Coronavirus & C.S. Lewis: "How are we to live in an atomic age?"

2 minute read

The piece was written by C.S. Lewis and published in the Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays in 1948. It was titled “On Living in an Atomic Age.”

“How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

Seeing My Family Fall Apart Was a Very Real Loss

5 minute read

The story below is from Erin, written at 25 years old. Her parents separated when she was 16 years old. She gave permission for this story to be told.

HER STORY

For as long as I can remember, my parents had a pretty rocky marriage. My mom has Multiple Sclerosis, which made things more difficult as well. They fought frequently and some of the fights were pretty bad.

During the fall of my junior year of high school, a couple of months after my sister left for college, they had a bad fight, which ended when my mom told my dad to get out. He moved in with his brother for a few weeks and then moved into an apartment. Their legal separation began a few months after that.

HOW THE SEPARATION MADE HER FEEL

Their separation made me feel confused, guilty, and very lonely. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was also grieving - having my intact family fall apart was a very real loss.

During some of their particularly bad fights, I would sometimes wish they would split up because those fights were extremely scary and terrible to hear and see. After they actually did split up, I felt so guilty for wishing that, because the separation is even worse.

I was confused because I was upset that they separated, yet very few adults in my life checked to see how I was doing and some that did acted like it was normal. My guess is they were trying to downplay it to make me feel better, but it just made me wonder if there was something wrong with me that I was feeling so much about it. That also played into the loneliness I felt.

My parents, while they did their best to check on me, were dealing with their own issues and emotions, and my sister was away at college, so I felt very lonely, especially since all of my closest friends' parents were still married. I felt that, because everyone was treating it as such a normal thing, I had to pretend everything was normal and fine, so I buried those feelings.

I also felt that I had to take care of my parents and keep them happy because they were suffering, so I buried my feelings further so I could be there for them.

I started to struggle with depression, but felt like I couldn't talk to anyone about it, so that continued to get worse, until my grandma passed away during my senior year. The grief I felt from losing my grandma caused all the emotions I had suppressed to come to the surface.

My depression worsened to the point of self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Luckily, one of my friends and a couple of my teachers noticed and encouraged me to go talk to someone. I was able to begin talking through all the grief and emotion I was feeling.

HOW HER PARENTS' SEPARATION HAS IMPACTED HER

Even though it's been almost 10 years since my parents separated, I do sometimes feel the effects of it.

I still have some trouble standing up for myself and saying no because I feel like I need to make people happy so they won't stop loving me or leave me. I know that my parents love me and didn't leave me when they separated, but it's hard to trust that people won't leave you when you've seen it happen with your parents.

I've had trouble in relationships because I don't trust that a guy will stay if I make a mistake or we disagree about something.

I still struggle sometimes with feelings of guilt, especially around the holidays when I know one parent will be alone.

The other thing I've noticed is that I hear some women talk about how they are a daughter of God and how wonderful it is to know that part of their identity. I struggle with that. I spent so much time, even before the separation, trying to take care of my parents and taking on more of an adult role that I don't know how to understand that part of my identity.

However, I can say that, through the grace of God and with counseling and prayer, I am no longer depressed and am starting to heal some of these wounds. So know that there is hope!

ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHOSE PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED OR SEPARATED

My biggest advice would be to take the time and space you need to grieve. Find a counselor, a spiritual director, and some friends you can talk to about how you are feeling.

Take the time to sit and write down your story. It wasn't until I wrote my answers for the Primal Loss book that I realized how much my parents' separation impacted me. It really shows you a lot of the feelings and fears you've been avoiding.

Most of all, take what you are feeling to the Jesus. I spent a lot of time in chapels and in Adoration, letting myself cry and giving it all to Him. That's been a huge part of my healing.

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED AND SEPARATED FAMILIES

I think the pain and grief of teens and young adults needs to be acknowledged. When someone's parents split up, counselors and other support options should be made available. Most churches have support groups and programs for separated or divorced couples, but I don't know of any churches that have anything for the children, young or grown.

I would also like to see secular support groups (similar to AA or grief groups) for children of divorce.

I'd just like for the assumption that "children are resilient" to stop. Yes, children are resilient, but only to a certain extent. We still need support and healing and not to be brushed aside just because divorce is so common.

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#012: Counseling: How It Works and Why It Helps | Dr. Julia Sadusky, PsyD

Counseling is a tool for healing. But how does it work? And will it actually help me?

We answer those questions and more in this episode:

• How many sessions do you need to start feeling better?

• The #1 factor that determines whether counseling works or not

• How to find the right counselor for you

• Questions to ask a counselor before you commit

• How to make the most of it

Find a counselor:

1. Go here

2. Fill out the form (60 seconds max)

3. Submit and we’ll connect you with a counselor

Links & Resources

• Leave your feedback here! If it’s easier, feel free to comment below too.

• Books

  • Dr. Bob Schuchts

    • Be Healed

  • Dr. Julia Sadusky

    • Understanding Transgender Identities: Four Views

    • Emerging Gender Identities: Understanding the Diverse Experiences of Today's Youth

  • Full Disclaimer:

    • Restored does not necessarily support all the beliefs held in every resource we post.

    • If you purchase through the links above, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!

• Contact Dr. Julia

  • Email: drsadusky@gmail.com

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Coming Up: Episode #013: Why We Repeat Our Parents' Mistakes and How to Avoid It | Dr. Julia Sadusky, PsyD

Thanks for listening! Our next episode again features Dr. Julia Sadusky, PsyD. We why we often repeat the bad behavior we observed in our families and our parents marriage, and how to undo that cycle.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Have you ever wondered why does a girl who was abused by her father end up with an abusive husband? Or why does someone whose father or mother had an affair end up cheating on their husband or their wife? I'll be honest with you guys, those questions have always baffled me. And another question that really hits on a fear of mine.

How do we avoid repeating the bad behavior that we saw in our families growing up? How do we avoid repeating the mistakes that our parents made? That's what this episode is all about. We're gonna talk about why it is that we often repeat the bad behavior that we saw growing up in our families. We'll talk about why someone who comes from a dysfunctional family, Often becomes bored with quote unquote normal in life and relationships.

You'll also learn why hiding your wounds and your shame is so isolating and actually leaves you stuck in life. And then we're gonna talk about how to avoid unhealthy behavior patterns and how to break those cycles, especially the cycle of divorce. This is very tactical stuff, stuff you can do today that you're not gonna wanna miss.

So keep listening.

Welcome to the Restored podcast, helping you cope, heal, and grow. After your parents' divorce of separation so you can feel whole again. I'm your host, Joey Pontarelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 12. An important thing that I wanna say, starting out, especially to all you parents listening, we are not trying to villainize parents, not in this episode and not in anything that we do at Restored.

You're human, you make mistakes. We get that. We all do. And my guess is that when all of us are parents who, who aren't right now, we'll make plenty of mistakes too, and we'll have a deeper understanding of those mistakes. But what we're trying to do here, restored and in this episode, is help the children who are hurt by those mistakes to avoid repeating that same behavior, to avoid those things that we saw in our families that are objectively bad for us and for anyone.

And to do that, we have to acknowledge the bad behavior and the hurt. And I understand, I get it guys, that these conversations may be hard to hear. But we can't not talk about it just because it's difficult. These topics have been normalized for so long, divorce, a lot of other unhealthy things that happen in broken families, and that's damaged so many people.

The fact that it's been so normalized, which you'll hear about in this conversation, and I actually think that even parents who've made big mistakes in their families and their marriages actually want the same thing for their children that we do at restored. So I think we're actually on the same team.

We want to help them cope, heal, and grow so they can feel hold again and thrive to live life to the fullest and become who they were born to be. And while it's always our goal to speak the truth with clarity, we do have a huge. Of mercy for parents at restored. We know that all of us wrestle with our demons, and the important thing, of course, is seeking forgiveness and changing our lives.

So please know, parents, we're not trying to villainize you. We're just trying to help those of us who have been hurt by our parents' divorce or separation. And I challenge you in this episode to actually think about your own family, the family you come from, and your parents, and the impact that their choices and their behavior had on.

Okay. My guest today is Dr. Julia Sadusky. You just heard from her in episode 12, the last episode. She has a doctorate in psychology from Regent University. She's a clinical psychologist who works at Ed Care. That's a clinic that helps people with eating disorders in Denver. She's an author, speaker, and a research fellow with expertise in helping people with gender dysphoria where there's confusion about their sexuality or their gender identity.

And this is really important work, and there's not many people doing what Dr. Julia does in the way that she does it. She's also a consultant for leaders in ministry and she's actually opening her own private practice called Lux Counseling and Consulting. She'll offer individual therapy around the Denver area, and she'll offer training and consulting around sexuality and gender identity.

Dr. Sadusky is also a research fellow of this sexual and Gender Identity Institute in Wheaton, Illinois, and an advisor to the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. If you want a more complete rundown of everything she's done, you can, uh, listen to episode 12 where I, I went into more of her work for this episode.

I sat down with Dr. Julia for pizza at a local happy hour in Denver. The pizza was really good and obviously can't share that with you guys, but I'm pumped for you to hear what she has to say in this conversation here we. Dr. Julia, thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah, happy to be here. The topic that we're talking about today is certainly a heavy topic, but it's an important one.

And I know from my own experience in talking with a lot of children of divorce, that so many of us are afraid to repeat our parents' mistakes. To repeat the bad things we saw in our family is we especially don't wanna get divorced ourselves. And statistically we're more likely to, which is scary, but it goes beyond that too.

We, you know, we've seen in many cases of divorce and separation, real dysfunction in our families. Whether it's alcoholism, whether it's an affair, drug use, porn use, uh, other addictions, you know, just serious disrespect, whatever might be. The list goes on and on, and most of us know. . We don't wanna repeat that, right?

We really want better for ourselves, for our lives, for our relationships. But often it happens that so many of us end up repeating that same behavior that we wanna avoid, right? And the examples of this are endless. The girl who grew up with an abusive father ends up marrying an abusive husband. The boy with an alcoholic father becomes an alcoholic.

The child whose mom or dad had an affair ends up cheating on their spouse. And that's always baffled me. I'll be honest with you. And I really want to know how do we prevent that from happening? But before we get to that question, I think it's important to dig into this question, which is why do we repeat bad behavior, especially the behavior that we've seen in our families.

Right. Well, it's a great one. I mean, it, it is baffling and I think for most of us, if we're honest, we don't want that at all. Not one bit. . And so when we do engage in behaviors that we've seen, um, that we hate , it often gets tied to shame. So, you know, there's, there's a lot of reasons for that. I think one of them, maybe the most obvious to people is the way modeling impacts us.

So if we don't know different, we can't do different. And even if we cognitively know there's other ways to be in the world mm-hmm. than the ways we were raised seeing is believing. Mm-hmm. and seeing gives us a path forward. So if I see modeled disrespect in a home between spouses, if conflict is normalized in my family, I can become so accustomed to that and also not really have a path for other options for me.

So as much as I want to do different, I can't be different without good role models. Um, I think actually the most, um, prominent reason though why we repeat the patterns that we hate is something called a repetition compulsion. So that in psychology is just a fancy way of saying that we do the same thing over and over again, expecting a better ending this time.

So we repeat, repeat, repeat, to try to get the end of the story to be different, to give us a sense of hope moving forward. So we might pick the exact same person that we were raised by, who was dysfunctional in the ways that you've already described, in the hopes that maybe. Tweak it. If I do this differently or that differently, or they're different in this way, or our interactions are different, maybe just maybe we can have a happy ending.

And so it's this kind of wish for things to be different without any evidence in that direction. So becomes somewhat of a fantasy Totally. That we try to live out. Correct. The bad outcome that we saw in our family. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is why victims or survivors of trauma really do tend to love forensics or love those kind of crime shows.

Mm-hmm. , they love seeing an ending where the person who did the crime gets caught. I mean, they love the justice and as, as we all would, I mean, we want an ending that's just, that's good. And where the bad guy gets put in jail mm-hmm. . Um, but when life isn't that, our mind does all kinds of things to make sense of that.

One of those things is a co the repetition conversion. No, that makes so much sense. And when it comes to modeling, just in case anyone isn't clear and what that is exactly, would you, would you explain that? Uh, briefly? Yeah. Yeah. So, You know, when we think of modeling, we think of the ways that all of us learn how to live.

We are social creatures. Um, we are learning creatures, and we do not come out of the womb knowing how to resolve conflict. So we learn how to resolve conflict, right? We're not to, And so modeling is just the idea that what we see, We end up doing, um, we mirror, uh, what we know and we become accustomed to what we know.

We even adapt to what we know. There's something really, um, intelligent about our brains that they can wire and shift and change based on what we see and what becomes reinforced in our environment. So every time you come home, you see conflict and you're used to that kind of heated romance that some couples are characterized by these intense ruptures and these intense repairs.

You're gonna look for that as a roadmap on a purely cognitive level, but not merely that. Mm-hmm. for how the world is and the people who are often in that position to model in a way that is most powerful are the people in our life who are our parents. So the way they do this, the way they do relationships with one another and with what with us is, is the way that you learn how to live.

It really forms us. Yes. And you can almost think of an analogy of, and it's not really an analogy, it's real life. Mm-hmm. Where, you know, a baby comes into the world and it's almost all they've ever known. Mm-hmm. is, this is what they see. It's almost like the Truman Show. Yeah. And if you haven't seen the Truman Show, it's basically this man who has grown up in this fake world and that's all he's ever known.

And so, You know, it's what he expects, what he is comfortable with, and eventually he goes beyond that. And I won't ruin the movie for you if you haven't seen it, but, um, it's almost like that, that we're just conditioned where we become used to what we see around us. Yeah. Is that, I know I'm bringing it down to like really basic language, but Absolutely.

Absolutely. I, I think that's a big piece of it. I mean, I think, and what our normal is, we adjust to, and we can become comfortable. Even if it's dysfunctional. And so actually a lot of times what I hear from survivors of trauma who have been in abusive relationships for a long time, they often say that when they need a person who's stable, who's functional, who can attend to their needs in a way that's different from what they experienced before they're bored.

Wow. They're not satisfied because it's so different from the dysfunction that they've experienced before. And lastly, I'll say, you know, another piece of it is we have this desire to be like our parents. And I know we've talked about this other times, that we want to be people who our parents can be proud of.

So even if we can on a cognitive level, say, I don't wanna be my, like my dad in this way or that way, we also wanna be accepted by dad. And there's something in us that says, if I act as if he does, if I be like him, maybe just, maybe I'll be accepted by him. And therein is the challenge is how do we form and maintain relationships with people who are dysfunctional in ways we don't wanna be.

Yeah. While still honoring the ways we want to be validated by that. That's such a challenge because basically what you're saying is even on a subconscious level mm-hmm. , we tend towards that. We tend towards seeking our parents' approval. We tend toward, you know, wanting to be liked by them. And can this even happen in a case of someone who maybe hates their parents sad?

Absolutely. Absolutely. If anything, it's the resentment towards the parents that drives the behavior. Hmm. So at that point, it's not a conscious choice. Right. But it's a way of punishing parents to make them come to an awareness of what they quote unquote did to us. Mm. You know, I'm gonna give you a mirror for how you lived in the world all those years.

Hmm. And I'm gonna make you feel the impact. I'm gonna almost punish you. For the ways that you hurt me by creating a scenario where you experience the other side of it. Wow, man. That there's so much there and it's, I think so many people go through life doing exactly what you said without even realizing it.

Absolutely. I mean, that's the, you know, in the work I do as a psychologist, that that's the essential place of therapy is, is. There's no shortage of people out there who are absolutely, are frustrated with the repetitive patterns that we engage in, in relationships, in the way we talk to ourselves about ourselves.

Um, what we end up doing a lot of times is staying in that place of anger, frustration. I can't believe it. What's wrong with me? That I do this thing that I hate. Yeah. Rather than saying, Of course I do that. Right? Of course, given the context of my life, I live in the world this way today. The key point, the point of change is saying, I have power today that I didn't have before, so I'm gonna enact change.

I'm gonna learn skills to break away from repetitive patterns that keep me stuck so good. We'll get into that a little bit more. Sure. One of the things you had mentioned to me too is that this almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Explain that a little bit more about self-fulfilling prophecy.

Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, this is kind of a classic cognitive distortion that we have where we fear something, right? We fear that an outcome will happen, I'll get divorced, but we also, if we're honest, don't believe there's another pathway. For us. What we've seen is divorce, or what we've seen is adultery.

And so we say, Honestly, I don't think anything else is possible. . And so my fear actually leads me and compels me to make decisions that drives me in the very path that I'm afraid of because I have no belief that there's another option for me. The whole time sitting there saying, I don't want to do that, I don't want to be that person, but not being able to step into a place of ownership over the patterns that we're literally engaging in on a daily basis that reinforce what we hate.

Wow. So we sabotage ourselves. Yeah. By doing that. Yes. That makes so much sense. And in a very real way, our. The dysfunction that we see gives us somewhat of a high, You've told me that before. Mm-hmm. . And that's one of the reasons why we repeat this stuff, is because normal feels boring, as you said. Yeah.

And we just don't know how to do normal. It feels uncomfortable. It feels weird, it feels strange. It's just not right to us. So it gives us that rush. Talk about that a little bit. Yeah. Um, well, you know, I think of different people I've worked with in therapy who have shared with me. You know, I just, I don't want know what to do when there isn't chaos.

I don't know how to be, I don't know how to relate. When I feel the most alive is when I'm in a conflict, when I'm in a fight with my partner. And without that adrenaline rush, life is less reinforcing. Right? I mean, sitting on the couch and having somebody come home and say, Hey, hun, how was your day? And it's like, Oh, it was great.

I mean, Real life is not fireworks every second. Totally. But when we are accustomed to that rush of adrenaline, that intensity of relationships, a stable, consistent covenantal relationship can become not a appealing mm-hmm. . Right. And if we can't even talk about that, if we can't even name the challenges there, the ways we've become accustomed to dysfunction in a way that we don't know what to do in a stable relationship.

Mm-hmm. , that's where we really get into trouble because we start to look for that rush for that adrenaline somewhere else. That arousal. Exactly. And there's no shortage of options out there that work. Sure. To give that rush. With bad consequences in the future. Absolutely, and and mainly consequences that bring great change and reinforce the beliefs that there is no other way to do relationships than in a catastrophic way.

And then we're just essentially going through this cycle of trauma where we experience this in our families. Let's say we repeat it in our own lives, we're ashamed of that. We pull away from people we don't see killing, we maybe do it again. Yep. And again, whatever the pattern might be. Yep. Absolutely. I mean, I, I think so often, and, and we can talk about trauma as big tea, tea trauma or small tea traumas, the little things that happen in life, and I say little because comparatively we can all minimize them.

You know, that's how we talk about them. We say, Well, it wasn't that big of a deal. My parents just got divorced. And the way that's been normalized creates a scenario where that's not traumatic, although it really is if we're honest. And so when we have those small tea traumas or um, big tea traumas, either way, what we end up doing is we end up recapitulating that recreating a scenario where that happens again.

Why is that? Because of a fundamental question of our self worth. Mm-hmm. So we start to say, I'm worthy. Of this. Why? Because that's less painful than saying, How dare the people in my life treat me in a way that is so beneath my destiny, like, I deserve this. Yes. That's a way, Another way that we adjust, We say, Oh, well, I must just be worthy of this.

This is my, this is my foundation for life. This is what I'm worthy of being treated. And so when we make that cognitive jump where we say, This is who I am, we will only engage in relationships that reciprocate in that way, and on an unconscious level, be receptive to things that if we had a different level of self-worth, we would bristle out.

We know that we're worth more. We know that we deserve better than what we saw in our past. Right? But how else would we know that unless we were treated in a way that showed us we had dignity and we want to believe on a purely. , you know, fundamental level as a child that our parents are trustworthy.

Think about how important that is. Mm-hmm. to be able to trust your parents as a kid, that is the most essential thing. And so if we didn't adapt in that way, we would really be in trouble. . Yeah. But now it doesn't serve us because we have to realize our parents are flawed. They're not the villain, they're not the monster in our story, but they are responsible in some ways for their flaws, their limits that have impacted us.

Yeah. Now that's so good. And as we've talked about at different times in the show, we're not trying to, you know, like you said, villain i's parents just give an acknowledgement to the pain that the children have experienced. And there is a way to do that without condemning the parents. And that's always the balance that we're we're trying to hit.

Of course. While at the same time admitting this. The truth that this is harmful, that this thing that happened wasn't good. It wasn't good for me, for my siblings and so on. So yeah, it's a delicate balance. We're always trying to hit, but I'm, uh, I'm glad you said that. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I mean, I think we're always trying to figure out, you know, what can we do differently in the future?

And if we can't acknowledge mistakes of people that we respect, where are we in that process of not repeating patterns? Even in the case where people say, Well, it's better that they got divorced than if they had stayed together. I was miserable as a kid when they were together. Even in those cases, we have to be able to acknowledge the hurt that comes as a result of the divorce, right?

Because all of the implications of that process, the awkward holidays, the pickups from schools, whatever it might be, trying to figure out where do I feed people at a wedding? I mean, all of these long-term impacts are so painful and they're not the kind of thing in our society that gets validated. It's so normalized that there's no room and space for people to say, Hey, that hurts, which is essential for healing.

Yeah. It's so sad and so many people listening have been through exactly what you said, you know? They just feel that what they've been through, the pain they've experienced, no one's validated, no one's said, Hey, what you went through mattered. It was really hard. It wasn't supposed to be that way. And I'm sorry we, we don't hear that often, but I'm glad that you're bringing attention to that.

Yeah. Well, and it has to be said in an ongoing way. I mean, for people who are wanting to support people, um, who are surviving from kind of some of the most painful situations in life, it has to be an ongoing dialogue because you know this, I mean, it doesn't stop at one experience. Right. The implications of it exist for the rest of our lives.

Totally. And that doesn't mean we can't have mastery over our experiences or some level of freedom and capacity to manage them. It just means it hurts. Yeah. It doesn't stop hurting. The grief does not end, and that's not problematic in and of itself as long as we figure out what to do with it. Yeah.

That's so good. We have to say that. It's okay not to be okay. Yeah. And we don't wanna stay there, but it's okay to not be okay. And to go through that, that pain and just feeling broken. Yeah. There's, We often just try to stuff that away and hide it and put on a good front and make everyone think like we have everything together, when in reality we don't.

Right. And the, that's harmful, isn't it? So, Oh, the inauthenticity of that is so isolating. What a lonely place to be. Yeah. To have the burden of presenting in a certain way everywhere you go, as if everything's good. I'm good. And, and you, you know, you said it that, you know, it's hard to be in that place where we have to act as if everything's okay, but it's actually an essential step to move forward to acknowledge where we are.

Acceptance is key to change. Acceptance of our current reality is the precursor to change for many of us. Once somebody says, Gosh, that sucks. Only then. Are we ready to say, Yeah, but I wanna do something about it. Right? Yeah. Amen. And it's so much better. And when it comes from within, that's so good. You're not stuck.

You can do something about it. And we're gonna get to that more, but one other component to this, these sort of. Actions, these behaviors can seem someone like a forbidden fruit that can be attractive in that way. Yeah, and I've even heard people say who come from, you know, a family where there is an affair.

They say, Well, you know, adultery seems attractive to me. Yeah. And that's so interesting. Yeah. Talk about that a little bit. Yeah. Well, I think that a piece of it is what I've already mentioned, which is just that reality that we admire people by the virtue of their place in our life. So parents have a private place, right?

And we admire them. Even if on a cognitive level we could say, Oh, that's not objectively good for me. Um, but any time we have sexual desires say that are, um, seen as forbidden fruit, they're more appealing to us. It's the rush that comes from that, especially as young people, right? I mean, what young person doesn't love to push the boundaries a little bit?

Yeah. So if we stay in that, Of like, this is desirable for me. I can't talk about it, but I can long for it. It creates space for fantasy, and what we don't see is the guilt and shame on the other side of those behaviors, right? Because dad doesn't come home talking about that, or mom doesn't come home and share about that.

What we see is the illusion of freedom or kind of an a radical liberty that comes from that, and who doesn't want that? So I think it's a matter of figuring out what is motivating me towards that. What do I truly desire beneath the surface that that represents for me? Mm-hmm. and how do I get that without behaviors that leads to great change and the dissolution potentially of relationships I really care about.

