setting up proper boundaries, right? You are not your parents counsel, you are not their confidant that you need to be able to set boundaries so that you can heal as opposed to carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Right. Absolutely. And, uh for so many of us who really love our parents and who wanna help them. We can fall into these traps that honestly they can, they, they look like we're loving and helping our parents such as becoming their confidant, but we don't have time to get into the research. But what the research shows is that if you as a child act almost as a spouse to your parent, it's so damaging, not only for you but also for them and your relationship eventually, even though it might feel like in the moment that you're helping them eventually, it's going to create very unhealthy dynamics, unhealthy dependencies that should not be there. And so if you're a child and your mom and your dad is leaning on you in that way, what I suggest and what, what we've seen work in the lives of young people is try to redirect them to the proper support. Maybe that's a counselor, a pastor, a friend, you know, a relative, someone like that. And so what something you can say to your mom and your dad, you could say mom, dad, you know, I love you. I see that you're hurting. I see this is really difficult for you. But, but I can't be the one to support you in this way. Like I, I wanna love you, but it's gonna have to be in another way like who can you talk to about all of this stuff? And it might be kind of off putting when you tell your parents that but like Deacon said, we need those healthy boundaries in place in order to ultimately have a better healthier relationship with mom or dad. So that's one struggle, another struggle is bad mouthing. So many parents, they're hurt by their spouse and so they drag the kids into it. They kind of force the kids to pick sides. They say really nasty things about the other parent. And so any parents listening right now, please stop that. Uh I get that you're hurt and I can't imagine what you're going through. It must be so difficult, but that's not, that's gonna damage your kids even more. And I know you don't want to do that. I know all your parents listening would take a bullet for your kids. And so the badmouthing I, I get that you might need to vent, go talk to a friend and go talk to a counselor, go talk to a relative, someone else but not your kids that can be so damaging for them. And then finally, one of the other most common things that we've seen and this goes for parents as well as kids is the middle man. So so often as kids are put in the middle between our parents because maybe our parents aren't on speaking terms and that can just be so stressful and damaging. And I've played that role. I've seen my siblings play, play that role. And so parents listening, keep your kids out of it if you can't talk directly to your spouse. Go through another intermediary through your lawyer. Through again, a relative, a friend counselor, whoever big thanks to Respect Life Radio for allowing us to rea that interview and you can check them out at Respect Life radio dot com. And again, the book that we discussed in the interview is called It's Not your fault, a practical guide to navigating the pain and problems from your parents', divorce. And after reading it, teens and young adults will learn how to handle the trauma of their parents, divorce or separation, how to build healthy relationships, how to overcome emotional pain and problems. They'll learn healing tactics to help them feel whole again, how to navigate their relationship with their parents, how to heal their relationship with God and how to make important decisions about their future. And the content itself is based on research, expert advice and real life stories. So again, if you want to buy the book, you can go to restored ministry dot com slash books, we're also giving away the first chapters for free. So if you go to restored ministry dot com slash books or just click on the link in the show notes, you can either buy it or get the first chapters for free. Right? This episode is a wrap. If you know someone who's struggling from their parents, divorce or broken marriage, share this podcast with them. Always remember you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and break the cycle of dysfunction and divorce in your own life.