Mm-hmm. , that makes so much sense and. One of the things we talked about as well is that often the anticipation can be more of a rush, more of a hi than the act itself. Yeah. Why is that? Yeah, it's super fascinating. I mean, I don't know that there's a a why as much as what we know about, um, you know, if we're, if we're talking about compulsive sexual behaviors, for instance, or an affair, um, that the, the process of preparation for that, the planning, the texting, the anticipation of the event, it's actually where the most reinforcement happens on a neurological level.

So the brain chemistry is acting as if you've. The fullness of it. By the very nature of planning, that process is so reinforcing. It's where the rush happens. It's where the adrenaline is going. It's like, it's like that moment when you're a kid, right? And you're getting chased and you're about to get caught, but you're not quiet.

I mean, that. is what you end up living for. Um, we call that the ritual. Hmm. So the ritual in the addictive process is actually what's most reinforcing the culmination of it, whether it be in a sexual act or just any level of behavior that we've deemed, um, against our values. That is actually disappointing comparatively.

Yeah. It's a let down. Yeah. So that it's, it's so interesting to think about how the actual ritual, the planning is what is really reinforcing. If you merely disrupt the plan, people can make a different decision. Wow. That's powerful. And something that's baffled me that you, you mentioned. A little bit is in those moments, you know, you said we don't think of the consequences.

We don't see the consequences that the bad things that could come about. We act purely off emotion. Yeah. We act off of, you know, this desire for this high. Yeah. And on on like this. Scientific level, what's happening in our brains? Yeah. When, when we do this. Yeah. It's a great question. I mean, I think it helps people with the shame that people often feel about like, why do I do that?

You know, Why do I act out of emotion? Whether it's like I punch that wall when I'm angry, or um, whatever it might be. But what's happening is we have different parts of our brain that are the home of different aspects of our experience. So take emotion, for instance. It's called the amygdala, but this is the part of our brain that stores memories and also it's firing when we feel intense emotions, those kind of inside out emotions.

And when that part is activated, the part of our brain that judges, it's called the prefrontal cortex, It's the part that anticipates consequences. It's the adult part that fully develops at about 25. That part is deactivated when we're firing from our amygdala. Why is that so important and adaptive? Well, I mean, think about it, if I'm, if I'm standing in a forest and a line is coming, I don't wanna be sitting there thinking, Oh, well how long do I have?

And what consequences will come from this line attacking me? Well, by the time I'm thinking about that, he's got me mm-hmm. . So this is an adaptive part of our brain that the prefrontal cortex shuts off. Mm-hmm. when our amygdala is going. Mm. And so what we have to do is learn how to reengage that prefrontal cortex.

This is actually what's most prominent in humans. This is our capacity. We get to say, Oh, let me observe. What's happening for me, I'm feeling this rush, rush of emotion. This intense affective experience. I want this thing, Well, I have to actually train my brain to be activated in the part of me that says, what are the consequences of this?

Mm-hmm. , what will come from this? What will flow from this? Let's play the tape all the way through. Mm-hmm. , how will that play out? And do I still want that thing? We actually have to do that from an active level, or it won't happen. What are some practical ways that you can do that? Cause what I hear you saying, We need to detach.

Mm-hmm. from the intensity of the emotion and the moment kind of step away. Either physically or just emotionally. Yeah. How do we get control and as opposed to letting our emotions control us. Yeah. Well, I think a big piece of it is what we call mindfulness, which is how do I become a notice or observer, almost like a journalist about my own experience?

That's where we begin to tap into that prefrontal cortex is asking the question, What's happening to me right now? What am I feeling? What am I thinking, and what do I feel inclined to do? So literally breaking up to thoughts, feelings, and behavior. And giving yourself space to actually reflect on that, to observe that, and then say, What do I wanna do with that?

Because I mean, we're thinking about, um, affairs, those types of things is we can often feel, especially with something as strong as sexual desire, like we're compelled by it, We don't have a choice. Mm-hmm. . And when we feel that, we have to recognize that every single impulse, every single, single urge that we have will peak and then it will subside.

So if you ride an urge, you set a timer for 45 minutes and you say, Okay, I'm gonna delay this for 45 minutes until I, I get there. And then I think, do I still want this? Mm-hmm. , that's a way to realize that everything has peaks and valleys, and we will have much more of a say over the decisions we make if we ride a wave.

Whether it be of emotion or of an urge, we will subside and we will make a more effective decision because we'll have more contact with our rational mind. So it's something called Wise Mind is when am I only living in emotional mind? There's a common kind of D B T, which is a type of therapy concept.

When am I emotional mind? When am I in rational mind and when am I in wife's mind, which is the integration of the two? How do I use my observing self to make a decision that I feel proud of later? No, that makes, That makes summer sense and. Just the, the awareness was really the starting point, like you said, being an observer, almost stepping outside of your own body, so to speak.

Mm-hmm. and seeing kind of what's going on. And only by doing that can you kind of override that, the amygdala, like you said, which is just a paint a picture in everyone's minds. The amygdala is located in the back part of your brain. Mm-hmm. , like just above your neck. Is that. Okay. So yeah, it's a little bit, it's kind of, um, to the side back portion of the brain.

So it's right next to, um, parts of our brain that store memories. Mm-hmm. and the part of our brain in the back, that kind of brain stem is our core, um, survival mechanism. So that's what helps us breathe. That's where our heart rate is. It's called the brain stem. And so it's interesting because emotions tend to trigger that part of our brain, right?

Heart racing, sweating, all of these things. But the, a amygdala has the capacity, um, to be regulated by the prefrontal cortex. It just won't do it. Zone. Mm-hmm. . So it takes our active pursuit to make that possible. Yeah. It's not gonna happen, like you said, um, automatically. Right. It's not gonna happen without intention out it, so.

Exactly. That makes so much sense. One thing that I think is helpful too, is something you once said to me that you can't make sense out of evil. Like, and, and understanding why we repeat bad behavior that we've seen. We really need to understand this, don't we? Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I, I think. One of the biggest challenges for people who've experienced divorce is recognizing, um, you know, you frame it as evil, but just the way that those experience were not how things were originally meant to be.

So that when we feel ill equipped to handle them, when we feel like we can't make sense of them, it's because they're nonsensical. You know, what's more nonsensical than a vow made for eternal love until death west part that gets broken. It's nonsensical. You can rationalize it all day. You can blame yourself all day, but that will not make sense of what not comfortable.

And so there does come a point in our lives where we have to put down the tug of war rope and say, I'm done trying to make sense of something that makes no sense. I'm just gonna try to live in the reality I have. That makes. That makes sense, , as they say. Yeah. How, uh, I'd like to walk through a concrete example, just taking what we've talked about and applying it to a scenario that, uh, may be familiar to some people.

Mm-hmm. . And let's say, let's say there's a boy whose dad cheated on his ma mm-hmm. . Okay. And then he, he doesn't want to repeat that. Yeah. He kind of despises that, that hurt him too. Yeah. Because, you know, as we know, when there's an affair in a family, whether it's a mom or the dad, they're not just cheating on the spouse, but on the kids as well.

And so, like, the boys hurt and then later in life for the reasons we've discussed and maybe others that can't really be understood. Mm-hmm. , he ends up cheating on his. Right. Why, What's going on there? What is he looking for in the midst of that? Talk us through, talk us through that. Yeah. Well I think, I think, you know, we've talked about that fantasy piece.

I mean, part of it is that there will be a different ending. That could mean, you know, I have this affair and it doesn't have the negative impact it had on me. Part of it is I'm gonna test myself. I'm gonna put myself in those situations and hope that I'm stronger in the ways that my parent wants it. And so part of it's that not really appreciating that.

This does not discriminate, and I think part of it is that kind of desire to be acceptable and the fear of what it would mean to acknowledge that dad made mistakes. The anger that flows from that, the regret that flows from that, the resentment that inevitably comes that ill-equipped. We don't know what to do with, So I think that's what makes the healing.

Through this. So essential is that none of us are exempt from this. You know, those of us who are, who have experienced divorce in our families, we know that in 99% of cases, people don't stand at that alter and lie. Yeah. You know, they commit to something willfully and they break that. . And so being able to appreciate NPI is exempt and being able to talk about the challenges they're in and being able to talk about the moments that put you at great risk and being able to plan for them and to invest in a relationship lifelong that will not be what an affair offers are important because the forbidden fruit is desirable, but it's not meaningful.

Mm-hmm. and it leaves us one thing. Yeah. So we have to play that take through. Yeah. It leaves ust than mm-hmm. we begin and Yeah. Promises so much, but delivers on nothing. Right. That makes so much sense. That was my experience in different things I engaged in when I was younger, like pornography was, you know, an escape from the pain and the problems in my life and it ended up just leave me.

I'm tear and empty each time and, uh, I didn't want that. I wanted to be happy. And so it makes so much sense what you're saying and the, the part about testing ourselves, that's really interesting. It's almost like, like you said, the fantasy portion. Mm-hmm. . We wanna people to reverse what happened or maybe even play out like, like you've said.

Mm-hmm. what we wish would've happened. Right. Like, okay, maybe I start this affair, but then I'm strong enough to stop it or something like that. Exactly. And do you see how, even as you say it out loud, it's like you start to realize the way it doesn't hang together. Yeah. It's like, Oh, that doesn't really make sense.

But once we start to vocalize and name what we're, what we're thinking through, it's like, Oh, that doesn't really work. Yeah. On a cognitive level and also on an emotional level, it's like, that's not really what I want. But I think you're right. I mean, I think we, we long for a different ending. and we don't appreciate, um, what it would take to get there.

Yeah. And what it would take is a real level of awareness on honesty and transparency about the challenges, being able to work through them so we're not filling holes so we can actually be what we needed. Yeah. Because I think that's the ultimate fulfillment of what that fantasy is, is like how do I be in like what I needed?

And we get to be that when we're faithful to spouses, we get to be that when we challenge compulsive behaviors. And that is most satisfying. Yeah, exactly. But it doesn't happen immediately like some of these other highs, right? Yeah. Our brain, our brain gets that high. Of the adrenaline of the, or whatever chemicals of the affair, of the crime, of the pornography, of the drug use, whatever might be.

Exactly. So we, we really have to play that long game, which is hard. Yes. And it's harder when we're younger. Okay. Because that part of the brain, that prefrontal cortex is not fully developed yet. So until about age 25, that's not all firing. Yeah. So that's why it's so much more difficult at those ages to make a decision that later we look back on and we're proud of.

And so it's almost like a buying time strategy to say, Hey, let me just extend this. Let me just weigh this longer so I can make a better decision. That makes. And just, uh, again, go into a little bit of the science. The prefrontal cortex is at the, for, at your forehead, essentially. Is that right? Correct.

Yeah. Front of your brain. And, and that's the part that does the judging, thinking, reasoning, anticipating consequences. Okay. All important things kind. Yeah. Kind of important. Well, those are the things that make us humans. They set us apart. They set us the apart from the animals. Exactly. Lots of preachers have a brain stem.

Okay. Yeah. That keep 'em alive. That, that makes so much sense. So, back to the original question, how, and, and we've already gone through this to some extent, but let's really flush it out. How can we prevent repeating the bad behavior? Been victims of, or we've seen in our families, in our parents' marriage, whatever it might be, How?

How can we reverse that dysfunction? Yeah. Well, the first step is talking about the dysfunction. Owning it, naming it, and not being afraid of it. So being able to acknowledge and accept the reality as it is that was dysfunctional, period. Those things in my past were dysfunctional in the present. How do I see those patterns playing out?

What are the warning signs? What are the things I notice in my relationships and my patterns of experiencing myself and other people that put me at great risk to repeat the very things I don't want? How can I be honest about that with safe people? And then what do I want to do about that? So realizing that the past has power in our presence, that it does not determine our future.

And where do I need to break the patterns, break the chains that find me to a future that I hate, And what are the ways that I'm gonna concretely learn from people, invite role models into my life, who can speak into it, who can represent a future I can thrive in? And if we don't have role models for healthy marriage, We're gonna be really stuck in the how to.

We're gonna say, I don't want this, I don't want that, but I have no idea what I'm stepping into. So that's where we need other people who are doing this work, who are living this, to reinstall our hope in our humanity. Mm-hmm. . And then to be able to watch and learn and say, Okay, these are the steps I'm gonna take.

How am I gonna engage in relationships, foster what I want, and run from the things that don't? And how am I gonna have a community of people around me who can see what I don't yet see and can acknowledge blind spots and include therapy, but is not exclusively that. But how do I have people in my corner who know what ultimately my values are, what I'm working for, and can help me get there?

That makes so much sense. There's so much there. But I love the first thing that you said, really naming it. Mm. Putting it into words as something that I've found extremely helpful. The people that I work with have found extremely helpful. Yeah. Just naming it, you know, whether you're naming it in your mind or taking it except further and putting it on paper or taking it except further and talking with someone, a counselor, Right.

A mentor, a friend even, Right. Who is able to just kind of receive what you're saying. And even when we were talking before about the affair and just putting that stuff into words, um, things just make more sense that when they're out of our chest, out of our heads, Yes. And they help us make sense of the world of ourselves and essentially lead us, can lead us to making better decisions.

So that awareness piece and putting things into words really, like you said is the starting point and that. Probably where most of us just need to focus on right now. Absolutely. Yeah. Acceptance is the precursor for change. You know, I've said that elsewhere, that that change requires great acceptance. And acceptance is not a just, Yep.

That was hard. It's a sitting in the emotions that emerge from the realities we've had. It's not pretending they don't exist. It's not saying that didn't matter. Right. It's actually saying, This hurt, this mattered. What happened to me wasn't Right. Right. But staying with it, staying in that messiness Yeah.

Long enough to feel it and then closing that chapter, the story Yeah. Is ultimately where we're heading towards. Is that right? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think we've talked about this in other conversations about a narrative understanding of our lives. So I, you know, initially you talked about being from broken families, and I think there's a part of me that even like bristles with that, Right.

Because it's painful. Mm-hmm. to acknowledge that. But if there's a chapter three, you know, three years back in my life that says, Yep, that was the Broken Family chapter, it's a question of what do I want to name the current chapter? Do I want it to be a broken future? Do I want to be a broken relationship, or do I want it to be broken and healing?

Yeah. Do I want it to. broken and working really hard to glue it all back together. I mean, what, what does that look like? Right. And the cool thing about a narrative understanding of our lives, which is like a kind of therapeutic way of thinking about ourselves is, is saying, I get to take the pen back as an adult.

Even if the first three chapters were written by somebody else, I did not have control over how that chapter ended, the themes of it, or the dominant characters. I am the character today, and who else am I gonna help co, co-write this story? Mm-hmm. and the audience matters, the co, you know, authors matter and that takes great discern in to figure out who do we bring into our story.

Totally. And the co-authors, I love that because like you said before, having. A community of people. Mm-hmm. , who can motivate you, keep you accountable. Yeah. To get what you truly want. Those deep desires in our hearts, cuz often we just go after the shallow desires in our hearts that long for, you know, instant gratification, pleasure, power, whatever, maybe.

So we really need to have people encourage us and help us along that path and going after what matters the most. Is that right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Friendships have been so healing for me. And role models, you said that too. So important. The mentors in my life really have redefined certain parts of my life that I believe to be a certain way, like lies that I believed about, whether it was fatherhood, motherhood, man.

Whatever might be. Yep. Relationships they were able to redefine. I thought of it one way and then I met these people, for example, like you said, who had good marriages. Yeah. And then I was able to see, wait, it is possible. Cause I doubted it was even possible. Yeah. So surrounding yourself with those people is so healing.

And I've experienced that in my own life. And people who've, uh, talked with me have seen the same results, which is, which is awesome. So all those really practical and, and good tips you mentioned before that we can get stuck in this mindset where our emotions are controlling us. Mm-hmm. and we talked about kind of detaching ourselves in those moments.

Mm-hmm. and trying to get control. Setting a timer you said, which is cool cuz it is so interesting. I wanted to comment on. We tend to think that an urge that we have mm-hmm. if we don't satisfy it Right. It won't go away. Right. And and you're saying the opposite, You're saying it will go away. Yeah. It's not just gonna get more and more intense.

It actually will peak and then go down. Exactly. On a a physiological level, it's impossible for an urge to last forever. It will subsid either way. The reason where reinforced by those behaviors is we engage in them . Yeah. And they bring it down. And so we don't come to know that it will come down other ways.

Huh. That makes so much. My question is kind of going before that. Okay. How do we prevent ourselves from even getting to that point? Is that even possible? Yeah. I mean, I think there are things we can do, um, on a purely physiological level to manage our emotions in a different way. So, So, I mean, you know, in psychology there's the foundational and just epic understanding of deep breathing, right?

And the ways that we can regulate from a top down approach that when we start to notice that things are activated, that we're activated, we can self regulate in those moments. We can bring the intense emotion down in a way that's more within our control. But I think you spoke to it. I mean, who is in our corner, who is helping us see our blind spots before we hit them?

And that's essential. I mean, we cannot do it alone. Um, that isolation is really a black hole. And you know, our thoughts are really wonderful. Our emotions are really wonderful, but left alone, they can really torment us. And so being in a community of people who can see what we don't yet see. And being willing to be vulnerable about the struggles along the way can keep us from getting to a point where it feels like we've crossed that line.

Mm-hmm. . Um, and I, I think good guidance from other people is pretty integral for that. You have to ask for help. Yes. And why do we usually wait? You, you, you elaborated on this more in our episode on counseling and how counseling. But if you would touch on it a little bit here, why do we usually wait till things get worse until we ask for help?

Yeah. We have this great illusion of self sufficiency. Um, we love the thought that we are in complete control over our lives, over our experiences, and that we have no need of others. Um, it is so sad because we are inherently social creatures. I mean, on a purely, you know, biological level. We need people.

And so the illusion of self sufficiency is a more controlled reality. It's a more predictable reality. It's one where I'm com controlling more of the variables, but it's one that is inherently lonely and keeps us stuck in pattern that we can break on our own. The objectivity is necessary, and we cannot be objective on our own.

We have too many flaws. You know, we are so limited by our own experiences, and so until we can normalize weakness, normalize blind spots, normalize questions without answers, we can't figure out and have the space for curiosity in life. We can't take risks and learn from others if we can't be in touch with our own need for others.

Yeah, we'll continue to play it safe in. Just to be comfortable and kind of live a life of mediocrity, which is not what we're made for. And it's so sad when I see that that's one of my greatest fears is living the life of mediocrity. And it's sad when I see it, um, you know, in other people or even in myself.

Yeah. And I just wanna run from that and yeah, it's, it's important to remember that we're made for more than that, so really good advice. Yeah. Made for more incapable of more, and I think that's huge here, is that we actually have the capacity for more in community than we'd be capable of on our own. That makes some make sense.

We're almost relying on a strength that we don't have in ourselves, but others can do. And it takes humility Yeah. To, to do that. But man, guys, you'll be so happy if you do. In, in closing out the show, what words of encouragement would you give to someone who's really afraid of repeating the bad behavior that they saw in their families, especially when it comes to their parents' marriage.

They don't want to repeat that, but, But in other areas as well. Yeah. What would you say? ? Well firstly that you're not alone. I mean, that is a real fear. Um, an understandable one, and one that's laid in with a lot of complexity. It's not as simple as saying, I don't want that. So the anxiety there is real, um, and worth listening to.

The other thing I'll say though is, um, what my therapist said to me once, which is that you do realize that this doesn't have to be the end of your story too. That when I look back at, um, my own parents' relationship, the way it ended was not the way I want any relationship to end. And I'm okay. My heart's still beating, and I get to decide what I do about that.

Mm-hmm. and I get to take the pen back. I get to work my butt off and to position myself in such a way where I don't have to recreate a cycle. So we have autonomy. In ways we don't even realize, but we need to start to realize we actually do have a choice. And there is great freedom and great hope in a life that comes on the other side of divorce, on the other side of separation.

But it will not come for free. It will take work. And so if you're feeling that that's real and my hope is that together we can figure out about, That's beautiful. And is there a specific type of therapy that people should seek out for that? Or what? What should they be communicating to a counselor if they're have this fear of repeating this bad behavior?

What would they say? Well, you know, I'm gonna just give a global apology for therapists all over, because I think the field of psychology as a whole made a mistake many years ago in saying that divorce was a good thing because if the parents were happy, the children would be happy and we were wrong. All of the research now shows a really different picture of that.

It's. And so there's an apology there. You know, I'm sorry for the ways that was misleading, but I think there are therapists who still lead with that kind of perspective. So in so far as we're talking about therapy, it's essential to figure out, will this person appreciate what was so damaging about that and not collude with the parts of me that feel drawn to that.

And that's pretty essential because in a, in a culture where divorce adultery are increasingly normalized, pornography increasingly normalized, albeit shown by all the research, not helpful. Um, you have a right to to know it's the person who's guiding you on the same page with you about that. Do they have the values that you have or can they help you get to the values that you won't realize in your life?

Um, pretty important in a culture where we've been led to right before by therapist. That that's an excellent point and that's why we're building a network of counselors that we trust that you guys can trust for you. And, uh, I'll talk about that more at the end of the show. But Dr. Julia, thank you so much for being here with us.

Thank you for your wisdom, for the practical guidance and advice that you gave. And if anyone wants to connect with you, how could they do that? Yeah. Um, best way to contact me is email, so Dr. D r uh, my last name is Dusky, S as in Sam, a d as in dog, q s as Sam k y gmail.com. So dr eski gmail.com. Awesome. And we'll put that in the show notes for you guys so you don't need to remember it.

Julia, thank you so much for, for being here. I know we're all better for Thank you.

That conversation blew me away. Part of the reason I wanted to cover this topic is that I've never heard a discussion like this before, and I hope you guys benefited as much as I did. In fact, I really recommend that you listen to this again and even take notes to get everything you can out of it. I already have done that, and I will do it again.

And one thing I wanna say to all of you guys who question your self worth, hear me out. You are priceless. And I don't mean that in a phy way. I genuinely mean you are priceless. Your value as a person is much more than all the money in the world. You are an unrepeatable person. You're worth dying for.

You're worth being loved. You're worth being treated with the respect that you deserve. And I also can say that you're worth all the effort, all the hours, all the money, all the sacrifices that it takes to produce this podcast and to run restored. So let that sink in. And I say that because like Dr. Julia, We tend to settle for things in life, things that are below our dignity because we think we're not worth much.

So just know that you are worth more, and I'm happy to remind you guys if you forget that. Some other takeaways. Awareness. Awareness, awareness. Awareness is the foundation. It's the starting point. Listening to conversations like these really helps to build awareness, to understand yourself and the people that you love.

And to take it a step further, we have to reflect on how we may be falling into unhealthy patterns that we learned in our families. We almost have to analyze ourselves and then. To name it, to journal about it, to talk to a friend or a mentor about it, to put it into words. Talking about the dysfunction and how we've become used to it helps us to actually overcome it.

Next takeaway. Acceptance is the key. Without accepting our past, without accepting our lives as they are, we can't change or improve. That's what Dr. Julia said, And if you've made some big mistakes in life, guys, of course, seek forgiveness, make things right. If you're Catholic, go to confession and if you've been hurt in a serious way, of course seek healing.

Forgive the people who've hurt you, but then accept the fact that it's part of your story. It doesn't define you, but we can't erase it, and we can't keep pretending that it isn't part of our story. We have to make peace with it, and that will help us overcome the shame and the fear that often leave us feeling stuck in life that hold us back in life.

Next takeaway. Seek out mentors, role models that you want to be like. And guys, this isn't just for kids. We all need mentors. We all need role models. And this doesn't have to just be in person. Like that's ideal if you can have an actual relationship with someone, but someone can mentor you through their books, through videos, through podcasts, et cetera.

For example, you know, Winston Churchill obviously isn't alive right now, but you can be mentored by him through his writing. And of course, as we always say, spend time with good marriages, especially if you're afraid of repeating what you saw in your parents' marriage. If you're afraid of getting divorced, which so many of us are, spend time with good marriages.

Marriages that you wanna repeat, you wanna emulate. Because like Dr. Julia said, we get used to what we see around us, and we repeat that. So surround yourself with people that you wanna be like, and that includes your mentors, of course, but also your friends. Next takeaway, I love what Dr. Julia said. Play the tape to the end.

So tempting situations, detach, take a step back, get outta the house, Do whatever you need to, to just remove yourself from that situation. And then play the situation out. Play out, okay, how does this end? Where does this leave me? What are the consequences that will come from this? And then ask yourself, Don't just scare yourself, but ask yourself this question.

Is this what I really want? Is this what I really want? What's underneath this desire that I have for whatever unhealthy thing that I wanna do? And in my case, in my struggle with pornography, what it was for me was, of course there was the sexual urge, but underneath that, I just wanted to feel wanted. And so if I needed to ask the question, how else can I feel wanted, What else can I do that's healthy, that will make me feel wanted, that will fill that need?

The last takeaway is get to work. Do not wait till things get worse. Do not wait until you hit rock bottom. Do it now. You can heal, you can change. You can transform your life. You're not doomed to repeat your parents' mistakes. You're not doomed to live a life of mediocrity. You can write your own story.

You can live a meaningful, joyful, good life. And we're here to help you guys. We're here to support you on that journey. And one resource I mentioned that can help you do that is our coaching network. We're building a network of counselors and spiritual directors that we vet, that we trust and that we recommend to you, and it's really easy to find.

A spiritual director or a counselor. Three steps. First, go to restored ministry.com/coaching. Again, that's restored ministry. It's just singular ministry singular.com/coaching. The next step is fill out a form should take you 60 seconds at most, and then we'll connect you with a counselor or a few counselors.

Again, that's restored ministry.com/coaching. The resources mentioned during the show notes@restoredministry.com slash 12. That's the number 12. Thank you so much for listening. If this has been useful for you, I want to ask you as something, would you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts? We'd love to hear how we're doing to serve you guys, and it's really easy to do.

The first step is just open the Apple Podcast app. In fact, you may already have it open right now. The second is to search restored podcasts, or click on it in your library if you're already subscribed, and then just scroll down to where it says ratings and reviews. And the last step is just to tap the stars, to rate the show.

And if you have time, write a review. Should take two to three minutes tops, and we'd really appreciate it. Not only does it give us a good gauge of how we're serving you, but it also helps us to reach more people by making this podcast more visible in Apple podcasts. And as always, please share this episode with someone that you know who could use it.

Always remember, you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person that you were born to be.

#011: I Thought My Parents’ Divorce Didn’t Affect Me | Jennifer Cox

Jen thought her parents’ divorce didn’t affect her - until her brokenness surfaced at 26 on a medical mission in Honduras. Still, she didn’t make the connection between her struggles and her parents’ breakup right away.

In this episode, you’ll hear her story, her struggles, and how she has healed. She also shares advice and words of encouragement for anyone in a similar situation - especially anyone who is single but wants to be married.

Share your story using our online tool:

1. Go here

2. Write your story as guided by the form

3. Submit and we’ll turn it into a blog article (anonymous unless specified otherwise)

Links & Resources

• Leave your feedback here! If it’s easier, feel free to comment below too.

• Books

  • Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak

    • Get the free digital copy here

    • Buy a physical copy here [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through this link, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!]

• Research

  • Nazmiye Civitci, Asım Civitci,and N. Ceren Fiyakali, “Loneliness and Life Satisfaction in Adolescents with Divorced and Non-Divorced Parents,” Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 9 (2) (2009).

• Articles by Jennifer Cox

  • Divorce Affected Me, Even Though It Wasn’t Supposed To

  • Divorce Through a Child’s Eyes

• Contact Jen

  • Blog: Jumping in Puddles

  • Instagram: @jen_coxRN

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Coming Up: Episode #012: Counseling: How It Works and Why It Helps | Dr. Julia Sadusky, PsyD

Thanks for listening! Our next episode features Dr. Julia Sadusky, PsyD. We breakdown how counseling works, why it is effective, and how to make the most of it.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Do you feel unaffected by your parents' divorce or do you know someone who feels or, or seems like they're unaffected by their parents'? Divorce? That's actually the story of today's guests. She prided herself on being unaffected by her parents' divorce. She thought it had no impact on her life for the longest time, and from the outside it looked like she had everything together.

Like she was fine and the divorce really didn't have any effect on her. Until all of her brokenness bubble to the surface. And one thing I've noticed in doing this work and producing this podcast is that our culture tells us that our parents' divorce shouldn't affect us. That as children, we are resilient and we'll be fine.

And we believe that. So often we think that everything is normal, that nothing is wrong, but almost every time that's simply not true. We are affected. It may just take us some time to realize how we're affected. We'll talk about that and more in today's show. Keep listening.

Welcome to the Restored podcast, helping you cope, heal, and grow after your parents' divorce or separation so you can feel whole again. I'm your host, Joey Pontarelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 11, and in the show you're gonna hear. How my guest, Jen, really thought her parents' divorce didn't have any effect on her, and how that all changed.

When she went to Honduras as a medical missionary at age 26, her world just started falling apart. She started to feel very broken in. In her own words, she said she felt like something deep inside. Had been exposed and she couldn't hide it any longer. She just couldn't keep it together, and that was really the beginning of her healing journey, even though she didn't connect it to her parents' breakup.

And she was shocked to realize that the struggles in her life were very connected to her parents' divorce. She also shares how she's coped by being a perfectionist for a lot of her life and how she's tempted to find her value in external things. She also talks about how her parents' divorce has really affected her dating relationships and how.

It is a struggle being single. As someone in their thirties, she also shares some tips on healing and really one of the hardest, yet most beautiful things that she's done to heal. A little bit about our guests. Jennifer Cox is most proud to be called a friend, daughter. Godmother, aunt and nurse. She loves to spend time with her family, travel to all the places and practice Keo, uh, when she hasn't injured herself.

Kempo is a, is a martial arts, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Her nursing career has offered her some really beautiful opportunities over the years from working at the bedside at one of the top pediatric facilities in the country to being a school nurse serving in Honduras. She is currently the nursing director for a small nonprofit serving children with special needs just outside Washington dc.

Jen is actually a contributor to the book, Primal Loss, The Now Adult Children of Divorce Speak. You heard about that in episode two with Layla Miller, and she serves on the retreat team for the DC based recovering Origins retreats, and you heard about that in episode nine with Dr. Daniel Meola. She really has a heart to sit with others in their pain and to encourage them in their healing, which is exactly what she does in this conversation.

So here's my conversation with Jen. Let's dive right into your story. Take us to the day that your parents separated. How old were you? What happened? How did you react? Let's see. So I was in second grade. I was about seven or eight ish. And I mean, I was like living life. I, my, it was just me and my parents, so it was good.

Um, I just happened to be outside playing with my. Friends and our, um, I just, I remember this like so clearly, like it happened yesterday playing outside in the cul-de-sac and all of my friends were there. My parents had called me over to the front porch or the front door, and my mom, I just remember my mom was like visibly upset.

She, she's crying. My dad was standing next to her and they. Told me that they were getting divorced. And I remember, you know, looking at them, I, I, I just really didn't know, I didn't fully understand what that meant. They were just told me that, and I basically was just like, Okay, well can I go back and play with my friends now?

And I mean, I literally like that they told me and I just went back and played my friends and I was like, Um, hey everybody. We're getting a divorce. We're getting a divorce. Mm-hmm. , because I didn't know what it meant. And like looking back, it's a very touching, slightly comical. Oh, really? Just, it's just sad.

It just makes me sad that like, you know, that that happened. Um, yeah, so I, I didn't really know. I had no concept really at that time of my life, like what that meant. Yeah. So that's really like when I found out, I remember. It's funny as I've grown up and I've really like hashed all these things out, my memories are really limited from.

Prior to that, so I don't really remember, and like around that time I don't really remember, which I suppose makes sense in terms of, you know, trauma and all of that type of stuff, which is typical for traumas. But it is just fascinating that I, I don't really remember a ton of detail about time prior or really around that particular period of time.

So eventually, I would imagine so my parents must have like sat me down and maybe tried to explain a little bit more. Um, I lived in Maryland at the time and um, the separation is much longer in Maryland. And so my dad essentially lived with us, um, for quite some time, but he lived in a different, Or he stayed in like the guest bedroom.

Mm-hmm. . So for all I knew at that time, I don't know, that's what divorce was like. Okay. I mean, Sure. Um, and then eventually my dad moved out and, uh, my mom and I moved up the street to a, uh, townhouse. And that is just kind of where life really began. Like, I like to say I had one of those quote unquote good divorces because, Fairly straightforward.

I mean, for all of this, as much as blessing in many ways, like there was straightforward custody arrangements. I saw my dad very regularly, um, every other weekend, um, every other holiday. He was very involved in my life growing up. He would come to my. Swim meets. He would come to events, he would be around, like, it was very like, good.

It was good and normal and like all of these things. And, and I, yeah, and I, I mean, honestly, I just, it was great. I grew up, I literally grew up believing that things were good. And fine, because in my mind they were, I mean, they were fine. So I really didn't, I mean, there were moments I had probably throughout like high school that it was challenging.

I remember when I, I would have hard times with my dad and my mom was always very encouraging to like, have conversations with my dad. So like things didn't necessarily linger and whatnot. Like it was all very, like they did their best to make things. I don't know. Seamless or easier or something. Yeah. But yeah, so that's kind of really how I grew up.

I, I didn't, it was very kind of matter of fact and that's how life was and I, I just did what I had to do. I, I mean, yeah, that's, that's kind of, that's kind of it so often. When our parents split, you know, obviously it's a shock, especially when you realize the gravity of it. Mm-hmm. , but so often we kind of just see it as normal and we don't really think twice about it, and it becomes our new normal.

Then years later, usually it's like, wait a minute, this actually isn't normal. This isn't. Right. Yeah. This isn't the way things are supposed to be and so yeah, it can, it can bubble to the surface. But How old were you when, uh, you guys moved into the town home? Do you remember? I mean, it had to have been within the like year that they had like, let me know they were getting divorced because I Okay, makes sense.

Cause I was still. It was still within that year. I, I don't know, timing is a little off, so, or you know, was always fuzzy Sure. When you're looking back. So, yeah, so it was still around that time. It wasn't like years and years later or anything. It was very short. Um, so essentially I, the house that I grew up in with my mom, It was like the house that I grew up in.

Like I very, I don't really super remember my, you know, home with both my parents and it, it was, it was interesting. Um, it's just funny, It's funny to like think back on it and how normal it did feel. Mm-hmm. . Um, and I think that really it does play into a lot, um, of my difficulties and struggles later on.

Um, and we definitely get into that, but, Yeah, so essentially I had a, I lived a good life and I have a good life. Um, and I grew up my entire life believing that, you know, I went to college or I, I did well in school growing up. Like I was, you know, definitely one of the kids that, um, got good grades, didn't get in trouble.

Um, those types of things. We can come back to that in a little bit, but, you know, I just, I did what I had to do, like I. I was a, I was a good kid, you know. Yeah. Um, went to college. Graduated college. I, uh, graduated with my nursing degree. So I found a, a really great job at one of the top pediatric facilities in the area.

I did that for a while. I served in Honduras. I lived in Honduras. Um, I. Went to, like I lived in Florida, um, and did some other things, you know, and came back to this area for my job. I bought a home, I bought a condo, you know, like so from the outside. Very much like my parents' divorce. Had no bearing on my life.

Had no effect. On my life. And I was very proud of myself because of that, that yes, like I'm one of those people that my divorce or my parents' divorce didn't affect me. And I believed that. And I was very like, proud of that, you know? And that was kind of the, the narrative that I. Taught to believe anyway because mm-hmm.

right? Because as we know, like kids are resilient and all of these things and whatnot. And I just, I was very like, proud that, see proof that I, everything's good. Look at my life, like all these wonderful things and, and it is good. And I did do some wonderful things, but interestingly, uh, when I was in Honduras, um, that actually really opened up a lot for me.

I describe it as a stripping away of. Everything. And obviously like, um, mission work, especially overseas mission work does do that in many aspects. Um, but I realized at the time, you know, being in a different culture, being in a place I didn't know anybody and, you know, learning something completely new and all of these different things.

I didn't have my normal, I didn't have my sense of normal, you know, my family wasn't around my, you know, my normal like sense of comfort. It really kind of exposed. Something deeper inside of me that I, at this point now had nothing to keep it together. And at the time, now, I can only verbalize this with many years of therapy because at the time I, I really just thought that I was struggling with being a missionary and being in Honduras.

Like I just really thought, I was like one of those people, like, Gosh, maybe this isn't the life for me . Like I can't really cut it out and, and all of this. In retrospect and in hindsight and after much healing, I realized like that was the beginning of like, this wound that I had that was, was essentially like ripped, like open and exposed, and it just, uh, like I needed to, like, I couldn't do anything about it.

It was there. And so I was in a really difficult place, like, and it was a really dark place and I knew that I had to leave, but I couldn't really verbalize it. So I actually ended up leaving. Honduras early and was like, I just need to figure it out. I didn't know what I, I didn't know what I was figuring out, but I knew I needed to figure something out.

Cause clearly I was, I was really, really struggling. So, so I came home and I kind of had a significant transition. I stayed with my brother who, as a side note, we have the same dad, different moms. He grew up with his mom out in Kansas. So, um, while I technically grew up as. Only child. He, um, we, I did have a brother, but we just, we didn't grow up together, um, geographically and all that, so that makes sense.

Um, but we're fairly close. So when I came back from Honduras, bless him, he and his, um, wife and growing family, um, like welcomed me in to kind of transition me and that was a great time. Um, and then I moved to Florida and my best friend and her husband were having their first baby. So I kind. Stayed there and through that and, and kind of being around their beautiful like marriage and witnessing their, you know, their love for one another within their marriage and like bringing this baby into the world and all these wonderful, beautiful things.

Mm-hmm. , I, you know, I really like, I kind of put everything that I was feeling aside cuz I was feeling okay. I was very distracted at this point. Like, I was like, oh. Guess is good, but like I knew that I still needed something and I was still really very much struggling. So I was there for a year and I believe eventually was still very in a dark place.

And really it was probably still one of the lowest like periods of time in my life. And I was like, I need help. I need help, I need, I need help and I need to reach out to, um, a therapist. And so I did. And that has been one of the hardest and beautiful things that I. Done in my life thus far. Yeah, no, it, it takes so much courage to do that and get to that point where, you know, not just thinking about it, not just like researching it, but actually pulling the trigger and going in there, committing to stick with the therapy.

And then, you know, of course eventually you'll see the results, but man, that is, it's like busting through a wall. It's hard. Yes. How old were you when you went to Honduras? I turned. 27 when I was there. Okay. So I was in my mid twenties, uh, when all of this kind of really like started. So yeah, it is fascinating to kind of, um, objectively look back and to realize that like I held it together, quote unquote, you know, all of this, this wound and this stuff for.

20 over 20 years of my life, you know? Yeah. Um, at that, at that point. Um, and even then though I didn't have a clue though that it was related to anything related to my parents' divorce. It's interesting to look back and how much you just kind of assume is other things or whatnot, until you really take the time to, to step into that wound to find the root, and sometimes the root is not really what you.

Expected it to be. Yeah, I wanted talk about that a second, because I think this is common for, for many children of divorce, we may be struggling with something in life, whether it's, you know, a struggle with advice like alcoholism or pornography or something like that. Or you know, something else, something maybe not as as serious.

But we don't connect the dots, We don't see, we, we make this kind of attribution error, meaning, you know, we're so thinking at the root of. Stuff is something else when it's actually the brokenness in our family. And so your story just tells that perfectly. But I think so many of us can relate to that. We don't, we don't connect the dots.

Yeah, totally. Especially for in situations like ours, in terms of our parents' divorce. because the culture in which we live and the narrative that we are told to believe is that divorce isn't going to affect you as the kid. Of course not. Because if your family is there and loving you and being present to you, like what more do you need?

Essentially, you know? Mm-hmm. like your parents, you know, are there. You know, and they are, and I, I do wanna say that like my, my parents did do the best they can. I think that's, but that's also part of the thing. It's like, yes, they did the best can, but also I still was wounded. That's it's did the best Also, I was still affected.

So let's talk about that. Like I'm allowed to like process that and whatnot. And I think that's just something that we're not always willing. Talk about like the choice that this person made over here does have effects on. Like these people over here. And I think that is just part of the conversation that's missing a lot, unfortunately, uh, when divorce is brought up, is like, this is a decision that adults are making and it will affect their subsequent children if they have children.

You know, it's just, yeah. It's just part of the deal. And I, I think it's just unfortunate that, And so when you, when you don't have that conversation when no one's really kind of putting that in light or. Reminding parents when they are thinking about divorce, like then of course, like the children aren't necessarily going to have the, any dots to connect in that way.

That like, Oh, that that could have been a thing for me. I had no idea. Yeah. , it's been buried so deep they just don't even think about it. Yeah, no, I, I see that left and right and I love what you said, you know, divorce, it, it, it's traumatic basically that in so many words, that's what, that's what you just said.

Mm-hmm. , And I've never really heard people outside of, like, our circles of course talk about the trauma of divorce. It's like, that's a phrase I wish people would use because it is traumatic. It does really affect everyone involved, including the parents, but especially the children. And yeah, like you said, we're not, we're not hearing a lot about that, so I'm so glad that we're having this conversation.

So you touched on a lot of the ways in which you were affected, and the interesting thing to me was that from the outside looking in, if someone looked at you in your life, they would say, Oh, you. Jen, you're successful. You know, you've accomplished so much. You, you're doing good things with your life. Like, how can you be broken?

I mean, it's, it's almost like looking at you, some people compared to maybe people who kinda wear the brokenness on their sleeve, like on the outside, right? They may have looked at you and said, Oh gosh, you, you, you're totally fine. You have nothing to worry about. But inside something was very different.

And so when you went to Hondura, That just, you're outta your comfort zone. You're out of your routine, you're in, you know, you're being stretched in different ways. That stuff's just fall to the surface. So, uh, I wanna get into that a little bit deeper, but mm-hmm. . Um, but before we get to that point, were there any other ways in which your.

Parents breakup affect you in the years leading up to that, and then of course after that as well. Yes. I'm, I mean, like objectively yes. Like it did their divorce totally like affected me, but I feel like because it was so normal for me, I just didn't know any different, you know, like I didn't know, like, like I know for example, holidays are always like challenging, Right.

You know? And it's what sucks to not. Both my parents and all my, like one side of the family were visiting, Oh, this year we're gonna go to my mom's side of the family, all of us together, or we're all gonna be with my dad's side of the family, or something like that. Like growing up and realizing that like I was me who had to go with one or the other, you know, whatever holiday it was like, of course, like I remember like feeling, gosh.

Stinks, but I just, I didn't really have time to think about it. I just moved on There wasn't really a, a thing, so it's just hard to kind of like look back and like, I mean like now I can see it, but like, then when I'm like living it, when I'm in middle school and high school, living my life, unfortunately, it was just very normal

Mm-hmm. . And it it like, you know, and right now just thinking about it and like thinking back on it, it just, it does kinda make me sad a little bit that, that. Was so normal when really, I mean, it's not, and it shouldn't be. That's not how it, how it's meant to be. And it's just, it, you know, it does make me sad a little bit that I, you know, that was like my perspective, but I just, you know, part of me is like, I'm grateful for that because I feel like in some ways it would have, if I was so focused on the fact that my parents were divorced, I'm not sure I would've have held me back a little bit more.

Would it have like defined me in other ways? I mean, it's already. In ways that I'm learning, learn, have learned, and still learning how deeply it has affected me. But yeah, it is interesting to, to kind of, to look back and recognize like, but I, I don't know. That's the problem. Like I wouldn't have been able to, like if you came up to me when I was in high school, for example, to tell me, Hey, I'm so sorry that your parents are divorced, and I'm sorry that you had to, that you have to like go every other weekend to your dad's.

Honestly, I probably would've maybe just looked at you like, Okay, I mean, thanks like mm-hmm. . You know, and I, I would like to think like, Wow, that really would've spoken to my heart or something in some way. I don't know. And who knows? No one ever said that to me, so I wouldn't, I don't know how I actually would've reacted, but, but I think just because it was so normal for me, and I think there's just so many young people out there.

Today still that that is still very much normal and it's like, I, I'm, I want to like give them a hug, all of them and be like, I get it. Like it, it doesn't have to be, it's not normal and it's okay if you have some feels about it, it really is. Okay. , Yeah, we talk, we talk about that on this show from time to time about, you know how a lot of this stuff doesn't bubble to the surface, so you're, you know, may at the earliest you.

Mid teenager, late teens, really in your twenties. It seems to be the trend that people start connecting the dots and realize, hey, oh, okay, this, uh, you know, this isn't normal and this is actually affecting me more than I ever thought it would. So, so your story, you know, it makes so much sense. And one of the things, uh, just reading through your story, cuz you've written, you know, some beautiful blog articles.

About your story, one of the things that stuck out to me was how you, you know, you, uh, in some ways would take care of your parents, and it's almost like the roles reversed. And so that, uh, that stuck out to me if you would, you know, talk about that briefly. How, and, and again, that's again, that's something that's kind of normalized.

You don't maybe think twice about it as a kid, but, you know, comparing that to a really healthy fa like intact family. That's not normal. Yeah, for sure. And I think that it is like something that you just kind of take on. So, and one of the things that I, you know, really dove into part of my like, um, therapy was to realize that I took on the responsibility of, in ensuring that my parents, specifically my mom, cuz I.

Lived with her primarily were okay. I wanted my mom to be okay. And that was, that was it. Mm-hmm. . And so really, like growing up, I, I didn't like kind of coming back a little bit when I was, I had mentioned before about never, um, getting in trouble or never, you know, or always getting good grades and like doing well or whatever.

I didn't wanna rock the boat essentially. Mm-hmm. , I didn't. I just, I didn't like, I wanna ensure that everything was kind of level, even playing field. I mean, there was very few times where, um, I did like get grounded or something happened. I think I got detention one time ever in all of my schooling when I was in, you know, growing up.

And, um, like I, you know, I was very concerned about getting good grades and, um, I had to do them. And, you know, actually interestingly, my mom recently was reminding me of this time when I, when I was young, We were in the townhouse, so it was after my parents divorced, but I was very upset because I didn.

Finish my spelling homework or something. When I was in elementary school and I didn't finish my spelling homework and I was very upset. I don't remember this. This was just her sharing this with me and she just had, She was just like, Okay, Jen, Like I was just so, like I was visibly upset that I didn't finish this homework and that I.

Like, I was gonna stay up super late to finish it and my teacher was gonna be upset and all these things, and she just had to, you know, call me down and be like, Okay, I'll write a note that says didn't get finish. Like, it will be okay, you know, whatever. She called me down and, and I just think it's, it's just interesting, like how, I think that's a very, like a good example of how I essentially like, Needed to make sure I did all of the work and all the things and make sure I got it all done.

That, like, carried on with me throughout my schooling and all of that. Um, but essentially just so that I, Cause I didn't wanna make anybody else worried. I didn't wanna have to have worry. Anybody else? Everyone else. I like my mom, My dad, they had, well really for my mom, She already went through a lot, and I didn't wanna make her any more upset or have to affect her in any way.

I didn't wanna upset my dad, of course, because ultimately my dad's the one who left, and so mm-hmm. . If he left, he stopped loving my mom, and I then made him upset or something. Well, obviously he could stop loving me, you know? Mm-hmm. . And so, I mean, that's like the, the truth that I believed up. I was, uh, late in my late twenties.

So . Yeah. You know, but underline, right? Like, it's not like I knew that up until like, I just, but that is how I live my life essentially. Yeah. So you almost felt like you, the love was conditional and you needed to really keep your act together. Otherwise, what happened to your mom would happen to, you, could happen to.

Yeah, no, that, that makes so much sense. And if, if you're open to talking about it a little bit, I wanna dig into kind of the perfectionism. It seems that in some ways you coped with all of this as kind of being a perfectionist, like being really behaving really well, getting your grades, doing all your homework, like everything that you just laid out.

Would you say that's kind of the primary way that you coped over the years? Yes. It's funny cuz I kind of think about this like concept of coping and I didn't know that I was coping, you know, because I didn't know that. Needed to cope. I didn't know that there was anything wrong, but yes, I mean, I think so.

I think that I probably, I wanted things to be right and good, and if they were not right and good, then somehow I failed and it was going to be terrible or that I was wrong and like it was gonna make. My mom upset or make my dad upset and all of these things, and it really, Dr. It drove my, my ability to, that's like just how I lived my life, you know?

Mm-hmm. , because I, I, If I didn't do all these things, then somehow then I failed and I think. I internalized that and I believed the lie that then, because I couldn't do all these things, like if I failed, if I wasn't good enough, if I wasn't all the stuff, then it, that was me. Then like, it became about who I was at the core and therefore I wasn't good enough and I wasn't, then I was a failure and I wasn't strong enough and all of that.

And so of course that just, you know, plays into. Self confidence and thinking that you can do things and all of that. So, yeah, and it, it drives so many of us really, really hard. And I think that's why you see a lot of children of divorce who are pretty successful, you know, in terms of career and things like that.

And from the outside, you know, it may seem like we have all, everything in order, we have our life together. Um, but once you kind of dig. Deep and often into our relationships, you start to see that, uh, there's actually brokenness here, but, but yeah, I, my story, you know, I was 11 when my parents operated and my immediate reaction was really bad.

I, I got into things like pornography and, uh, other, other really unhealthy ways of coping and. Then clean that up, thankfully. Mm-hmm. , that was really good. But then I went, kinda went to the opposite extreme. I started to be a perfectionist and really wanted life to. Look kind of perfect on the outside, but I still felt broken inside.

I didn't know really what to do with that. And, and a lot of this, like you're saying, I wouldn't have been able to put into, uh, into words as well as I can now, but I certainly went to that opposite extreme of being a perfectionist of perfectionism. And uh, then later it kind of came out because I was like, Ah, I can't keep up this facade.

It's just, I feel too broken. and uh, yeah. But, but I do think this is so common for, for children of divorce dealing with perfectionism. And certainly not everyone does, but a lot of us do. And I've seen this, uh, you know, in working with children of divorce and just talking to, to people like us, it is definitely common.

I think another aspect of that too, for me, like it co goes into from like, Perfection. Like I have to have this all right and good, and it has to be like right and good, so I don't fail at it. Well, it really led into me or led me to really kind of find my worth in external things. So like if for example, work was not going well, then somehow my entire.

Was not good. And then because I wasn't being able to make it go well, like whatever struggle I was having at work, like it really impacted me as a person and how I viewed myself. And that's a very, you know, not great and dangerous place to be because if you're so focused on the external things going well, , and that is where you're putting your soul , um, like value in who you are as a person.

As soon as something goes wrong, like whoop, then you're, then you feel. That much more broken and yeah, so I've had to really work hard, really, really work hard to kind of separate those things and recognize that who I am is very much not related to all the things that are Yeah, that that will. Change and, and be different, um, at some point in time.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you hit the nail, the head. I think so many of us deal with that too, just that external looking for value and external things like work or maybe relationships or something else. Wanna one kind of scary thought, but, but a good one to wrestle with. And I encourage everyone listening to think about this too, if all that stuff was stripped away from you.

You know, if your job was stripped away from you, if your relationships are stripped away from you, if your even your health was stripped away from you, what's left? Like, where do you find your value? You know, where do you feel important? And, and I'm not saying that it's bad to do well at work or to have good relationships.

Of course it's not, it's a good thing. But I've had to kind of wrestle with that too over the years because yeah, I have found so much of my worth. And what I do instead of really who I am at at the core. And one of the things that has come up in conversation with children of divorce is that often we are so driven to succeed because we're terrified of failure.

And the reason we're terrified of failure is we feel that if we fail, nobody will have our back. And we are kind of on our own in life to figure it out. And so that has really shaped and driven so many of us, which is really sad. It really is. Turning to coping. So you're in your twenties, you go to Honduras.

And do, do this great mission work and then all the stuff bubbles to the surface. How did you react? How did you cope with that? And talk about if you would, the healthy ways that you coped with it, and then if you're willing, some of the unhealthy ways, if, if those were present. So once I, Once I, Okay. So I mean, I think the biggest thing, like once I realized like all this stuff was like happening, um, I knew that I needed to do something.

So the one thing that I did was I left Honduras, I left the thing that I thought was the problem and that of. In retrospect, it wasn't that thing was the problem. And so I had mentioned before it took me a while to get to the point where I like could call and like reach out to a therapist. So in the meantime, honestly, I just kind of, I think I avoided it.

I mean, I. I knew I needed to deal with it, but I was like, Oh, maybe it'll be fine. I it'll, you know, cuz like, I had a lot of things that were distracting me up until that point. And so I really started diving in with my therapist. Bless him. Whew. I was shocked, honestly, and, and a little bit angry to realize.

So much of my current struggles and so much of the things that I, I was dealing with all somehow related back to my parents' divorce, and I think that really began this like huge, like wrestling for me because now I was face to face with this entire life that I have been living so proud that I didn't have.

any effects, right? Like, I was good. I got all these things, I was living my life and blah, blah, blah. And now I'm realizing and I can see the dots, like I can see the lines connecting these dots like, Huh, wow, this has affected me. Mm-hmm , it did affect me. It is affecting me, and I'm not actually quote unquote fine

And that just, Broke me. Like that really broke me in ways that I was really wasn't expecting. And I was dealing with a lot of anger and I dealt with a lot, like, of subsequent shame, a lot of shame still that I kind of have to wrestle with today. Um, quite honestly, But shame and the fact that like somehow I couldn't deal with it or I, I was not strong enough to handle my parents' divorce.

It did affect me and. I, Yeah, I was, I just dealt with a lot of shame because I just believed, you know, for so long that I was fine and that I, that I was okay. And I was just like, it was just something that I, you know, I had to, you know, it wasn't a thing that I had to deal with. And so, To now dive into this whole thing and to see it face to face, like, wow.

Okay. And I recognizing then like all of the ways that I was, in terms of like unhealthy ways probably would be like, you know, self-protection. Like, you know, I didn't, I'm not like a huge risk taker by any means. I don't, you know, cause clearly, Opens up a whole lot of things and no one wants to rock the boat in that way, and I don't wanna have to fail.

I gotta, if I don't know, I'm gonna be perfect at it, then don't wanna try it, you know? So I protected myself in those ways. Just avoided the pain. I avoided trying to deal with it for so long and all of that. So those are the biggest things. But honestly, what has helped me the most is my therapist for sure.

Journaling has been. A godsend, like I've always been a journaler. Um, but being able to write out my thoughts and write out my, my pain and my confusion and my just, all of that has been really helpful. Prayer has been, um, a beautiful thing for me, of course, but therapy has been like, like that's been the biggest thing.

of course. And I think I just as a side. On therapy. I still see my therapist regularly and I think that I've just recently kind of come to the terms with it, that that is also okay. Mm-hmm. , that I still am speaking to my therapist because again, I think I've been carrying around this like I this shame that like, wow, this thing is like still affecting me.

It doesn't necessarily though mean that my life is bad or that my life is like somehow less than. Because I'm dealing with these struggles. It's just that I'm dealing with these struggles and I'm trying to be proactive about it, and I'm trying to live my life the best way that it can. And sometimes you need a little extra help.

And that is okay. That's even courageous in, in my opinion, because you're acknowledging I can't do this alone. I can't, you know, I don't have the ability to, to deal with this all on my own. I, I need help And, and to someone who you know for so long in your life. Done things on your own, who's figured things out, who's excelled in so many areas.

Yeah, that's super humbling. Thank you. I'm not sure I would've put it in those words, but I appreciate you saying that . No, absolutely. And I, uh, I think so many of us, when, when you're talking about the shame, so many of us need to hear that it's not, it's okay not to be okay. It really is. Mm-hmm. , and again, like your story says, so.

When we put up that facade, that mask, or, and even, you know, believe ourselves for the longest time that everything's fine, We're fine, everything's good, we're okay. Um, once it comes to that point where it, it comes to the surface, it is, it's super humbling. And, and like you said, shameful and it's just like, I don't have control of this.

This is not something that I want to be dealing with. But, uh, but yeah, I think all of us need to hear that it's okay not to be, And it's okay to ask for help. In fact, you really can't heal on your own. It's true. It's just impossible because you're only gonna be stuck in your own head. Um, I think that's what's beautiful about Restored is like being able to at least write it out or have the ability to write it out.

That's like a beautiful first step, but that's only one step because you're only gonna, your words are only gonna be stuck in your own head, and you need to figure out the best way. To deal with those things and to cope appropriately. I think that's one of the things that was, that I'm realizing as well, you know, or that I have realized over the last few years is that I, I was never taught the appropriate ways to cope with things that were difficult.

Right. Or that, or really do deep wounds, uh, because. Again, because we, no one really knew that divorce is going to affect me as the way it did, you know? Mm-hmm. . And so I was never given the appropriate tool. So essentially what therapy has been for me is like a constant reminder of how to unlearn all of these terrible habits that I've built and like unlearn, unie, all of these lies that I have believed for many years about myself.

And so, so I myself am. Learning how to, to do all of these things in healthy, appropriate, good life giving ways. And that's, it's hard, it's hard to do. It's, it is very, it is humbling too to, to, to do that. So, Absolutely. Uh, that, that makes so much sense. And you mentioned some of the ways that you've, some of the things you've done to heal.

Was there anything else to add to that? Like any, anything that you've done? Any technique, any, You mentioned prayer, you mentioned journally, you mentioned counseling. Um, and those are, Amazing. We definitely encourage people to, to do all those things. Was there anything else? You know, I had a couple close friends that were able to kind of listen, to listen and just like sit with me and my pain and I, and really like, wanted to hear, um, they were, they wanted to hear what my perspective and what I was going on and that was really beautiful and it really just gave me like hope, like wow.

Okay. My words matter, my experience matters. The, I am a contributor to the Primal Loss book. I know that you had Layla, um, on a few podcasts to go and, um, I was one of the, uh, contributors to her book, and I, we the like authors or the contributors to the book, um, have a private Facebook group and that has been really beautiful and healing, um, to just be part.

All of us together, um, having this common shared experience, um, to be able to kind of live life and lean on one another and pray for one another and just to, to see how we've done this and how did you do that and how do you guys handle this and things like that. That's been a really beautiful part of my, like, own healing.

And one other thing actually that's sometimes is as I feel is pretty rare, but I had a really beautiful gift to be able to share a lot of this with my mom. One of the things that we as. Children of divorced are terrified about is that our parents are gonna know how we actually feel, how we really feel about this situation.

Right? It goes back to like not wanting to rock the boat. We don't want to tell them because then they're gonna, you know, We don't know exactly. We just don't want them to know because it will, it could upset them. We don't want that. Right. And we just don't feel safe to, with our parents to share. And they're, you know, in years into my, like, healing, you know, So it's been a couple years now, but, um, just really randomly, I just was able to kind of share.

Kind of matter of factly my experience. And my mom was so gracious and really listened and heard me, and it was a beautiful, beautiful gift. And honestly, I don't think I realized at the time how. Impactful. That was in my own healing to be heard by one of my parents. You know, I've tried to, you know, share some of this with my dad.

It's just different. Of course, I love both of my parents and my parents. Clearly they love me. Um, but it's hard to share these things with them, especially even if as adults, , you want to share some of this stuff, and as an, and an independent adult. But I, I do wanna kind of give hope that, like for anyone listening or young people or whomever that.

If you have. Challenging relationships with their parents. Like I get that and I see you, but there is also opportunities to be able to genuinely share your experience with, with them at some point. Um, like don't lose hope in that either. Cause that. Was a beautiful gift for me. That's beautiful. Yeah. And man, that can be so healing.

There's some research that was done about children of divorce and loneliness in particular. One of the things that they found is if you are able to develop, you know, of course if it's healthy, and usually it needs to happen gradually. If you're able to develop a relationship with your parent, one or both, both being ideal, um, it actually helps you to feel less depressed, less anxious, less alone.

And so, uh, that's definitely something that all of us can, you know, work toward even if we're not at that point yet. I didn't realize the, like, value that it was to be able to share that with my mom and, and whatnot. So yeah, it was definitely a gift and I, and I hope and pray that others will be able to.

To be able to have that as part of their healing journey as well. Now that you've gone through some of this healing process, and of course you said you're still going through it, which makes sense, this is something that we deal with for years and really it's just kind of an infinite goal. It's something we're always working on, but, uh, but I was curious how, how's your life different?

How have you seen your life change after giving this attention, going through the kind of grueling healing process? How, how's your life different? Yeah, I mean, I think that I'm just more aware of the thing of the areas that I am struggling with, and I'm like doing my best to enter into those, um, parts, to, to heal them in ways and to live my life fully.

And, you know, I think that so much of, of, you know, living a life of trying to always put my best foot forward and, and having all of the things. You know, be perfect quote unquote and all of that. But also not really taking any risks, you know, has really like held me back in a lot of ways. I don't say that like I've not taken risks because when I objectively look back, I have taken risks.

Like, you know, not many people would go to Honduras to do mission work, so I like get that objectively. But you know, I think that overall, like just even though every day or like choosing to do this thing versus that thing, like, you know, I'm always going on the side of what's more comfortable and I think that's really.

You know, held me back, you know, in, in a lot of ways and I'm, you know, hopeful and, and I think that it has definitely been a light for me to see that. And so that I can like, move forward and make, you know, better, more full, you know, full decisions that like will allow me to live like a more, a full like life of.

That I'm thriving in or whatnot. It's, yeah, it's a beautiful thing to be able to take risks and know that if you fail, it's okay. It really is. And uh, I think so many of us fear that, but, but it's beautiful. We've gone to that point. As you, as you know, usually the biggest effect on us is in our relationships.

And so I wanna talk about that a little bit. How have you seen. Parents divorce affect your relationships, everything from your friendships to dating relationships. I definitely value like some deep friendships. Um, those are harder to find and like, like get to because it takes more vulnerability and whatnot and um, you know, time and all that to get there.

Yeah. But I feel like I've definitely had some like beautiful friendships in there, but it's also hard to like try. Be full yourself, um, and feel, um, safe to do that. And I think that that is a challenge, you know, kind of goes back to like, you know, Can I risk this? Can I risk putting myself out there? You know, whether that's with just good friends or with, you know, somebody you're interested in romantically.

So yeah, I, it has, you know, from like the dating perspective, I'm single. So it definitely in that romantic relationship department has definitely affected me more, I would say for. Probably assume obvious reasons. Um, I, you know, have a huge fear of getting hurt and, you know, similar things happening to me that happen to my parents, and of course I don't want that.

And so, I mean, there are many reasons. Like I have a, I have a huge desire to be married and have a family and all of these things. And there's many factors that play into how, why dating is extremely difficult. Today. Um, but it, uh, you know, it adds to it when you're already kind of, you know, you have a lot of like, worry and fear, I guess to like enter in and to be vulnerable in this, like this way because, you know, we all have a desire to be fully seen and known and you know, and we want.

We want that in our, in the person that we're like clearly going to end up with for in, in a marriage. And so to do that just takes some risk and, and whatnot. And I, it's been, it's been challenging for me. I and my, the last, uh, dating relationship that I had definitely brought out a lot of, um, things that I needed to work on in terms of my own continued healing and, um, realizing how.

Still self protecting. I was being in terms of my like, you know, being, oh, I don't know, like open and, and whatnot. So, yeah. Yeah, I think it's definitely a challenge. And so in the, uh, private, online, um, group for the pri loss book, I, um, a lot of those. People are married. And so I feel sometimes, not all of them, but many of them are.

And so it feels like everyone's talking about their families and family life and all these things and, and their marriage struggles and just supporting each other in that and all of that. And I'm just like, Oh, but what is not turn, you know? And it's hard to, um, to kind of be there and, and to kind of enter in.

And I'm going to be 35 at the end, actually next week I'll be 35. And so, um, you know, I am not a young chicken anymore. And so it's challenging to, to kind of, to be that and to not like, think like, gosh, like is it because of my wounds that I'm still like single and I'm still like waiting and doing all these things and just kind of like, is that really part of the deal?

And, you know, it's just, it's, it's the reality that I'm in. Um, It's not bad, but it is just one of those things that just kind of is a lingering, ongoing effect. And I can't help but think that the fears or the, the concerns I had and the self protection that I had, you know, throughout my life, you know, has played into my inability to kind of like give myself more and to find the right person.

But also that it's just how the cookie crumbles. And I, and I trust that this my life, you know, is good and God has a plan and all of those beautiful things. So I'm not super hung up on it, but it is, you know, it is a reality and um, I can't help but think that, you know, some of that is, it's just part of the.

The hurdles to go through. Yeah. Hey, thank you for being so vulnerable with this. I know, yeah. I heard, heard so many stories and friends who, you know, they have just such a desire to be married, but for one reason or another it's just not happening. And like you said, you know, there's a lot that complained it, but.

Oh yeah. I have no doubt that, uh, you know, our parents' divorce separation plays a huge role kind of in entering into relationships, learning to love and, and definitely approaching marriage. I know for me, I was just terrified of, of marriage of love, cuz like you said, so, Well, I didn't wanna repeat my parents' mistakes, you know, I didn't wanna.

Allow someone to hurt me the way that I felt hurt by their breakup. And so I really loved at arm's length and took a lot of courage even to date, to be honest with you. It was, it was a hard thing to, to work through and yeah, I'm still working through it today. I, I think so many people listening can relate to this and I'm so glad you, you brought it up and you were so vulnerable because yeah, I think it's gonna give a lot of people a lot of hope and just let them know that they're not alone.

Pretty kind of a open book in that area, you know? So , that's a good thing. I, um, yeah, I randomly actually, when I was, um, in Florida, Kind of had a significantly regular like blog series that I was doing online that was, um, kind of geared towards single women. And so I definitely have a heart for single women and obviously still being single.

It's just kind of a thing that we're, that I'm dealing with. So, Yes, I am all about talking about that part too. Yeah, no, thank you. And I actually, in closing out, I wanna give you a chance to talk about that a little bit. And so the question really is, you know, what words of encouragement would you give to someone who comes from a broken family who, you know, feels broken, feels stuck, but maybe they don't feel broken or they don't feel stuck, they haven't connected the dots.

Um, and if you would kind of add to that too, someone who really has seen. Their relationships not work out for one reason or another, but in part because their parents divorce is separation. What words of encouragement would you give to, to someone in that position? My biggest thing for anybody who is really, who has parents are divorced wherever you are, just know that I think I, I just wanna tell you that it doesn't have to be this way.

It wasn't meant to be this way. and wherever you are, whatever feelings you have about it, feel them. It's okay to feel them and you're not alone. And please look for. Somebody to talk about it, even if you're not even sure what your feelings are about it. Say you're similar to me and you didn't even know that you should be upset about, or you could be upset about it.

Just ask. Like it's okay to ask about it, um, to somebody. And I know you might not have family or your parents aren't the people that you can do that with, but I know that, um, you Joy Wolf kind of talk about the ways that Restored has for the opportunity to share, but. I just encourage anybody, wherever they're at, wherever, wherever you are in your, your journey in terms of understanding your parents' divorce, how it's affecting you, whether or not you think it is, just be open to that.

Ask about it. Dive into it, and just. Allow yourself to feel and you're not alone, and just reach out to somebody if you're really, really struggling, if you're really in a dark place, definitely therapy is the way to go. Um, and for all the, all of you who do have parents, um, that are divorced and you're a single, and it is something that is challenging to kind of deal with, I also want to remind you that you are not alone.

You were made for more and you are more than your relationship status. It is. Your life matters just as it is right now. No matter where you are, whatever you're doing, your life matters and it is good, and good things are going to happen for you. Thank you so much. If people wanna connect with you, what's the best way to do that?

I'm on Instagram, but it's like private, but you're more than welcome to send me a message on there. Jen underscore Cox rn. I like check there regularly. It's private, so you just have to send me a message. I also have a blog. I don't regularly do that, but I do. Um, it's there. It has some of my. Story has, if you're single, has a lot of things on there, resources for that.

Um, it, that is jumping in puddles blog.com. Awesome. Thank you so much. We'll put all that in the show notes for you guys so you don't need to remember it. But Jen, thank you so much for just being so vulnerable with us, for sharing your story and for, uh, the, the awesome advice that you gave to really, really appreciate you being here.

And I know. Everyone listening is better for it. So thank you. Thank you Joey, and your encouragement is beautiful and I really appreciate it. And I'm, um, honored again that you asked me to be on here, and I'm excited to see where Restored goes, So thank you. So many good takeaways. Just a few to highlight guys, always remember, there's no shame in struggling.

There's no shame in being affected by your parents' divorce. There's no shame in not having everything together. It's okay not to be okay, and it's okay to ask for help. You cannot heal alone, and it's not a weakness to need help to heal. It's actually courageous to seek healing and to really wanna make yourself a better, stronger person.

One of the things that Jen said that really stuck out to me too was that were never really taught how to cope with difficult things in life or deep wounds in healthy ways. I totally relate to that, and I've felt that for a long time in my life. In fact, that's part of the reason why I started restored.

We wanna change that. We wanna give you guys the tools and the practical advice that you need to learn how to cope in healthy ways, to actually heal, to make healing simple, and to continue growing. So that you guys can feel hold again. And one tool we're actually creating for you guys is the book. We're writing a book and more info on that later.

That will probably be coming out late in 2020. It's the first book that we're writing, so still learning the process, but that'll be out later and it's really gonna be a tool to help you either begin your healing journey or to continue. Your healing journey. Jen had mentioned that there's a way for you to share your story with Restored, and you could do that in three easy steps.

You go to restoredministry.com/story. Again, that's restored. Ministry. Ministry is just singular.com/story. You'll fill out a, a short form, take a little bit of time to do that, and then once you submit it, we'll actually turn it into an anonymous blog article. And like Jen said, it's really one of the steps to heal, to share your story, to get it out of your head, out of your chest, onto paper, onto a screen, to to share it with other people.

And so this is just a tool, a way for you. To easily do that in a safe and private way. All the resources mentioned, uh, in the show are in the show notes@restoredministry.com slash 11. That's the number 11. Again, that's restored ministry.com/eleven. Thank you so much for listening. If this has been useful, please subscribe and share this podcast with someone that you know who could really use.

Always remember, you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person that you were born to be.

Dear Fathers: What I wish my dad had known before he left

5 minute read

Until recently I used to always roll my eyes when I heard the term ‘daddy issues.’

To me it was just an excuse girls used to wear dresses that are too short and sleep with men they knew didn’t care about them. After all, my dad moved out after my parents got divorced and I didn’t go around in skimpy dresses hooking up with guys I barely knew.

I was convinced that I had been unaffected; that ‘daddy issues’ was just a made up term by Hollywood or a misguided psychologist.

In fact, it wasn’t until over ten years afterward that I started to suspect that maybe, possibly I was wrong (there’s a first time for everything!).

I had always been anxious around men and very distrustful of them, something I never questioned. To me that was normal. Why would you think a guy was good? They might be cute, or funny, or charming, or talented…but not trustworthy. And I was more than okay with that. To me thinking any differently was just being naive.

I watched as my friends got hurt over the years while patting myself on the back for not making their same mistakes. I knew better than to try ‘putting myself out there.’ ‘Miss Independent’ was my theme song and I was proud of it (Kelly Clarkson’s version, not Ne-Yo’s).

Of course I did get hurt – heartbroken- in fact. I liked guys and was disappointed by them; but I mostly kept this to myself. It never got far enough that many others knew or that I was particularly invested. When it finally did go wrong, I felt oddly satisfied that I had been right about them all along. Guys couldn’t be trusted, not even the ‘good’ ones. Not even the ones that said ‘I love you.’

That is what I believed. Until I actually met and really liked a good guy, and then I was in trouble.

Big time.

The problem wasn’t him. The problem was that I treated him like every other guy I had known (or thought I had known). Suspicious, questioning, doubting, accusing, undeserving of my trust or the benefit of the doubt…not at first, obviously; but the more I got to known him the more I felt comfortable expressing anger toward him, even when he most definitely did not deserve it.

I became more and more frustrated with myself as I tried to trust and failed repeatedly. Why couldn’t I just have a little faith? Why was I sabotaging this relationship that was so precious to me? Why was I hurting the man I loved so much?

The answer that kept coming up and that I persistently dismissed was this: maybe it was because dad left.

Fathers teach their daughters how to be loved. They are meant to cherish and dote on us. They tell us we’re beautiful and smart and set the standard of how we are meant to be treated by men. They are our rock, a figure of strength and stability amidst the chaos that is growing up in today’s world.

But that’s not what I learned.

What I learned was that men leave, and that it might be my fault. Something about me could be innately unlovable. Because if I was lovable, he would have loved me; and if he loved me, he would have stayed.

Cognitively, at the age of 23 I understand that his leaving had little to nothing to do with me. I also understand that my dad had his own demons that were instrumental in his decision to leave, and that he did not mean to hurt me. But the damage was done. To undo 10 years of deep hurt that was pushed down and strong defenses that were built up is a monumental task. I had to become something unnatural to survive, tough and angry, something not compatible with my naturally sensitive demeanor.

Experience is the most powerful teacher and my parents’ divorce and my father moving back overseas afterward is probably the most defining moment of my life so far. As much as we try to tell ourselves it’s not, divorce is traumatizing and destroys families and the individuals within them.

I’m lucky enough that my dad calls me almost every day. He cares about me, certainly. But unfortunately, phone calls will never replace the presence of a strong, loving father, day in and day out.

‘Daddy issues’ are real (even though I still hate that term). I say all this, not to evoke sympathy, but as a plea to any men out there. If you are married, or thinking about marriage – especially if you are a father – understand that your role is irreplaceable and that you are needed more than you will ever truly know. Your marriage is not just about you, if you have children, regardless of whether or not they are aware of it, they want to be loved by you; and your leaving will affect them for the rest of their lives.

I suffered a lot at the age of 12 when my parents separated. 10 years later it continues to haunt me as I attempt to navigate my way back to trust with someone who actually deserves it. It has been immensely difficult for both of us and not something I would wish on my worst enemy. No one should have to deal with this, but I know many do. Two Christmases, Thanksgivings, weekends shuffling back and forth between houses, step-parents…it’s not normal. As a culture we’ve convinced ourselves that it is, and twelve-year-old girls everywhere are being completely heartbroken by the one man that is supposed to love them the most, by the one man that was supposed to know better.

I wish dad had known that before he left.

This article was written by Miranda Rodriguez, who is a contributing writer for the Restored blog. It has been reposted with permission. It originally appeared on her blog, First Class Act.

#010: 5 Practical Tips to Cure Loneliness

Did you know that children of divorce are actually more prone to experience loneliness?

If you or someone you know struggles with loneliness, this episode is for you. You'll hear 5 common sense tips that you can start today to overcome loneliness.

eBook: 5 Practical Tips to Cure Loneliness

“Mom told my siblings and me that Dad would no longer live with us. In fact, they were getting divorced... Immediately, I froze. I went numb. The 11 year old Joey couldn’t handle that news.”

— 5 Practical Tips to Cure Loneliness

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• Restored Resources

  • Join Restored’s online community

  • Find a counselor or spiritual director

• Video

  • Chris Stefanick: Why does God let us suffer?

  • Fr. Mike Schmitz: Why Does God Let Bad Things Happen?

• Books

  • Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

• Research

  • Patrick F. Faga and Robert Rector, “The Effects of Divorce on America,” The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, No. 1373 (2000), https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/fagan-divorce.htm.

  • Hyun Sik Kim, “Consequences of Parental Divorce for Child Development,” A Journal of the American Sociological Association, Volume 76, No. 3 (2011), http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/images/journals/docs/pdf/asr/Jun11ASRFeature.pdf quoted in “Children of divorce more likely to struggle with anxiety, loneliness and low self-esteem,” News Medical Life Sciences, June 2, 2011, https://www.news-medical.net/news/20110602/Children-of-divorce-more-likely-to-struggle-with-anxiety-loneliness-and-low-self-esteem.aspx.

  • Nazmiye Civitci, Asım Civitci,and N. Ceren Fiyakali, “Loneliness and Life Satisfaction in Adolescents with Divorced and Non-Divorced Parents,” Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 9 (2) (2009), 513 & 520-521.

  • Jim Sliwa, “So Lonely I Could Die,” American Psychological Association, August 5, 2017, https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/08/lonely-die.

  • Heidi Grant Halvorson Ph.D., “The Cure for Loneliness,” Psychology Today, October 1, 2010, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-success/201010/the-cure-loneliness.

  • Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work (Danvers: Crown Business, 2010) quoted in Brigid Schulte, “Do these exercises for two minutes a day and you’ll immediately feel happier, researchers say,” The Washington Post, June, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/06/29/do-these-exercises-for-two-minutes-a-day-and-youll-immediately-feel-happier-researchers-say/?utm_term=.fddb78a168b2.

  • Matthew Kelly, Rediscover Jesus (Boston: Beacon Publishing, 2015), 16.

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Coming Up: Episode #011: I Thought My Parents’ Divorce Didn’t Affect Me | Jennifer Cox

Thanks for listening! Our next episode features the story of Jennifer Cox.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Do you feel alone? Do you struggle with loneliness? If you do, ironically, you're not alone. People like us, people whose parents are separated or divorced, are actually more likely to feel lonely according to the research. And guys, I really feel for people who struggle with loneliness because I've been there, it's horrible.

Loneliness is truly one of the worst things you can experience, But there's hope. Today we're gonna give you five practical tips that you could use. You can start them today to cure loneliness. Keep listening.

Welcome to the Restored podcast, helping you. Heal and grow after your parents' divorce or separation so you can feel whole again. I'm your host, Joey Pelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 10, and before we get into the five tips, I wanna open up to you guys about my own struggle with loneliness.

It really started on the most painful day of my life, which was the day that my parents separated, and I'll never forget it. It was a warm spring day. I was 11 years old, and my mom sat me and my siblings down to break the news to us. She told me and my siblings that my dad would no longer be living with us.

In fact, they were getting a divorce. Immediately. Soon as I heard that news, I froze. I went. The 11 year old me couldn't handle that news. And up to that point, my dad was my hero. I looked up to him so much and I felt very safe in his presence. In fact, I wanted to be just like him as a young boy. I treasured the days that he would take me to work with him.

He was in construction, so we'd get up early, we'd get donuts and we'd go to the job site, and I love that. And like so many boys who, who look up to their dads, I loved covering my face and shaving cream and, uh, shaving it off with a comb just to be like my dad. And in short, I, I felt close to him. So when I found out he was leaving, when he was moving out, it shattered my world.

Like I said, the 11 year old me just didn't have the ability to cope with that news. And immediately I felt abandon. I felt unwanted and I felt like I wasn't good enough. And so all I could do was cry. And so I hid in the closet and I just cried. And as I sat there, a million thoughts raced through my head.

I worried about my parents and what would happen to them. I worried about my siblings and I worried about my myself. What would happen now? And even talking about it to this day, a sadness still shoots through my heart because it really was a traumatic and such a tragic day for my family. Following that day, I became very bitter, very angry.

Sad and fiercely independent. I didn't wanna rely on anyone, and I did all sorts of unhealthy things to cope with the pain that I was experiencing. Around that time. A friend of mine introduced me to pornography and so that became my drug of choice. And even at a young age, I knew that I wanted to be happy.

And the pornography, even though it felt good in the moment, brought some relief. It offered an escape, some comfort, a. I just felt so empty, and so all of that really made me feel extremely lone. Eventually I found some really good friends and that helped a ton, but I still struggle with loneliness. In high school, it got worse.

I was athletic. I played sports. People seemed to like me, but I still struggle with loneliness. I would isolate myself and I don't totally know why, but part of the reason I did that I think, is because I felt, unlike everyone else, why did I feel unlike everyone else, because of my broken. Because of the bad choices I had made due to the pain that I experienced when my parents broke up, because I felt broken, and it seemed like nobody else was not in the way that I was, so nobody would understand me.

I guess I, I felt out of place like I didn't belong and so I just felt lonely and even though I had good friends, I was afraid to open up to them. I was afraid to tell them because, well, What would they think? So I silently swore not to be vulnerable. I never wanted to allow anyone the power to hurt me the way that my parents' breakup did.

And since my friends couldn't help, I looked around for some support, but I didn't find anything. Surprisingly, support for people like me, people whose parents are separated or divorced. Didn't exist, as I learned over the years, actually wasn't alone and feeling lonely. Loneliness is such a common struggle for so many people, but especially for children of divorce or separation.

And there are some really practical ways to fix it. But before we get into that, I wanna say a couple really important things. So, Listen up here. If you're a teenager or a young adult and your parents are separated or divorced, or maybe in the process of doing that, you're in the right place. In fact, I created a ReSTOR for you.

And if you're someone who loves or leads young people like that whose parents are separated or divorced, You're in the right place as well. We wanna help you guys. Help them. Now, if anyone listening is looking for an academic report by PhD psychologists, you're actually in the wrong place. I'm sorry to break the news to you.

I have nothing against academics. I have a master's degree myself, and I have a lot of friends who have PhDs. But I've learned in life we often complicate things that are actually pretty simple. And so the advice you're about to hear is simple because I believe that the simpler the advice, the more likely we are to actually implement it into our lives.

And so what you're about to hear really is just some common sense, practical advice on overcoming loneliness. It's based on my experience of wrestling with loneliness after my parents separated 15 years ago. It's based on the experience of others pulling lessons from their stories, and we have some research and expert advice.

That's referenced in this show where it's needed. So I'm not against that at all. But like I said, you don't need a master's degree to, to do this stuff or to listen to this podcast. We wanna really keep it simple. Now, all that being said, if your struggle with loneliness guys is extreme or paralyzing, even, go see a counselor and you could find a counselor if you go to our website at ReSTOR.

ministry.com/coaching. Again, that's restored ministry.com/coaching Ministry is a singular. Once you go to that website, the second step is just filling out a simple form. It'll take one to two minutes, and then from there we'll connect with you to show you options for counselors that you can connect with, counselors that we trust, that we approve.

Now, the reason I'm saying all this is because there are cases. Where loneliness is tied to some other serious psychological problem that really requires professional help. The advice that we're giving in this episode is no substitute for. Whether it's for those of us who struggle with loneliness, that is not due to a chemical I balance or a deeper psychological issue, because I believe that most loneliness is actually situational or even self-inflicted as opposed to loneliness caused by some serious or deep psychological issue.

So if you're in a really dark place with loneliness, Go see a counselor. And I know it's scary. It takes courage to do that. But take that first step. Go to the website, connect with the counselor, and one final thing before we dive into the content, the tips that we're about to give you. Are very practical and you can start them today, like I said at the top of the show, but do not do them all.

It'll overwhelm you, especially if these things are are new and you're trying them for the first time or you're not doing them in your life. In that case, really none of them will last, at least not for the long term instead, What I recommend is find one of them, find one of these tips that will help you the most, and then focus hard on implementing that into your life.

You're gonna see a lot more results by having a really narrow focus than trying to do everything at once. All right, let's dive in. The loneliness. It's a huge topic. It's a common struggle in our world. Yeah. Like I mentioned at the top of the show, and you saw my story, Children of. Are more prone to it.

And before we get into that, we really should ask the question, Well, what is loneliness? And as you can guess, loneliness is not just being alone. That's solitude. And solitude is healthy. We all need that. Everyone needs a alone time. But loneliness really is a lack of intimacy or belonging, right? You could be in a crowded room full of people and still feel lonely.

Broadly speaking, researchers define loneliness as the gap between the kind of relationships you desire. And the kind that you have. And another way to say it is the quality of your relationships doesn't live up to the hope you have for them. And there's two types of loneliness. There's social isolation and emotional isolation.

And the distinction's pretty, pretty simple. Social isolation is when you keep to yourself, you isolate yourself and you don't interact with other people. It's really a lack of relationships. Or maybe you have relationships, but you're not really spending time with your. And an example of this, of course, is someone who just locks themself up in their apartment, in their room or their dorm most of the time.

Emotional isolation is different. It's when you have those friendships and you see them frequently, but you don't feel close to those people, you don't feel understood. An example of this is a woman who has a husband and friends, but she feels like her relationships are lacking, that closeness, that intimacy, that she longs.

As children of divorce, there's a lot of reasons why we feel alone, but like you heard in my story, I think underneath it all, we feel like we don't belong. Even in our own families. Sometimes we feel broken. We feel unlike anyone else. We feel like nobody gets us. We're slow to trust and we tend to be very independent, so we don't wanna rely on anyone else.

We tend to be loaners, even though statistically we're not alone. Because as you've probably heard me say before, each year over 1 million American children suffer the divorce that their parents, but we still feel alone. Psychological research confirms that we are more likely to struggle with things like anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem, and sadness.

Another study found that young people with divorced parents are more susceptible to loneliness than young people with non divorce parents. And I know guys hearing that can be really discouraging, but do not give up hope. There are some solutions. Some things you can do to fix loneliness, and that's what we're gonna dive in right now.

So how do you overcome loneliness? Well, the first thing is, of course there's no magic pill. There's no perfect solution. I wish there was. I wish I could tell you guys that wish I had that to offer, but there's not, unfortunately. But we do wanna offer five tips for these tips are human tips, and one of them as a spiritual tip.

The first tip is find meaning. In your life, find meaning in your life. Have you heard of Victor Frankel? Victor Frankel was an Austrian psychiatrist who was locked up in a concentration camp in World War ii, and during his imprisonment, he observed why some of the people in the concentration camp survived the Nazis starvation and torture and why others did not.

And in short, what he learned was that the people who had a. Reason to live were the people who survived. In other words, those who found meaning a reason to live that was much bigger than themselves, were able to endure even the hell of a concentration camp. And so the fact that these people could survive such misery says something.

And on the flip side, those who lost meaning were more likely to give up and even take their own lives or or die. So Victor Frankel wrote a book about all this, and the book is called Man's Search for Meaning, just a phenomen. Book and we'll, we'll put that in the show notes for you guys. But what he concluded again was that more than anything in the world, more than power, pleasure, money, fame, we long for meaning in our lives.

We want a deep reason to live that's bigger than ourselves, and we long for that, so much that we're willing to give up, pleasure or comfort, and even in dirt pain. If the reason is good enough, there's a million examples of this, but you can think of a mother who's carrying a baby maybe through really difficult and painful pregnancy, or giving birth through really painful labor or a soldier putting himself through some really rigorous training, some painful training work, maybe even torture without giving up, you know, secrets for his country because he loves his country so much, and the point is comfort, power, pleasure, Those things can only last so long, but meaning can last.

So how do you find meaning in your life? Uh, that's obviously a huge question, but one way to do that is to find your mission in life. Find the purpose for which you exist. That's easy, right? No, of course not. But really what I've learned is the search is half the battle. And so while you're on that journey of funding your meaning in life, and that goes beyond just your job.

Or what you wanna do with your life, but really why are you on this planet? What are you here for? What's the purpose of your life? You really owe it to yourself to think about those questions. And those are big, deep questions, but reflect on those questions. Think about that, and really figure out why you're here.

And in the meantime, while you're doing that, while you're discovering that. Get outside of yourself. Serve people who are struggling more than you are. Serve people who are lonelier than you are. Do that by helping out a food kitchen for homeless people or maybe reaching on to a friend of yours who is going through a rough time.

And the practical ideas for this tip is to simply grab a pen and paper, or you can just grab your phone and make three short lists. These don't need to be perfect perfectionist. I'm watching you, and they don't need to be big or complete. You can always go back and edit them later. So don't stress out about this, but make three different lists.

On the first list, ask yourself the question, What am I passionate about? When you do these things, time flies by and you feel energized just by doing that. Simple examples of this are exercising, cooking things you really. Are passionate about. For the next list, ask yourself the question, what skills do I have?

This is stuff that you're good at and you've able to learn these skills. Or maybe you're just naturally talented in these areas. Examples of this are playing music or sports or, or something else much simpler. And one thing about this, I've often been surprised to see how people think. They're not skilled at anything.

But then when you start talking to them and they start sharing about their experiences and different training they've had, Things that they can do, They actually know more about something or they're able to do something that most other people can't or maybe not in the exact way that they can do it.

And so that's what I'm talking about here. This doesn't mean that you're world class edit. Doesn't mean that you're gonna win a gold medal for whatever you're doing, but it's something that you're skilled at. And for the third list, the last list, ask yourself the question, what needs. In the world resonate with me.

And these, these are real needs that hit your hard and move, right? These are outside of yourself. They're not just things you're passionate about. You may be passionate about them, but these are real needs that people are experiencing in the world, and you just wanna help. Maybe these things make you angry or make you sad, and you really wish that things were different.

Examples of these are, of course, women in unplanned pregnancies. Maybe you just wanna help them or abuse victims. It looks different for different people. And one little tip, if you wanna apply this exercise for a job, if you wanna find a job that you'd love for that third list, instead of asking the question, you know, what needs in the world resonate with me?

You can just ask yourself the question, What can I do that's gonna make me some money? What can I do that will provide for myself, for my. And so the point of this exercise, of course, is not to help you get a job, but you can adapt it a little bit to find that. And really the intersection of your passions, your skills, and then the needs in the world could give you a clue.

I'm not gonna say it's final, but it could give you a clue about your purpose in life. And so this exercise has really helped me, so I hope it helps you guys too. Again, the three questions are, what am I passionate about? What skills do I have? And then what needs in the world resonate with me? So that's the first tip.

Find meaning in your life. Tip number two, build your relationships. And this, this goes back to my own story. Building authentic relationships has really helped me. Being known, being loved is really one of our most basic human needs. But instead of focusing on finding people to just love you, focus on loving others.

Make friendships a priority and not just focus on finding great friends, but focus on being a great friend. Build those quality friendships, not just a lot of surface friendships. I'm, my personality tends to just have closer, deeper, close friendships. But I know some personalities like having a lot of friends and there's nothing wrong with that, but make sure there's at least a few people who you could go deep with.

And I know this is a sensitive topic, but if it's healthy, And if it's safe for you, make relationships with your family a priority, especially your parents. This is something I'm still working on and, and the reason I mention this is because the research shows that the quality of your relationship with your parents impacts.

Your level of loneliness. In other words, a good relationship with one or both of your parents can actually decrease the loneliness that you feel and it actually strengthens your self esteem. Now, again, guys, only if that's healthy and safe for you and take your time as well, especially if you feel far from your parent.

It just needs to be gradual. And of course, you need good boundaries if there's been situations where boundaries have been broken. All right? Now back to your friends. When you're with them guys, put down your. Really challenge yourself to face the demands of friendships so that you can experience the joys too.

And remember, friends are actually good for you. Probably don't think of this when you're setting up a time to hang out with your friends or heading over to see 'em. But science actually says that greater social connection is associated with a 50% reduced risk of early death. So if you wanna extend your life, Hang out with your friends and if you're single, what I would say to you is work on building genuine friendships before starting any dating relationship.

And there's no reason to be perfect. I, I'm not saying that you have to be flawless before you enter into a dating relationship, cuz you probably never would, but just make sure you're healthy and whole before you. On that path of dating, seek healing for your brokenness and try to overcome the weaknesses you have, especially those serious weaknesses.

That's really the best gift that you can give to your future spouse, and it's gonna make your relationships so much better. And one last thing about friendships that really helped me. It became comfortable really gradually. To reflect on and share my story with my friends. And without becoming unhealthy, my friendships actually became healing.

I opened up to the right people, especially my guy friends. I found that it was really helpful and began to feel understood. I felt like I belonged, and so I really hope you guys can get to that point where, You can open up to one, two, or three of your friends just about the things that you've experienced in your life, and you can even tell them, you know, again, without this becoming unhealthy or a codependent relationship, or just relying on each other in unhealthy ways, you can tell them that you're feeling lonely.

The practical ideas for this tip are really simple. Just write down three people who you wanna be closer friends. And again, this is non-romantic, just three people who you wanna be closer friends with. And to take that a step further, schedule a time. Each week or every other week or once a month, however often, to hang out with those close friends.

Put it on your calendar, right? Set a reminder, turn an alert on so you don't forget, and just do that. Make that a habit. I do this with some of my friends who are spread out all over the country. We have one night a month that we just. Take to FaceTime or Skype each other and it's really good. We did that on like the, I think it's the second Monday of the month.

And it's super, super helpful to just have like that same time every month. And we often end up moving it to another night. But the point is we're actually doing it because it's on the calendar and we have reminders set up to, to tell us. And of course we're being intentional about it. Putting on your calendar is not automatically gonna make you do it, but you'll be more likely to do it.

And another friend of mine, uh, we hang out like every three weeks. We. Said, and I realized that some of you guys are like, Ugh, I don't wanna put things on my calendar. I'm not like that. I'm not that structured. And that's fine, but have some sort of regular routine way that you hang out with your friends if that's not happening.

And using your calendar doesn't make you like a need freak. So that's okay. So the second tip again, is build your relationships. The third tip to cure loneliness is change your negative thinking. Patterns not long ago. I've read an article in Psychology Today that explained, uh, a meta-analysis study about loneliness.

And if you're not familiar with meta-analysis studies, they're basically studies that summarize other studies that have been conducted instead of. Conducting their own study. And what they did in the study is they looked at various methods of treating loneliness, and they just asked the question, What is the most effective method at decreasing loneliness?

There were four methods that they considered. The first method was improve social skills. The second method was enhanced social support. The third was increase. Opportunities for social interaction. And then the fourth method is change negative thinking patterns. And I'll explain each of them a little bit.

So, improve social skills. So this is basic. This is learning how to have a conversation, how to hold eye contact, how to ask questions, how to pick up on social cues, things like that. The second enhanced social support. So this means people who will support you, who will be there for you if you're struggling or you're facing a problem in your life.

The next method was increase opportunities for social interactions. So basically, you know, if you're not going out and seeing people, just do that. Attend events, play games, join a league, whatever. So the last method was change, negative thinking patterns. And just to explain this one a little bit, the research found, it's kind of surprising, but the research found that over time, chronic loneliness, Makes us increasingly sensitive to.

And on the lookout for rejection and hostility in ambiguous social situations, lonely people immediately think the worst. Another way to say that is lonely people pay more attention to the negative in social situations than the positive. For example, if a lonely person is out with a friend, uh, who's maybe acting kind of distant, they're not really talking, they're not making eye contact, that seem kind of distracted, that lonely person may immediately think that they must have done something wrong.

That or something's wrong with them, and that causes the lonely person to withdraw, to isolate themselves further, which makes them more lonely. And so you could just see it's just this vicious cycle of loneliness. Now, which of those methods do you think was the most effective at reading this? I thought, well, it's probably one of the first three.

Right, because improving your social skills, that's definitely has to help. You know, getting more social support, people who can support you in difficult times, that's definitely gonna help too. And of course, interacting with more people is definitely gonna help when it comes to loneliness. But I was actually wrong.

I, I thought that, but I was actually wrong. What the study found was the most effective method was changing negative thinking patterns. The article went on to say, treatment methods aimed at changing. Thinking patterns were on average four times more likely than other methods in reducing loneliness four times.

In fact, the other three approaches weren't particularly effective at all. Pretty amazing. So what's the takeaway? Your thinking matters that much. And you may have heard this old proverb that's often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. So a thought reenact. So an act reap a habit. So a habit reap a character.

So a character, Repa Destiny. In other words, that really all starts with our thoughts, what we think matters, and in a way, our life is really a result. Of our thoughts. And so when you fall into negative thinking, immediately challenge your negative thoughts. Engage 'em with a logical part of your mind.

Don't just let your emotions rule. You can ask the question, is that actually true or is there maybe another way to look at it? And going back to the example of going out with a friend who's acting kind of distant, the what the lonely person should do is ask the question, is it possible? That maybe they had a difficult day, that maybe their boyfriend or their girlfriend broke up with them, or maybe their family's going through a rough time.

You know, asking that question is completely reasonable, cuz that might be the case. It might not be you, it might be something else. And so just consider other ways of looking at it if you immediately go to attack yourself or think that, Oh my gosh, I'm horrible and this takes being really intentional.

But it does work as the research shows. And don't be afraid too, to ask people if there's something you did that was. Don't constantly ask this question. You know, think through the other possible reasons why they might be feeling that way. But you can ask them, Hey, was there something I did that rubbed you the wrong way?

Or was there something I did that bothered you? And so the practical ideas here, kind of like I was just going through. And so the practical ideas for this tip, every night while you're brushing your teeth, just take two minutes, one minute to reflect on the things that you were thankful. And I know this might sound funny, or this might sound like a silly tip, but Harvard Research on Happiness actually shows that people who did this really simple exercise of reflecting on three things that they're thankful for, reported higher levels of happiness.

And so my wife and I, we do this every night. We just say three things that we're thankful for, and it could be really simple. I'm really thankful for the ice cream that I just say. I'm really thankful for the show that we watch. I'm thankful for the friends that we have. Whatever it is, it doesn't need to be complex.

Keep it simple. And if you're not seeing any progress after you try this for a bit, go ahead and seek out a counselor. Go, go find a counselor. There's really no shame in doing that. It's really helped me and they're, again, they're professionally trained to deal with this stuff, and so go to them. They have a bunch of tools and techniques that they can help beyond what I just offer that can help you change your negative thinking patterns so you don't feel so alone.

So the third tip, change your negative thinking. Patterns. Tip number four is a really simple and quick tip, guys. Find a community that understands you. And what I mean by this, friendships are fantastic, but you also need a tribe of people that are like you, that understand you and that know you what you've been through, and they know your experience.

And I love my friends. They're awesome, but they can't always relate to me when it comes to the struggles that I. As a child of divorce. And so being around people who get that at least from time to time is really healthy, important, and even healing. And so there's really nothing complicated here. Like I mentioned before, at the core of loneliness is a feeling that we don't belong.

And so finding a place where we do belong is incredibly healing. So find a tribe. Some practical ideas here for this. Tip, you can join a club, a league, a group on campus, and again, seek out counseling if you need it, especially group counseling. That could be really helpful. For this tip store, we have a free online community.

You can join our online community by going to restored ministry.com. Again, ministry is singular restored ministry.com/. Community on there. You'll fill out a quick form, again, one to two minutes, and then we'll get back to you through email and get you edited into the group and some of the benefits to that.

You're just, again, surrounded by people who understand you. They know what you've been through, they've probably been through it themselves. You can speak freely about the stuff that you're dealing with, again, to a group of people who actually get it, and you'll be challenged to grow into a better and stronger person and learn how to deal with the pain and the problems that you face in your life.

And so we'd love to have you in our online community. Again, that's restored ministry.com. Slash community. So that fourth tip again is find a community that understands you. And then our last tip. And like I mentioned, the four tips that we just went through we're more human tips. But this last tip is a spiritual tip.

And so the tip is build your relationship with God. And guys, listen up if you don't believe in God. If you have a rocky relationship with God or no relationship at all, you may be hesitant to keep listening, but I really encourage you to keep listening wherever you're at. It's okay to be there. And in those cases where you're really struggling in your relationship with God or you maybe don't even believe that God exists, I challenge you just to take an objective look.

An honest look at whatever it is that's holding you back from that. What I've often found is as children of divorce, typically the reasons we have for rejecting God or rebelling against God is usually more emotional than intellectual. And so for example, if you doubt God's existence, then take a serious look at the arguments for and against it.

You really owe it to yourself to seek those answers. Cuz this is a. Deal. Again, I'm not trying to shove God down your guys' throats, but this is a big deal and we all deserve to really ask these questions and to consider these things. If you're like me, the barriers to your relationship with God, like I said, aren't intellectual, rather they're emotional, and I've struggled, guys.

I've really struggled and still do at times to answer the question, why does God allow? So much evil and suffering in our world if he's a good God. And like I've said before, we're gonna do like a separate episode or maybe even a series of episodes talking about this topic, so there's no sound bite that I can offer to you to answer this question of.

Evil and suffering in our world. But if you wanna learn more about it, I'm gonna link to two videos in the show notes. One of them's by Chris Stephanic, who really awesome, awesome guy. I know him personally. He's just the man. And in this video he asked the question, Why does God let us suffer? And so again, that's in the show notes.

Which I'll give you at the end. The second video is from a Catholic priest, Father Mike Schmitz. He's awesome, awesome priest. The title of his video is, Why does God Let Bad Things Happen? Really, Really Well Done Video, and he just dives into this problem of why does God let us suffer if he's. So good. And just to touch on this topic briefly, you know, how have I dealt with this problem of pain and suffering in my life?

There's so much to say here, but just to keep it brief, I've dealt with it through prayer and through reflecting on the suffering and death of Jesus, and I've realized that. As I was suffering through my family's breakup, as I was going through all that pain, God wasn't simply observing at all from the distance that that's kind of how I felt to be honest with you.

I was like, God, where the heck are you? Where are you? And where were you looking back now? Where were you God, in those moments when I needed you the most? Where were you? And what I've learned over the years, and I'm very convinced of this, is that he was right there with me. In the messiness, in the brokenness, his heart was breaking with mine.

He was saying, I hate this too. I don't want it to be this way. Now, of course, you may be thinking, Well, why does God allow that? And the simple answer again, which needs much more explanation, which is why I mentioned those two videos, is that God values human freedom. That much. And then the second part of that, of course, is that he can bring good out of evil.

And there's a ton of examples of this, which again we'll get into in a later episode, but that still doesn't answer this question perfectly, Especially when you see a baby with cancer or some natural disaster that just kills a ton of people and wounds and mames others. But that priest that I mentioned, Father Mike Schmitz, what he says is that sometimes God's only response to our pain is his presence.

And it takes time to chew on that. I totally get it. But that's helped me so much. God's like a true friend who doesn't just like take away our problems, but he endures them with us. And again, guys, our relationship with God I realize is not an easy topic for so many people. I just know that he knows you.

Better than you know yourself. He's always present and he loves you passionately, and in the end, only he can ultimately satisfy that ache in your heart. For intimacy only, he can truly be the ultimate cure for loneliness. Even if those human things help a ton, only God can ultimately fulfill us. Now, the practical ideas here.

Spend time with God, just sit in silence with him for 10 minutes every day. Start just with one day. If you don't do this at all, that's okay. You can schedule it right. The two important things to do this are you need a time and you need a place somewhere in your house, in your apartment, on your campus, somewhere where you can just sit with God and talk with him, and speaker and writer, Matthew Kelly suggests that we just ask the questions.

God, who am I? Who are you? What am I here for? And what matters most and what matters least. So just ask those four questions in another tactic for talking with God, as Matthew Kelly likes to call it in the classroom of silence. Tell him about your life, right? You don't need to go to him with like a perfect speech prepared.

Just talk about what matters to you. He wants to hear it. And if you're struggling with something in life, tell him about it. Right? If you're having a hard time making a decision, ask him what he thinks and don't expect him to communicate to you like we do, right? Talking to each other audibly in my life, he's spoken to me more through my desires, through my thoughts, through my past experiences, and reflecting on them, and mostly through other people.

And one thing that's really helped me really untangle. My distorted image of God, especially due to my parents' separation and divorce, was finding a spiritual director. So this is like a coach that can help you navigate your relationship with God, that can help you answer questions that you have about God and maybe questions that you're struggling with, and to live out God's plan for your life, which is always a plan that helps you flourish, helps you thrive in life, even if there's suffering involved.

And you could find a spiritual director by going to restored. Dot com slash coaching. That's the same link as the counselors. We have two separate networks of counselors that we trust and spiritual directors that we trust and recommend. And uh, just like with the counseling, if there's not someone in your local area, you can meet with them, uh, on FaceTime, on Skype, or maybe even just over the phone and start to talk things through.

It can be super, super helpful. And in my life, that's been really healing overall, but especially when it comes to building my relationship with God in battling loneliness. And so again, the last. Build your relationship with God. I wanna quickly name them off again, the first tip, find meaning in your life.

The second tip, build your relationships. And then the third tip, change your negative thinking patterns. Number four is find a community. That understands you, and number five is build your relationship with God. A bonus tip for you guys, you've probably heard the saying, mind over matter, but there's actually another saying that goes body over mind and basically it's so easy to feel lonely when we're stuck inside our heads.

Right? Like we talked about those negative thinking patterns. And so one cure is to just exercise, like move your bodies, get your blood pumping, and without getting into all the signs behind it, cause there's a lot of research on this out there, exercising is gonna make you feel better. And so do whatever you can, do, whatever is safe for you to do.

Go on a run, ride a bike, swim, walk, lift weights, play a sport, do whatever exercise you. To do. And if you don't like exercising, then just go on a walk or do something that's a little bit more active than what you're used to. And this tip has helped me a ton, really exercises nature's medicine because it pumps your bodies with really good feeling endorphins.

And the last thing I wanna say here, guys, is. Loneliness is usually a symptom of a greater problem. And so I don't just wanna focus on treating the symptom of loneliness, but really getting down to the root problem. An example of this would be if you have a toothache, you should find relief from that pain, right?

You might need to take medicine or put ice on it, whatever, but it would be really foolish to simply stop there. Just just focus on making your tooth feel better and nothing more. You really should go to the dentist. Allow him to look at the tooth and discover why it is. Your tooth hurts so that he can fix the underlying problem so you can fix the underlying problem.

It's the same thing with loneliness, and so I invite you to think about this, to reflect on it, to journal on it, and really uncover that root cause. It may really help you realize that you need to fix another problem in your life first. And by fixing that problem, you may realize that you feel less alone.

And doing that alone can be scary, right? You might need a guide to face those problems. And so get a counselor or a spiritual director, or both. And like I said, many of the tips that we gave you guys do actually focus on the root cause, which is essentially, like I said, feeling like we don't belong because our family has broken and our parents aren't together.

But still, there may be other problems underneath it all that deserve attention to. And so here's the challenge for you guys. Pick one of these tips to implement today or tomorrow. Write it down on a post-it note. Put it on your desk, your bed, your laptop. You know, ask a friend to check in with you frequently and hold you accountable to, to doing that thing.

Or you can email us. You can email me. What practical idea you're starting and I can help keep you accountable. So you can email me@joeyrestoredministry.com. Again, that's joey restored ministry.com, and totally open to feedback too. On this episode. What, what was helpful, what wasn't helpful? I wanna learn so that we can create content that's better for you guys.

But if you wanna share what you're gonna do to help decrease the loneliness in your life, then go ahead and email me again. That's Joey ReSTOR. ministry.com and whatever you choose the advice in this episode, it's only gonna make your life better if you put it into action, thinking about it as fine and good, but it's only gonna make your life better if you put it into action.

So get after it. The resources and the citations to the different studies that I mentioned are in the show notes, uh, restored. ministry.com/ten, and if you want, you can actually get an ebook with this content on that link, and that's for free. Again, that's restored ministry.com/ten, the number 10. Thank you so much for listening if this episode has been useful for you guys.

Go ahead and subscribe and share this episode with someone you know who could use it. And always remember, you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person. You were born to be.

I Am So Lost and Hurt

2 minute read

The story below is from an anonymous author, written at 19 years old. She gave permission for this story to be told.

HER STORY

Because I was so young I didn’t and still don’t know the main cause of my parents’ divorce other than the fact that they “didn’t get along anymore.”

HOW THE DIVORCE MADE HER FEEL

Awful, broken, unwanted, afraid, stressed, and angry.

HOW HER PARENTS' DIVORCE HAS IMPACTED HER

My stepmother has emotionally abused me throughout the past 10 years that she and my dad have been together. She takes advantage of my dad, makes him chose her over me and my little brother ever since I can remember.

She drove me and my brother out of our own dad’s life and spoils our stepbrother endlessly. Ever since I can remember she has gone out of her way to push me down and make me feel like me and my brother are dirt.

I’m in college and dread coming home but still want to see my mom and dad. But every time I come home my stepmom does something that triggers all the other awful things she’s done to me and I break into a million pieces. I also realized over Christmas that she is a functioning alcoholic which plays into why she would freak out on me.

My dad has more money than my mom and is paying for my college so I am stuck having to be involved with them. My dad also holds a big name in our town and if I speak out about it, I will ruin the picture-perfect family they try to portray...

I am so lost and hurt I feel I will never be okay. There’s so much more I could say about how this has hurt and impacted my life.

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED AND SEPARATED FAMILIES

Obligated therapy for the kids with the parents. A bigger platform for kids of divorce to feel like they aren’t alone...

---

Are you interested in sharing your story with Restored?  If so, click the button above. Sharing your story can help you begin healing. 

Be assured: Your privacy is very important to us. Your name and story will never be shared unless you give explicit permission.

#009: A Retreat for Adult Children of Divorce | Dr. Daniel Meola, PhD

How did you find out that your parents were divorcing? Today’s guest, Dr. Daniel Meola, actually found out before his mom. Then as an 11 year old boy, he called her to break the news.

You’ll hear about the impact the divorce has had on him over the years and what he’s doing to help other adult children of divorce to heal.

To get more info and sign up for a Recovering Origins retreat, go here.

Links & Resources

• Leave your feedback here! If it’s easier, feel free to comment below too.

• Contact Dr. Daniel Meola

  • Website: Life-Giving Wounds

  • Facebook

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Coming Up: Episode #010: 5 Practical Tips to Cure Loneliness

Thanks for listening! Our next episode features 5 practical tips on how to cure loneliness.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

It's probably no surprise to you that resources for children of divorce of separation are practically nonexistent. In fact, I started restore to change that and to build those resources, but we're not fighting this battle alone. You know, our goal is to become the first resource that anyone thinks of or recommends in the United States or even the world, eventually the world, to help teenagers and young adults from divorced or separated families, or really anyone who, who loves or leads them.

But I never planned to do it alone. I wanted Restore to offer a lot of help directly. But also indirectly by connecting those who need the help with those who offered the help. And so today we're introducing you to a Catholic resource for adult children of divorce. It's a retreat to help you in your healing process.

You'll hear the story of the man who started these retreats, who is also a child of divorce. You'll hear how he sadly found out about his parents' separation and later divorce, before his mom even knew. And, and you'll hear the story that he tells about that, but you'll also see how he's taken that pain and he's transformed it to help others.

Keep listening.

Welcome to the Restored podcast, helping you cope. Heal and grow after your parents' divorce or separation so you can feel whole again. I'm your host, Joey Pontarelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode nine and quick disclaimer. This episode is especially geared towards Catholic Christians. Dr.

Daniel Mela, who is our guest, is a devout Catholic, and his ministry is specifically focused on the Catholic church. And of course he wants to help everyone, but he specifically focused on Catholics in the Catholic church. But naturally, anyone with an open mind can listen to this show. A little bit about our guests.

Dr. Daniel Mela is an adult child of divorce here into his PhD in Theology of Marriage and Family from the Pontifical, John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington. It's a long name. Uh, while studying at the institute, he helped create recovering origins, a unique retreat to heal adult children of divorce.

He's been leading those retreats since 2015. In 2018, he founded the Life Giving Wounds Traveling Retreat team to spread the recovering Origins retreat and other, uh, ministry. To adult children divorce around the country. Dan, uh, Dr. Daniel has over 15 years of experience running retreats and giving presentations to various groups.

He, he currently works at the John Paul ii St. John Paul ii National Shrine in Washington DC where he facilitates, uh, evangelization in catechesis events for people of, of all ages. Now, Dr. Daniel and I have become friends from afar. Uh, so you hear me call him Dan, I, I just did a little bit ago. Yeah. Very grateful for him and everything he's doing like restored, he's really one of the few people out there who are trying to help adult children of divorce.

And listen to the end. Make sure you listen to the end, because we actually have a discount for you if you wanna attend one of the retreats that Dr. Daniel runs. So here's our conversation. Dan, thank you so much for coming on the show. Hey, great to be with you, Joey. Love what you're doing at your ministry.

Thanks so much. You as well. I wanna, I wanna talk about your ministry, but let's actually start with your story. If you would take us to the day your parents separated. How old were you? What happened? How did you react? Yeah, so I was 11 years old in sixth grade, and I actually found the letter, my father left for my mother, um, saying his intention to separate, uh, and I was, you know, shocked, Saturn bewildered.

And of course I called my mother, you know, about it right away. And so I had the very sad and fortunate position of actually telling her about the news and, you know, she was at work, couldn't comfort me and, you know, just told me to quickly put it down and that we talked later. Um, but of course, like I sent me in a whirlwind, I had a lot fear and dread and confusion.

And yeah, I mean, it's a day I'll never forget. And it was a day that was very, very difficult in my life. And after that, you know, my mom sat me down and talked about a little bit what was going on. It was still a shock to me. There had been some high conflict leading up to this decision, but it still was a shock.

It still felt like the rug was being pulled underneath of me and you know, I wasn't expecting it. And they said that they were separating, they weren't divorcing right away. They were gonna try to work on the relationship. And you know, that gave me a little bit of hope that maybe they get back together.

But unfortunately they never did. And it set off a pattern of 15 years of separation actually. So I'm very sensitive and attentive to those who are sort of in limbo. Um, and their parents haven't completely divorced, but the separation's dragging on of a big heart for them. and eventually they did divorce 15 years later.

So it's a lot of years of limbo, although it seemed pretty evident it was gonna be a divorce, um, after a few years when they stopped talking to one another. So that's a little bit about what happened. And, um, yeah, I mean, it was defining event in my life. It, it changed so much, uh, in my childhood heart.

Yeah. I, I mean, I can't imagine, I'm so sorry for what happened and I can't imagine finding out from a letter and then forming your mom about it, like that must have been traumatic. Oh yeah. I mean, it always is, right? Like, I've never talked to adult child divorce, separation. That moment wasn't traumatic, and you sort of, mm-hmm replayed in your mind a lot about how you handled it.

There be a lot of false guilt and shame about how you handled it. And, you know, that's part of my story too. Like, should I have even called my mom? Should I have told about, you know, told her about it and. It was weird. I felt like complicit in the, the separation itself, because I told her it was like, it was so bizarre, uh, to be the bear of that news.

Uh, rather than receiving it, I just, I felt so dirty and ashamed and I don't know, somehow like I was doing it to my mom and then to hear my mom's first reaction before she could process anything, that was, that was brutal. That was very brutal. I mean, I remember crying myself to sleep and actually many nights afterwards, you know, I had definitely had a difficulty in sleeping after that.

Yeah. Cause my home was split up. Yeah. Yeah. No. And 15 years of separation. I'm glad you mentioned that. That's one thing that I don't think we talk about enough, but at ReSTOR we're, we specifically wanna talk about the fact that there's people who come from divorced families and there's people who come from separated families and they're different.

And, and so I'm, I'm glad that you're paying attention to that and you obviously have experienced that. You have a lot of, uh, authority to speak on that. Thanks. Yeah. I mean they're very similar and a lot of families go in and out of them, um, as well. Cause definitely when the separation happened, a lot of it was basically like living in a divorced home, except for like the first year or two they were trying to work on things with counseling and that.

But you know, going between two homes, feeling like your home was separated, you lost a family meal, there were no family vacations. Dad and mom were arguing often through you as a proxy. So it was, you know, very much like, um, you know, when I became an adult child divorce. So, you know, I'm very sensitive to those who families, uh, are going through separation.

And it is unique too, because you are a little bit in limbo. There's, you like to think there's a little bit more hope . Mm-hmm. . Cause it's not so definitive. But every situation's different. Like I said, after two or three years, once they stopped talking to each other, I knew it was, you know, I knew it was bad, uh, it was over, but you always held out hope.

And then. Uh, the crazy thing is the year that they divorced is the year I got married, . So that was its own difficulty because, you know, as you know, it's hard for us to enter into a relationship, let alone marriage, you know, hoping it's gonna last because you've all, you've known all your life with the most important relationship that forms you developmentally is brokenness.

So, you know, you question everything related to love and to have that happen, sort of the year I got married was just man, oh man, talk about struggles with trust. And I had done a lot of healing by that point. You know, I was 26 at that point. I done a lot, a lot of healing with God and, and others, but, uh, it still was, still was really hard and it just was such a sign of contradiction to everything I wanted to do in my own marriage.

So it was, um, interesting times to say the least. You bring up a great point. I can't imagine, you know, going through all of that along with getting married and the fear and the anxiety and all that, that came along with it. But you bring up a great point that when we go into different chapters of life or certain events happen, it can bring a lot of that brokenness right back to the surface.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Without a doubt. I mean, I often say that divorce is a lifelong grief that rears its head at every holiday milestone, you know, every pickup and drop off at the different home. Like, you know, just this last holiday, you know, I'm going between two homes in my hometown remembering that. So yeah.

Rears its head at all these major milestones and you've gotta confront that and heal again from that. And, um, mm-hmm. , I, I think that's important thing to, to recognize that. It's a lifelong grief, and that's okay though. That doesn't have to be depressing because you learn how to deal with it better and better so it doesn't wreck you like it maybe once did early on.

Or if you're on heeled or you sort of push the wound aside, you can still draw joy and hope and faith and love from those moments. You just have to be intentional about it, which, you know, one of the big differences now in my life is how I handle those moments. So, and not that it's any better than other trauma.

Trauma is always tragic and bad, but you're right, it continues on, it's drawn out. Like you said, you had mentioned that it was such a pivotal point in your life. It really a defining moment when your parents separated and I'm sure everything that led up to it and everything that followed too was a part of that.

But how did you see, um, Breakup of your parents affect you in the years that followed? Oh, man. , like, it affected so much of my life. Like, I don't think there was a time when I wasn't thinking about it. I mean, certainly there were, you're unconscious about it, but like, I feel like I dabbled in like every unhealthy coping method, possible.

Sure. Except for drugs. And, you know, I never touched drugs for, for whatever reason. I just knew that they were dangerous. But I feel like, yeah, I feel like I dabbled in every unhealthy coping mechanism, uh, like unhealthy amounts of anger. Certainly. Um, it's interesting, I dabbled in them. I, I didn't like stay in patterns of, you know, like struggles with like, promiscuity or drugs, like some people.

Yeah. It's interesting. I just sort of dabbled just like, okay, what what's this gonna give me? What's that gonna give me? And, um, you know, ob obviously like all those unhealth, the coping mechanisms, and it, it goes beyond just like, Promiscuity and like anger are those, those two are tend to be like at the forefront or sadness, but I mean it like manifests itself in other ways in my life, like a certain workaholism, like trying to earn the love of my parents, you know, by being successful in school, by being a role follower, I was mostly a role follower actually.

Um, even though I dabbled in, you know, what a lot of people would call risky behaviors at. But, um, you know, being a people pleaser, I definitely struggled with that, uh, to cope, you know, instead of sharing my true self, just, you know, saying what other people wanted to say just in the hopes that they would stay around me, right?

Cuz I wanted whatever stability I could get. Certainly staying in relationships too long, I mean, it just, it runs the gamut. Uh, also, you know, what's interesting is in the media aftermath, and I think this is a grace, you know, I'm a Christian, I'm a Catholic, and a big part of my story is the faith and the media aftermath.

Uh, luckily one of the gifts that my mom gave me afterwards is strong, strong Catholic faith that turned to. Initially I did that initially. It's interesting, right after the separation I started praying a ton, like actually like three or four rosaries cuz I was Catholic, you know, praying to Jesus through Mary.

It was, you know, built into my consciousness and um, that's just really interesting that would like, help me get the sleep at night. And I did that for two years and then I think I became disillusioned because, you know, I was treating it like a little bit like magic. Like I was hoping if I just did this enough, if I just prayed enough.

God would bring my parents back together. You know, not really realizing that, you know, God respects their freedom so much that people can choose against, uh, what is good, you know? And, um, so I prayed a ton. Like I'm talking like, I became sort of obsessed with it, like 3, 4, 5 rosaries a day for two years and nothing happened and I sort of became disillusioned.

And, uh, I went far away from God for a while and for the first three years of, of, um, high school and, you know, part of my story to my shame, I think my low point was just feeling a certain anger and hatred towards God, which I didn't really reveal to anybody outwardly, cuz I know it break my mom's heart and just being far from him.

And so that was all the unhealthy stuff. Now, what really saved my life, I think, and was a big turning point, was rediscovering that faith, uh, deeper level. About junior year in high school, uh, going on a retreat, I went on a retreat that really changed my life and brought me back to, to Christ and an authentic understanding of Christ and the way he, he respects our freedom, but the all the different ways that he's there in my life, even if my parents never get back together.

Helped me to rediscover that and just rediscover that. You know, I was really pushing away the one thing that could heal me, uh, which was, God, you know, I, I really believe that the deepest cause of suffering and the aftermath of our parents' divorce, separation is the absence of God. But, you know, he never fully left me, which was great.

Even when I was pushing him away as one priest told me, at least I had my hand on his chest. . I always liked that image, even when we're pushing away, like we have our hands on his chest and his, his heart is beating for love for us. But I mean, there's so much to that goes into my healing. Like it's, it's not just one retreat like that just started my healing back and, and helped me to know that I am actually loved.

Okay. And my parents to the best of ability afterwards did try to love me. It wasn't like some cases where one of the parents just completely abandoned or both of them checked out. They were trying to love, but I still had a loss. And, uh, I still need to recover that deeper love of God. That was, that was crucial to my healing.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk more about that. So obviously your relationship with God was just so instrumental, so key, really the source of, of so much of your healing. And um, of course, you know, there's human level healing that I'm sure you went through, uh, learning, you know, different coping mechanisms.

But let's focus on the relationship with God. Cuz I think this is important and some people listening, you know, you, you may not believe in God, and that's okay if that's where you're at. But I just challenge you to hear Dan out, hear his story and how much this has affected him. And, uh, hopefully it'll bring you some help and maybe even, uh, challenge you to question why, you know, maybe you've gone away from God.

And, and so Dan, in talking about this, I'm just curious how is, how did your perception of God change over the years? Cause it sounds like in the beginning you saw God as someone of a divine butler like, Hey God, bring me this, bring me this, get my parents back together. And then, you know, Then I'll be good.

How did that change over the years? Yeah. , Uh, yeah, My image of God, and, and this is something too one, I like explain to listeners, especially those who are far from the faith, that so often we push God away. And this was so true in my life because we project certain image on God, like of our parents' relationship.

And when that relationship is messed up, we can project those same qualities on God. Um, and what I mean by that is, you know, initially, yeah, initially I approached God sort of as, um, what's interesting you said Butler, but just something like, okay, I'll believe in you if you do this. You know, like I made a deal, like, I'll believe in you if you do this.

And, and also thinking like I could somehow manipulate God's will by like praying enough. Like I was, you know, like I said, I was praying a ton, um, which was, which was interesting. I don't even know where it came from. I mean, some of it could be my mom's faith, but it was just interesting to me. And I, I said it's also a grace cuz even though it was a flawed view of God, I think there was something there of like, Mary comforting me, like I said, like she did help me get to sleep.

And again, when I say Mary, I know Protestants, or like, well, why are you focused on Mary? Well, every time I say that, I know very much. It's like Mary leading me to Christ and Christ doing, you know, intercessory work through her. But, um mm-hmm. , but I mean like, helped me to sleep. It's just interesting so it wasn't like all bad.

But yeah, I, I treated God as a, um, you know, like a deal. Then when the deal fell apart, you know, I became disillusioned very far from God. Again, very secret about this. It was, it was, a lot of it was interior, but, you know, I just stopped praying. I went to mass appease my mom. But, you know, I, I found it boring and all these things and, um, I think the biggest thing that changed was instead of seeing God as a, you know, like.

A secular review of Santa dispensing gifts if you do X enough. I really saw God as somebody who suffered with us. I think that was the big thing that changed during the retreat. Um, I mean this is a whole nother podcast about this, but to see that his answered and love for me was to suffer with me, really changed a key thing that a priest helped me to see.

I couldn't articulate it as well as this. Now, when I was in high school, I couldn't articulate it. But that, um, you know, God didn't come to take away all the suffering in our life, but to fill all that suffering with his presence, that was the answer. And I've been looking for God just to take this suffering away.

I thought that's what God does. And sometimes he does that, you know, sometimes he answers. But the far deeper miracle, because we're all gonna die one day, the fall far deeper miracle is to recognize his presence in the suffering and to allow him to. With his joy, his love, his hope, and that was the change of image of a God who suffers personally with us.

And I as somebody outside of me and just giving me good gifts and just taking away suffering again. I thought that's all he did right? So to see that there's something much deeper going on. And you know, part of my story being Catholic too is rediscovering Catholicism and the amazing gift of the Eucharist, uh, which we believe there.

Christ suffers with us in a unique way. His presence suffers with us a unique way. Uh, his, his passion, his death across, but also the resurrection and then simultaneous with that. Renewed sense of a God who suffers with us and a God is, you know, really, really with us, not just far. Also, you know, a God who loves us, A God who brings us joy.

And I was also drawn to the joy of, um, the people on the retreat team. They had a joy that I was lacking. And so just rediscovering that joy in God that, I mean, there's so much that can be said about. But it's just something you have to dive in and start to experience yourself as you start to live a Christian life.

Cuz I've been brought so many joys I wouldn't have been if I wasn't living a Christian life. And uh, yeah, just discovering that God has God of joy and receiving that joy by following him. Yeah. And, and to stop projecting to like my views of, you know, my parents onto God, um, or run away from God. And the other side of it is run away from God because of the hypocrisy of my parents' religion that was there too.

You know, I don't wanna get too much into it, but there was a certain hypocrisy, like what I found was interesting, I'll just state this and may Doche on a divorce and separation shared this with me too is one of the things that disillusioned me about faith that I was just so angry about for so long in high school was, how was it two people who went to mass every Sunday could divorce?

I mean if mass was so important. Why or how could it, how could they do, how could they go to mass on Sunday and be separating on Tuesday? Right. Yeah. I just, I just, I knew these things were incompatible and I was so angry about that. And initially that was a question, but then it became full blown anger, you know, and I just, that, that destroyed me.

But what I had to learn was like, that was hypocrisy. They weren't allowing that to fully enter into their life. Now, I mean, I think there's some genuine faith that was there. I don't mean to some of my parents short. My parents are wonderful, loving people who there is something of the faith they took serious, but there was some hypocrisy there.

And I had to realize that they weren't really living out the mass on all the other days of the week. And that's the challenge for all of us, right? We're all sinners. So I'm also aware that when discussing sins of others that, you know, needs to begin with my own life, recognize and send my own. But we have to live that out.

We can't just leave God for Sundays. Right. And I had to realize that, um, that's sort of what was going on. And uh, but for a time I was really angry because of that. And I would just say to the listeners who feel far away from God, is it because you associate God was some hypocrisy parent? Rather than guide it in who he is and himself and those who actually follow him.

And to look to the models of people that actually follow him, uh, sort of over God. Cause I think we can run away from God for those two reasons, but there's many more. But that, that was the case in my life. Yeah. Those are all excellent points. And like you said, it's a huge topic that deserves its own show or series of shows.

And guys will be bringing you shows on this topic, especially a topic of, you know, if God is all powerful, how does, why does he allow us to suffer? So we're gonna talk about that more in future episodes. But one of the things, uh, that you said, my, my takeaway from that and like you just challenged everyone listening, is maybe the.

Person that you think God is isn't the one who he actually is. And so kind of challenging that idea and that, that's what I challenge everyone listening to do as well, just like Dan, uh, just said, is think, think through that, reflect on that. And uh, you may be surprised what you find. Yeah. And guys is one of surprises too.

Like I feel like he's constantly surprising me with who he is. So to not box him into any one concept, but to really encounter him or give him a chance to encounter you. Yeah, that's beautiful. Dr. Uh, Peter Creep from Boston College. He's a fluer at Boston College. For anyone who, who doesn't know who he is, he writes a lot of books and just phenomenal man, really, really intelligent.

Uh, he talks about how, uh, like God, You know, in a way, in an using an analogy like a good friend who Dan, like you said, he sits with us in the midst of our suffering. He doesn't just try to, you know, get us out of it. And Dr. Creeped, I think he uses the example of your car breaking down. You know, like on a country road in the middle winter, a friend will call a tow truck for you, but a really true, authentic friend is gonna be there with you sitting in the car waiting for the tow truck to come.

And he, uh, he uses that analogy to kinda show, um, yeah, God's just not that divine butler. The Santa, like he said, who's just gonna give us everything we want in every moment. But he is really gonna be with us through that all. And, uh, I I think that's beautiful. And if you, if you look for that, uh, I do think you'll find it.

I have in. Yeah. Amen. I would not be the man I am today and have the healing I have today without God, like, full stop. That's beautiful. Going back to different coping mechanisms that you use, you mentioned some of the unhealthy things that you had done, uh, to cope. How about some healthy coping mechanisms?

What did you kind of figure out over the year on a spiritual level, but also on a human level? Uh, what did you do to help you cope in healthy ways? Yeah. Um, I think for me, again, it began with the spiritual, then like went into the human level, . Um, sure. That was just my path. I know there's different paths, you know, but again, it was first, okay, so first getting the relationship with God, right?

And giving him a priority in my life. So turning to him when I'm in my lowest in prayer, that was huge. But, uh, o obviously too, like having good Holy Catholic friends at the retreat gave to me, turning to them because there's a, there's a big world of difference talking about a problem with somebody who.

Just while one doesn't care, just wants to complain about it versus somebody who wants to be there with you, uh, grieve the pain, but also strengthen you in the faith through it. I mean, there's a big world of difference there. And those two types of friendships, cuz again, I had some, some conversation with friends prior to being a good Christian community about it, but it was just complaining.

It was toxic. It was a real toxic discussion about our wounds. Um, it was just complaining, complaining, complaining, and, and you sort of just get stuck in the wound. Whereas the conversation changed with my friends who were, uh, Christians and Catholics. Like there was, there was hope, there was something that could be done about the situation.

Yeah. All the suffering wouldn't go away, but it was much more constructive. Um, and all the different like, suggestions that they gave, you know, gave me or we sort of worked out and discovered on our own. So, you know, definitely find that in person. Uh, Catholic Christian community made a big difference. I mean, and then from that, I think they challenged me in how to like rethink and live love obviously.

Again, I believe the Catholic church gives a beautiful vision of love that was key to, to have a blueprint for love. I was always searching for a blueprint for love cause I didn't have that for my parents. So the Catholic faith sort of gave that to me, but then it was worked out in those holy friendships, uh, cuz one thing to have that blueprint, but another thing to actually try to, uh, live that, which, you know, again, friends did.

So, you know, it was a little bit of the, the human side of things like changing my approach to dating. Changing my approach to chasity, changing my approach to, uh, marriage changing my approach of what I'm looking for and a person to marry all changed. So those are all human things that changed. Yeah, I mean, there's so much here.

I . I mean, you talk about good coping. Yeah. Again, so much of my story, spiritual, I mean too for like, for me coping was like also the sacraments. And each sacrament has a story that helped me to heal, whether it be the Eucharist or marriage. I mean, my marriage was very healing both on a human spiritual level, but that happened many years later.

But I mean also, you know, on a human level, coping, like I went to a spiritual director. I know you're big on that in your ministry. I went to a counselor that helps. I did avail myself of all these tools, uh, to help heal. But the three biggest things I would say were, you know, my Catholic faith, then person, community with good.

Mm-hmm. good, you know, Christian friends and the sacraments. Those would be the three things that have helped me heal most. That makes so much sense. There was, there was, there was a bunch of things that, again, I believe that God led me to on a human and spiritual level through it. And it was gradual. It was gradual.

Like the retreat started it, the counseling and therapy came during college. Um, the good friends was throughout it all was high school, end of high school, college, after college, still to this day. Right. In my married life. And speaking about it, I mean, that's another thing like, oh, on the human level, You know, I, It was frustrating on one level.

You could talk about, in certain terms with people about complaining about your parents, but another level, there just was such a silence around this issue, especially experienced that in my family. Yeah. And this big Italian family who just don't talk about these deep problems. I think some of it's cultural, but some of it's cultural to America that, you know what I call now putting fancy words to it, was there was a wound of silence and a lot of sectors in my life.

So, you know, And some of it was self-imposed. I didn't want anybody to see that I was broken. Right. But some of it was imposed by others that you just don't talk about this. And um, you know, so on a human level, I need to break the silence, but again, in a healthy way where I didn't get stuck in the past but could confront the past in, in a healthy way.

Yeah, that's a great point that you make about the silence. Cuz I think that's so common in so many of our lives. We just don't talk about these things. And so yeah, I really applaud you for having, uh, the courage to change that. And, uh, I, I think like, like you said, it, it's so helpful, it's so healing to just bring this stuff out into the light.

As opposed to just struggling interiorly and, and like, you know, so many children, no divorce do that. We just carry this, all this baggage around with us for years without saying anything often to, to people. And then, uh, you know, in different ways it comes out. Right, Right. And uh, that's part of the reason we feel so alone.

Hmm. Because it's such a deep part of our life and our story. So even though, you know, there's a million do loan divorce every year and countless others who come from separate homes, we feel so alone in our problems cuz we never really talk about mm-hmm , or at least not a constructive way. Again, there's a lot of social media dumps, but that's not a constructive, meaningful.

Discussion of, of the problems. Yeah. Then there is a difference, and I'm glad you're putting that out, shifting to kind of how your life is different now. Uh, though we're, we're always a work in progress. I acknowledge that. A, after going through the healing process, the steps that you've taken, how is your life different now after you've healed and grown?

Yeah, I mean, so many different things. Like, first of all, I don't fear suffering the same way I did early in life. Um, I embrace it when it comes related to this and I take it to the Lord and I try to draw greater faith, hope and love out of it. Uh, faith. I try to allow it to deepen my relationship with God.

And you know who I think God is, hope, you know, I, I respond to it like, Okay, things are gonna be okay. We're gonna find something to do with this that involves greater love. And that's the other thing too. Like I look for the way that these struggles are teaching me to love. I look for the mission that, you know, God might be giving me in these wounds.

And I try to love more deeply. So for me, healing is not, um, the absence of pain, but rather how I respond to that pain. And I respond completely different. I don't get stuck in it. I don't dwell in it as much as I did before. There's not that despair. There's not that frustration. There's not that anger. And also in terms of love, you know, for relationships, you know, I feel very confident in who I am now.

You know? And I feel confident in my love. Uh, you know, there's still areas. My marriage had gone on nine years of marriage here with my awesome beloved wife, Bethany. But feeling very confident in our love, confident in our marriage, and just so many joys and graces from our marriage, you know, And being able to receive that, of also matured in love, receiving love.

I think that's a big thing. One of the side problems of not talking about the effects of our parents' divorce separation on us is in the silence that surrounds us, is what it teaches kids and adults to do is like, okay, you gotta figure it out on your own in a very deep, central way. You've gotta do everything on your own.

Uh, the problem with that is when it comes to love, you can't do it on your own. That's called narcissism. . If you just love on yourself, rather you gotta receive love. And so, like, initially that was very hard for me was to receive love actually. It was easier for me to give but not receive. And actually the greatest gift I can do for my wife is receive her love, cuz that brings her delight.

So I've really matured in that giving and receiving of love. And it's because I, I now have a firm stand, a place to stand upon for love, which is Christ. Um, because I've received love from Christ. So all of those, and I could go on, there are many, many other ways that. I've experienced healing and how my life is different now, but those would be the core of it.

I, I love that you've found so much meaning in the midst of your suffering and you've taken that suffering and you've started a ministry and you've been doing this for years, and we're gonna talk about that in a second. Um, but I really think that's so beautiful because what I've seen so many people who are doing really good work in the world, oftentimes it comes from a really dark place, a place of suffering that they've chosen to transform into something really good and beautiful.

And so I, I see that you've done that. So, um, thank you for, for doing that. It's such a great example, a beautiful example for, for all of us especially, uh, who, who are suffering due to, you know, a broken. Uh, as you know, usually the biggest effect that the divorce has on, on us is our future relationships that impacts our future relationships in negative ways.

And so you touched on, uh, your marriage. You talked a little bit about how it affected, you know, your dating life, but would you draw that out a little bit more? How, how have you seen the effect of your parents' divorce affect your dating relationships and now your own marriage? Oh yeah. I mean, uh, you, you mentioned I do ministry.

This is like a huge topic we talk a lot about. Uh, cuz I also do a lot of ministry with young adults who are dating and getting married. But, but yeah, but going back to my own life, I won't talk in general about the struggles I see. But I mean, going back to my own life, man, , uh, there's so many mistakes I made in love and dating and I just wanna tell all our viewers out there who are struggling with dating.

And I think it's related to parents' divorce, separation, that God can write straight with crooked lines. I am a living example that I've made a lot of mistakes in dating, e everything from, you know, cynicism. I think that was my first response was, you know, the forgo dating actually, um, exclusive dating because, you know, I'm like, love's not gonna last

Like, this is, this is a joke. Get, get out of this relationship. What I can, but I don't know about exclusive dating, you know, to, uh, romanticism. You know, I, I definitely then held up relationships as like, my God, like this is the answer to all my suffering folks. Um, which also disillusioned me and led back to Cism.

So I think cynicism and romanticism sort of are related to one another. Uh, even though I'll talk in a minute about marriage being healing, it, it, uh, I can't solve all our problems alone, again, apart from God. But I had to learn that the hard way cuz I did hold up relationships on a pedestal. Like, if I just find the right spouse, all my problems are gonna be taken care of, right?

Yeah. Um, so I fell into that and then what happened was I was in a few bad relationships and because I was a people pleaser and because I was a romantic, what happened was I'd ignore all the bad warning signs that this relationship is not good because I was grasping to like any good thing because I just so desperately want stability.

I so desperately want whatever little affirmation. You know, I just clung to a relationship that I shouldn't have for a long time that, that needed to, I needed to let go. But again, as a people pleaser, I'm like, ah, I don't wanna do that, and I need whatever stability I could get, again, because the loss, stability in my parents' relationship.

So I just clung to some bad relationships. So I made that mistake, which is directly related to the aftermath of my parents' divorce, wanting stability, wanting affirmation, and a, a romanticism of love as being the answer to all my problems. Um, human love that is, and again, it's a huge part of our healing.

But if that is what you put all your eggs in the basket for healing, you're gonna be let down. Because even in great relationships, no person, no human person can fill every need that we have in our heart. Again, I gotta keep coming back to it cuz it's been true in my life. There's a part of our hearts that only God can provide for.

And I found that through making mistakes and dating and what ended up happening was the most fulfilling relationship was when I brought God to the four of it. So that was, you know, one thing I needed to do. But even then, I did have relationships where, you know, God was at the four of it, but I really wasn't living it.

So the other thing is like , you know, not just bring God to the four of it, but actually make a commitment to living it every day in the relationship. I had to learn that too. Cause I made that mistake, right? Oh, if I just dated a Catholic or Christian, I'll be okay. Right? Um, yeah. , you know, , um, no, you gotta be committed to these, You, you gotta look for women who are committed to your ideals or, or you know, in my case, with women listeners, to men who are committed to living it, not just, um, Not just name only, right?

So you need to see people who are living it day in and day out by their virtue. So I had to learn that. I had to learn that that's what I needed to look for. And the other thing is like, is this person somebody who reciprocates love? Cuz as a people pleaser, which again, I was in the aftermath of my parents' divorce because I just so badly wanted affirmation that I would just give into what other people wanted as a people pleaser.

You know, love really wasn't reciprocated, you know, like it, it was just me trying to please the other, but not receiving love from another. Even if they wanted give it. But even if they didn give it, I didn't believe in that love because it was a mask. I thought they were loving. So I was really bad at receiving love.

And couple of that, I was in a bunch of relationships where it was the love wasn't reciprocated, you know, like they were just taking from me. and I just so desperately wanted to work out that, you know, I let them get away with murder, so to speak. Um, not murder, but mm-hmm. , you know what I mean? Like, just take, take taking, um, that was the bad cycle we got in.

So really learning that the most beautiful and fulfilling relationship is one that's reciprocal and one where I allowed the other person and I allowed the other to enter in my heart to receive. And that was what was really different with Beth and my wife was, it was very reciprocal and I actually really practiced receiving, um, that was sort of like my last leg of like healing.

I needed dating, I got rid of the cynicism and romanticism maybe after high school. But that, um, looking for somebody who reciprocated that came much, much later. And that flowed from a view of marriage that the church gave me, which was the total self gift we're called to totally give ourselves, which also means receiving the other.

So anyways, I know that's a lot. There's so much on this topic, but that's a real quick. Nutshell about my dating and, and love. Yeah, no, I'd love to have you back another time to dive more into that and some of the current issues that you're seeing, uh, from, you know, your ministry that young adults are dealing with.

Ju just a few points I think you've made that were really, really great, The cynicism and the romanticism. I've often seen that, I've seen children of divorce and I've been one of them either run towards marriage as like the solution to their problems, like you really Well said. Um, or just run away from it because love doesn't last.

And it's such an interesting dynamic to me, and we'll have to talk about that more later. But one really, really important thing that, uh, I wanna talk about a little bit is if you have that mindset that your spouse is gonna fix and heal you, one of the really dangers to that is that when they don't, when you get married and they don't, you may start to think that you married the wrong person, that this isn't right, that you should leave them.

And that's just so, so tragic. So, uh, Yeah, talk about that a little bit if you would. I know, again, it's a big topic, but it's, it's really dangerous, isn't it? No. Let's, let's jump into this cuz this is important. Yeah, no, it's absolutely very important. Um, like you said, like if you put up your, your wife or husband on a pedestal and they let you down, not only will you start thinking like, Oh, maybe I married the wrong person.

But again, you can fall into cism, you can fall into that disillusionment like, Oh, you know, like, I'm just so bad at love. You know, or, or like, love is just not possible, et cetera, rather than seeing a few things. Well, one, it's a normal part of any relationship, to have problems, to have conflict. It's just how do you respond to that?

Do you allow that to grow? That's one just to have a real view or, you know, again, one of the healing things that the Catholic church gave me was a non-romantic view marriage that, you know, marriage like all the sacraments modeled after the cross. There's moments of sorrow, but there's moments of joy that's, that's in the vows.

You know, I promise to love you in good times and bad. You're like, we know that, right? That like in the vows going into that, there's gonna be good times, there's gonna be bad, but I'm gonna love you through it all. Uh, but yet we forget. Right? But, but luckily, you know, I was blessed to get that, that view from the church, that that non-romantic view that yes, is profound joy, but there's gonna be profound sorrow that you have to work through.

So that's one. But going back to the dangers, but also, I, I wanna be nuanced here. The best way to like approach sacrament marriage is to know it is very healing. But when we say that it's not because it's all our spouse all alone. Mm-hmm. , it's healing in so far as it's our spouse, but also our spouse leading us to God.

Because again, there are things that only God can fulfill. Bethany, my wife, there's only things that God can fulfill me. And we're healing and we're fulfilling the other, only insofar as we are also leading them to God. Otherwise, you know, we're treating ourselves like an idol. So it's like, yes, it's healing, but it's healing only insofar as you, you both recognize there's something greater than you at stake in, in this relationship that you need to lead the other person to.

So, and this gets really practical really quickly, but it's like when we have an argument, right? If I approach the relationship as, Okay, this is the person who's gonna fulfill my every need, I'm gonna be devastated by that argument. But on the flip side, if I see like, okay, she's gonna meet my needs more than any other person, but not every single one, there's something that only God can do.

And um, and you know, we need friends, et cetera. Then I approached that argument, not devastated, that we disagree. Like, Oh, okay, you know, it's fine that she doesn't meet every single one of my needs, but let's work through this and we're gonna be okay. Cuz our love is deeper than just, um, our human wills alone.

So it gets really practical and expectations when you approach the healing and fulfillment in marriage is understood as you participating with God. So it's, it's not just your wife, but their participation in God that fulfills and it's, it's God, it's God primarily. So it just releases this huge burden, I think when you, um, go with that mindset versus, again, the danger, like you said, if, if this is the person who's supposed to take care of all my problems, then they don't, then yeah.

I mean, why am I in this marriage? You know? Yeah. Start thinking of all these issues. So, yeah. So we have to have a nuance, right? So the nuance is yes, marriage, parenting is very healing, but it's not everything. Like there has to be a more to our healing. It has to be God. And by the way, when I say God, uh, that's also every other gift he wants to give us too, like friends, family.

So I do believe a spouse is called to meet our needs more than any other person in the world. That is part of the calling, but it's not every need with healing. And, and that's important. And actually the primary person is God, but God working through my spouse to meet my needs, um, I think that's important to recognize.

That's what I mean when I say healing through the marriage, um, because I do. That it's one of the primary ways that God can heal us. Can you know some people, maybe they're never blessed with a marriage and God can still heal you. Like, I mean, God is the primary healer, right? But for a lot of us, and I'm sure you've experienced this too, Joey, that like in a faithful, loving, fruitful marriage, that is extremely healing.

It's just we have to understand that's a gift from God and not mistake it just for our wife, right? The, or just our husband, because we're gonna let him. So we have to have that nuance. Right? Absolutely. And I'm glad, I'm glad you went into that. And like I said, we're gonna have you back, Let's do another show on just love and marriage and all the issues that come along with that.

But you, you hit on so many good points, and I really believe that, uh, one of the, maybe underneath every divorce is this kind of unconscious expectation that our spouse is gonna make us perfectly happy. I, I know there's other reasons and so I'm not, I'm not saying that's the only one, but I think underneath so many divorces, and I would argue the majority, if not all, is that belief.

And then, you know, we get disappointed and we start to do other things that aren't healthy. And it just leads to the breakdown of the marriage. And like I said, there's more to it than just that. But I, I really believe that that's at the root of so many. Yeah, I mean, I, I do think that in a secular society that, you know, has so many idols that human love and relationships are held up as like, The end all, be all answer to our problems.

So I think you're onto something, uh, yeah. To reflect further on. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And we will, we'll talk about this more in the future. Uh, Dan, tell me a little bit about your ministry. So your ministry is called Life Giving Wounds, which great name. Talk a little bit about why did you start it, um, and what do you do to help, uh, adult children of divorce?

Yeah, thanks. So, life giving wounds, um, ministry, which it's a paradox, right? Cuz we don't usually think of our wounds as life giving . And that's intentional because what our ministry hopes to do is that, to draw life from those wounds, from that very thing you might wanna run away from might be your salvation, right?

Why did I start this ministry? Well, really God called me to it more or less dragged me and do it because, uh, I mean I didn't go looking for this. Uh, what was interesting, what I did go looking for is in aftermath, my parents, uh, divorce or separation, then later divorce. I always had that question like, What makes love, love, and last and last in a happy way, right?

Cause you know, I knew love wasn't just staying together, but staying together and happiness, joy, it was always that question. It, it, it sent me on this lifelong search and I'm still have a lot of answers, but I'm still discovering new aspects of the mystery of love. But, um, it led one thing after another, led me to what was called the John PTO Institute for Studies of Marriage and Family.

So fascinating marriage and family. First, I started off, I got a psych degree at Catholic University of America. So I looked at marriage and family from the psychological viewpoint and I'm like, There's, there's gotta be something more. So then I went on to get a theology degree at the John p Altoon Institute for Studies of Marriage and Family.

And, uh, but it was this question of marriage and family, just my own personal search. What, what makes love, love? And it was there just looking at love from every angle, but especially with the light of faith that just drew me to understand marriage in a deeper way and to try to live it in my life. But, so I wanted to strengthen marriage and family.

I had that deep calling, which came again through the wound. I had this clear mission through the wound to strengthen marriage and family, but also live a strong marriage and family. Still to this day, the greatest accomplishment I wanna be remembered for is not life giving wounds, but having an awesome marriage.

And that's still this day. That's, that's my number one goal. Beautiful. And um, so I wanted to do that. And then just, it happened to be, so I wasn't really looking to do specific ministry for adult divorce, so that was part of my story. So I was always attentive to the needs of d divorce and helping em in various ministries like men's ministry, young adult ministry.

But when I was at the institute, Well, I got asked to get a PhD, which I thought was crazy. Uh, because I come from blue collar family, nobody's got a PhD in my me family. So I was like, Really? You want me to like pursue this? Okay, God, I'll, I'll give it a try. Right. Um, but you know, you can probably even tell just talking, I have a very blue collar, you know, background.

I've never lost that route. So I'm like, Wow, you want me to try to get a PhD? So I went to get a PhD and as I was there the institute was reflecting on the need for pastoral ministry for adult children, divorce and separation. And I just happened to be there, had this background getting PhD, got asked to be a part of this.

Um, trying to develop pastoral ministry for Donald Trump divorce cuz there's nothing in the church at the pastoral level in diocese and parishes. And they wanted to do something about it. I'm like, heck yeah, I wanna do that too. But I wasn't looking for it. It just kind of came to me when I was at the institute, got involved in it.

Next thing I know, I'm running the first retreat. In 2015, and then things just sort of took off from there. I mean, again, I wasn't looking for it, but I knew the needs of adult children divorce and then God put this in my path at the right time, and it was just so clear that this, this was a calling, this was a need.

And then started doing these retreats. Then I, I gave a talk at a National Association of Catholic Family Life ministers who said, you know, other diocese need this too. And then I founded life giving wounds to spread these retreats, but also support groups. We also do consultations for leaders to help them be more attuned in how they can accompany, um, adults and divorce separation in their ministries.

Uh, we try to offer some online resources, although, you know, you're doing more so I try to point 'em to you and other people. I have a curated list of resources on our website, life giving wounds.org and, um, it came outta my wound to want to help others because there was nothing at the pastoral level.

But it was also God finding me at the right time in the right place. So I'm, I'm very aware of the providence of it, and I'm also just aware of the humility needed because not only was this a joint project from the beginning with a lot of people from the institute, but also I see my role as creating pastoral ministry and diocese and parishes to create teams, teams of people who are on fire for Christ, who want to help heal these souls that are really suffering and neglected and are underserved.

And I just wanna do something about it. So, Yeah, it's just, it's just amazing. It's still amazing to me that I'm here doing this podcast with you, and this ministry has grown. I, I still, I marvel, I marvel at God's work, so, Yeah. No, I love it. And, uh, one question. If, you know, years down the road, you look back and you look at your ministry, uh, what would make it a big success?

Like what, what's, what I'm getting at here is what's the ultimate goal? Like what, what do you, what's the end goal of everything that you're doing? And, and you touched on that a little bit, but I wanna draw it out. Well, obviously the end goal is to, Well, okay, so I called life giving wounds because of, I love this verse and scripture by his wounds, you are healed from first letter of Peter.

I mean, it's to allow Christ wounds to heal others who have the same, He, you know, same cross. And so for that matter, it's already a success. And I feel like I'm playing with house money, um, now. But, uh, it, you know, it would be for me that the church. is more attuned to the suffering and gets better at accompanying and healing children from these situations.

Cause I don't think we're doing a great job. So it's, it's really the end goal is not even to have a standalone ministry, although I want that, but you know, everybody from youth ministers to marriage prep, to social justice types, to everybody to be more attuned and to help these folks. We all have a part to play cuz you know, I believe the deepest level of healing is sharing one's faith.

And by doing that is healing. We all have a part to play and, and helping to heal. We just have to be more attuned to those who suffer in this way and to break that silence so we talked about earlier, Um, and to say, you know what? That's not okay. I'm sorry that you suffered like that. How can I help you and just listen?

But I think on a more practical level, what I would love. But it's totally up to God. And you know, he surprises me and who knows what he wants. I would love personally every diocese, as many parishes, as many campus ministries as possible to have dedicated pastoral ministry to adult and divorce and separation.

Cuz I do think they need to have that specific time of healing with those who share similar wounds. There's something that's really important about that. There's something important about the in person community and I've noticed in the diocese that have embraced our ministries, it starts changing the local culture.

When you have an in person pastoral ministry, although other ministries around you pro-life, uh, marriage prep, they start changing. They start referring you, they start interacting with you and learning about the issues, learning about the pain and how they can help. So I want a church that can heal better.

That's basically it. I want a church that can heal souls with the wounds of Christ better. And whatever form that takes, so be it, you know? And, um, I just want to contribute to that. And I, you know, the, to me the success is not having my name out there, not damn to me, the success is every healed soul, every person that is touched because of some indirect thing that I did, or one of the teams did, or one of the people did.

You know, It's, it's, um, it can't be quantified, but it, that's sort of, those are my end goals, you know? And also supporting people like you. I mean, we're all working on it together. It, it's, it's, um, it's just to create a church that's better at healing, healing soul. That's the thing. I mean, the thing that breaks my heart the most, I think in doing all this ministry and in my own life, was a church that has said and done nothing for people.

So many people, especially young adults, who come to me and said, you know, nobody from my church reached out to. Hmm. That breaks my heart. That breaks my heart, and nobody reached out to them during their deepest level of pain or after. And we wonder why so many people leave, especially in young adulthood.

That breaks my heart. I want to change that. I want a church that's better at healing because that's the healing that Christ expects of us. That's the healing he talks about by his wounds. He wants to heal all Donald and divorce separation, but we have to say yes to that. We need more people to say yes to that.

and have less people who get into young hood and beyond and said, You know what? Nobody from my church even reached out to me about this. Hmm. That is what I'm about. That's what I'm trying to do. That's why I'm trying to noble other people and other ministries that are willing to have that same vision.

Hmm. Wow. So good. And you clearly have a heart for this. And one of the things, uh, I think is, is just so beautiful is how Yeah. It's just, this is a just cause and you're, you just want to, you know, fight this battle in whatever way possible. And we're, we're rooting for you and I appreciate the, you know, the support and return and.

Yeah, Catholic leaders out there. Anyone who works on a diocesan level, uh, in, in parishes. Uh, think about how you can implement this in your diocese and you can contact Dan. We'll give you info on that in the show notes and then at the end here. But, um, but yeah, there, there's such a potential here. There's such a need.

Uh, and, and it's very clear it's anyone who's not aware of it. If you just look into this for like five seconds, you'll realize how much of a need there is here. And so, Dan, you guys are doing great things and just really happy to support you guys. And for you, one of the ways that you, uh, help children of divorce when really practical ways you offer retreats, like you mentioned.

And so just wanna talk about those really briefly. What happens on those retreats? Start with that and, and I have another question. Well, it's a time of personal reflection. You get a time to journal, you get a time to talk in small groups about this pain. But, uh, you know, it, it is a Catholic retreat.

Anybody's welcome. Um, anybody's welcome. Christian, you're far away, but I do wanna let you know it is Catholic. So we do some Catholic practices, but I'm happy to walk you through what those are, why we do that. And just quietly can pray during those times, even if you don't understand it there. So there's, there's also the sacraments, of course.

There's the sacrament eu. , there is, um, times of prayer. Uh, we, you know, we introduce them to some Catholic devotions as well, which again, I'm happy to explain for those who don't know, like the Divine Mercy Chapel. Well, so the heart of the retreat is to try to spiritually heal. We're, we're not, We focus a little bit on the psychological side of things, some dynamics, but it's primarily to increase your faith, hope and love.

So it's to, you know, help you spiritually heal to encounter Christ. And so we go through our father prayer actually. And how does our father prayer relate to different wounds we might have in the aftermath that our parents divorce, like the wound of identity, our wound, a relationship with God I wound to love and how we approach intimate relationships.

And we also address the topic of forgiveness, anger. Anxiety and also what's the meaning of Christian suffering and then, and perhaps most importantly, the joy, the joy that we can experience in our life. So, um, those are some of the topics that, some of the dynamic of the retreat. You can find more information about the retreated life giving wounds.org, but overall, it's a place to honor your ones and you can make the retreat multiple times.

I often tell people when they make the. If all you do this weekend is just begin to grieve, that's great. That's, that's, that's a great first step. That's all that some people do, you know, their first time. It just opens up a place in person to, to grieve. Yeah. I was curious, um, what are some of the benefits that people have, uh, walked away with from after attending the, the retreat?

Yeah. Well, thanks for asking. I think instead of me saying, I'd like to just share with you some of the testimonies that I received from people. Like, here's, here's what some past participants have said. One man said this retreat was such a beautiful experience. Uh, the retreat team is so humble and caring.

Obviously parts of the retreat were painful, but everything pointed to understanding that pain and healing with God's grace. So again, it's to give insight to better understand the wounds that people have and to un uncover the hidden wound. To name them. Um, another person talks about the community. She says, quote.

While the retreat was very difficult because of the topic and memories, it was also very healing to see the community see that there are other people out there who have been similarly wounded. And it's not just me. It was incredibly beautiful. You know, other people have said that it's deep in their faith with God.

Obviously that's what that person was getting at the community. The insight, I love what this other person said. Uh, just to share another one, I came to the retreat thinking I might get one or two things from it, but I'm leaving with a whole new perspective on how to live my life. And with a bigger heart for my family.

Mm-hmm. . And that's another thing to have bigger heart for your family. I, I've had retreats who finally, it, it enables 'em to get over the hump to say yes to engagement and marriage from this. But I think the point is that there's something that this retreat has to offer everybody, no matter what level of healing you have.

And it's to set you on a journey. I mean, one, there no illusions that, you know, one retreat weekend's gonna change your life, uh, completely. Right? Uh, but we do hope it sends you on a, uh, it's like a spark for a deeper journey of healing. And it, it can be truly life changing. I myself was a recipient of a life changing retreat that changed the trajectory of my life in high school.

And I've seen this happen to other people. And I hope it happens for you too. But no matter what, uh, there's just so many graces. We're humbled to hear from participants often, many years later too. Um, from it. So there, there's a whole lot of things, but if I have to boil 'em down, what we consistently hear is insight community and deep in faith.

That's beautiful. And I, as you were talking, I was thinking one of the most practical benefits, I would say is that they just have the time and a place and the support to process a lot of the pain and the problems in their life and kind of dive into, like you said, the grieving process and things like that.

Because so often I think, uh, it's so easy to just go through life on autopilot and life is just so busy. Uh, it's easy not to make healing a priority. And so by doing one of these weekend retreats, cuz they're, they're what, three days long, is that right? Yeah, typically three days. We do have a two day adapted version cause some diocese have asked us for shorter, so.

It can be adopted. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just, that's such a benefit in and of itself. It's like, yeah, can you do some of this on your own? Possibly. Um, but you may not make the time for it, or you may not have the support, or you may not, uh, you know, have the content to, to go through. And so it's, yeah, I can recommend these more.

I haven't been on them, uh, yet myself, but I, a lot of people I trust, uh, have, and they say really good things about it. So guys, definitely encourage you to go. Um, Dan is life giving wounds is where they can learn, uh, more about it. Life giving wounds.org, not.com. Dot org. Uh, is that the best place for 'em to sign up and learn more about it?

Yeah. Life Giving wounds.org has our calendar with all the different retreats, and I'm really excited to announce that next year we're gonna be all over America, all four corners. Uh, we're gonna be on the west coast, the east coast, down south, and Midwest. Um, you can find out about that. You can also, we just launched a Facebook page, uh, Life Giving Wounds, uh, Facebook page.

You can also see all the different retreats on there. And as we set up local chapters, we're gonna publish when they start running retreats as well. Right now we're in four diocese. Next year we're gonna be in nine diocese, and each diocese is gonna continue doing a retreat in a support group after the fact.

So we'll keep posting and there's gonna be more and more opportunities for people to go. Uh, but yeah, best places, life giving wounds.org or a Facebook page. You can also like and follow us will put all the announcements up as soon as we get them on the Facebook page. And you can also email me at dan life giving wounds.org.

Uh, as a final word, what, what would you say to someone who, uh, feels very broken and stuck in life, uh, teenager or young adult, especially because of their parents' divorce? What words of encouragement would you give to them? Healing is real. But healing can only happen with God. Don't run away from God, but run toward him.

You won't be disappointed. You'll be surprised. He wants to fill your wounds. He wants to fill those wounds with love, faith, hope, and Christ. So please, brothers and sisters out there, even if you're pushing God away, give him a second chance. Run toward him, please. You won't regret it, I promise you. Dan, thank you so much for, for being here, for everything you're doing with your ministry and just, uh, everything you've done to yeah, become the man that you are.

It's inspiring. So thank you so much. Thank you, Joe. You rock. You got a great ministry, folks. Keep listening and restored and keep following Joey. He's got a lot of gifts himself and I'm inspired by you and I admire you as well, Joey. So thank you for having. Lots of good takeaways. I'll just mention one. I especially love this line that Dr.

Daniel said. He said, For me, healing is not the absence of pain, but rather how I respond to that pain and I respond completely different. Now, I don't get stuck in it. Love that. If you wanna attend one of Dr. Daniel's retreats, uh, here's how you do that. Go to life giving wounds.org. not.com. Dot org slash recovering.

Dash origins. Again, that's life giving wounds.org/recovering-origins. And on that page you can read about the retreat, get a little bit more info about it, and then at the bottom you'll see a button that says Attend a retreat. Once you click that, You'll see a list of the retreats offered, uh, their locations, dates, and so on.

And you can, uh, on that page, you can click to, to register. And I mentioned a discount code at the beginning. Uh, Dr. Daniel is generously offering a $20 discount for anyone who, who mentions the Restored podcast when they're signing up for the, uh, 20, 20 February or April retreats that are, uh, hosted in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Little bonus for you guys there, so hope you take advantage of that. The resources mentioned are in the show notes@restoredministry.com slash nine. That's the number nine restored ministry.com/nine. Thank you so much for listening. If this has been useful, go ahead and subscribe and share this podcast with someone you know who could use it.

Always remember, you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person that you were born to be.

#008: The Hardest Part of My Life | Miranda Rodriguez

What’s been the hardest part of your life? For Miranda, it has been navigating her parents’ divorce.

If you read her article “Dear Divorce” you already know how clearly and beautifully she articulates the pain and the struggles she’s faced. But this episode isn’t just about the pain and struggles.

We talk about her #1 method of healing, the awareness she’s developed about herself, and the fact that nobody can heal alone. We all need help.

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Coming Up: Episode #009: A Retreat for Adult Children of Divorce | Dr. Daniel Meola

Thanks for listening! Our next episode features a retreat for adult children of divorce and the story of the man who started it.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

#007: 9 Common Struggles of Adult Children of Divorce - Part 3 | LeeAnne Abel

When your parents separate or divorce, it hurts. It brings a lot of pain, problems, and struggles into your life. But what are some of those common struggles? That's the topic of today's show.

We discuss 9 common struggles that children of divorce typically face based on a survey of 350 adult children of divorce conducted by LeeAnne Abel.

Throughout the conversation, we offer practical advice on how to deal with those struggles. In addition, this episode will help you understand yourself if your parents are separated or divorced. If you love or lead anyone from a broken family, it will also help you understand and love or lead them better.

Part 3 of 3. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

eBook: 5 Practical Tips to Cure Loneliness

“Mom told my siblings and me that Dad would no longer live with us. In fact, they were getting divorced... Immediately, I froze. I went numb. The 11 year old Joey couldn’t handle that news.”

— 5 Practical Tips to Cure Loneliness

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• Podcast

  • Episode #002: How 70 Adult Children of Divorce Have Suffered | Leila Miller

• Video

  • Tim Ferriss Exercise: Why you should define your fears instead of your goals

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  • Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak by Leila Miller

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  • Dr. Judith Wallerstein's book: The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce
    
    

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Coming Up: Episode #008: The Hardest Part of My Life | Miranda Rodriguez

Thanks for listening! Our next episode features the story of Miranda Rodriguez. She wrote the very moving article Dear Divorce.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

#006: 9 Common Struggles of Adult Children of Divorce - Part 2 | LeeAnne Abel

When your parents separate or divorce, it hurts. It brings a lot of pain, problems, and struggles into your life. But what are some of those common struggles? That's the topic of today's show.

We discuss 9 common struggles that children of divorce typically face based on a survey of 350 adult children of divorce conducted by LeeAnne Abel.

Throughout the conversation, we offer practical advice on how to deal with those struggles. In addition, this episode will help you understand yourself if your parents are separated or divorced. If you love or lead anyone from a broken family, it will also help you understand and love or lead them better.

Part 2 of 3. Part 1 is here and Part 3 is here. Enter your email below to be notified.

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Coming Up: Episode #007: 9 Common Struggles of Adult Children of Divorce - Part 3 | LeeAnne Abel

Thanks for listening! Our next episode is part of 3 of the 9 common struggles of adult children of divorce.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

#005: 9 Common Struggles of Adult Children of Divorce - Part 1 | LeeAnne Abel

When your parents separate or divorce, it hurts. It brings a lot of pain, problems, and struggles into your life. But what are some of those common struggles? That's the topic of today's show.

We discuss 9 common struggles that children of divorce typically face based on a survey of 350 adult children of divorce conducted by LeeAnne Abel.

Throughout the conversation, we offer practical advice on how to deal with those struggles. In addition, this episode will help you understand yourself if your parents are separated or divorced. If you love or lead anyone from a broken family, it will also help you understand and love or lead them better.

Part 1 of 3. Part 2 is here and part 3 goes live Dec 26. Enter your email below to be notified.

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• Podcast

  • Episode #002: How 70 Adult Children of Divorce Have Suffered | Leila Miller

  • The Place We Find Ourselves by Adam Young

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  • Emotional Agility by Dr. Susan David

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Coming Up: Episode #006: 9 Common Struggles of Adult Children of Divorce - Part 2 | LeeAnne Abel

Thanks for listening! Our next episode is part of 2 of the 9 common struggles of adult children of divorce.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Report: 9 Common Struggles of 350 Adult Children of Divorce

10 minute read

The report below was written by LeeAnne Abel (pictured above). She gave permission for the report to be shared on Restored’s blog. You can listen to episode #005 of the Restored podcast where we speak with LeeAnne about the 9 common struggles of children of divorce.

Do you understand what it is like to be an adult child of divorce?

If you are not an adult child of divorce (ACOD), I doubt you understand. As a result of the publication of Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak, a number of secret online groups has emerged with the goal of providing its members, maybe for the first time, a place to discuss how their parents’ divorces have affected them. In the groups, which I administer, people share, without criticism, giving one another time and space to vent and grieve, analyze and process, as well as heal and forgive. When a person from an intact family says he understands, I usually find out relatively quickly that he doesn’t. When someone says that everyone has pain, trauma, hurt and disappointment, not just those whose parents are divorced, I let them know that I agree. However, an adult child of divorce has the normal difficulties of life, but in addition handles them from a broken family foundation.  Just as I would take seriously an addict telling me that I do not fully understand what it is like to be an addict, I hope others will take seriously that they may not know what it is like to be an ACOD. 

I asked members of the online groups to tell me what they still struggle with, and then I created a survey to see how many of those symptoms were common among members. There are currently about 350 people in the groups, and they are men and women, older and younger, adults and children at time of divorce, some with multiple parental divorces. For the most part, they are highly functioning people. But on the inside, they are dealing with the issues summarized below, listed within a few over-arching categories.  This is not what they dealt with while growing up, just what is still difficult now. If you would like to know what kind of suffering still afflicts many adult children of divorce, read on. 

Confidence, self-doubt, insecurity, anxiety: They struggle with confidence, having not received much familial affirmation in the past. They lack validation about their pain regarding parental divorce. Many struggle with being loved by others and by God, often feeling like second-class citizens compared to those from intact families. They have trouble accepting praise and find it difficult to stand up for themselves, many citing the fact that they were left behind as their parents moved on to prioritize the family that came after them. They often feel misunderstood about their feelings of childhood because their experiences were different than siblings who were at different ages when the family split occurred and may have lived with different parents at different times. Many have sustained feelings of unworthiness. They feel they are not allowed to have needs, are not as valuable as others. They experience general lack of confidence and nervousness but hide it. 

They over-think things, find difficulty with decision-making, saying they are paralyzed by uncertainty. They experience immense stress with planning events because that will involve family members who do not get along, refuse to be at the same events at the same time with other people who were once in or are new to the family. They are told who may be invited and with whom they may have contact. For example, mother’s husband one, husband two, and the new boyfriend cannot attend simultaneously. They fear how exposure to their family of origin will affect their own children. They state insecurity as a constant companion, along with a generalized fear that something is looming in the shadows which will ruin everything, just like the sudden announcement of parental divorce did. Many have a hidden, deep-seated feeling of inadequacy, especially in their careers. They live with a fear of divorce or abandonment, thinking one wrong word may cause someone to leave.

Anger: Anger developed for many respondents during youth, especially the males, though some were older when this became an issue, and it has caused significant and predictable problems for many. 

Boundaries:  They struggle with understanding boundaries and establishing them.  Specifically, they have difficulty establishing how much contact/interaction to have with certain parts of the family, how much to expose themselves to the stresses of their families of origin while they are trying to establish and be healthy with families of their own, and how much they can hide these difficulties when around family. As mentioned above, the logistics of attending or hosting events creates a paralyzing awkwardness and lack of joy surrounding events such as baptisms, graduations, weddings, birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, soccer games, and choir recitals.  This confusion around handling boundaries carries over into other relationships and friendships as they are not sure how to understand proper boundaries and whether they can establish them in a healthy way. Though most people from intact families can choose how to divide time and attention with various family members, ACODs are often put in a position of choosing between parents, which is of course more difficult than choosing which aunt to visit first when coming to town. This stress is added to the normal difficulties of dividing time with family and in-law family. They have functioned as middlemen between parents and have difficulty establishing boundaries which help them escape that role. They have difficulty deciding how much time to spend with a parent with whom they did not live while growing up. 

Many were forced into role reversal as parents, especially abandoned parents, experienced turmoil during the divorce, and that dynamic is hard to break from now that the children are adults. This is related to the issue of children who were treated just like friends, but who wish to adjust that dynamic to a healthier one. Many expressed the feeling of fragmentation, having to be different with different people and speak about or avoid different things with different parts of the family.  

A high number of people said they had to pretend they were happy about the divorce and/or remarriage(s), remembering they were told to repeat the story in a certain way, and fearing that the family would find out they have negative thoughts about what happened. Many said they spent years and even decades denying they were upset about the divorce before they admitted it. Many were silenced by family members, told to not talk about the divorce because it would upset someone who was already upset by it, for example, the abandoned parent. They had learned that they should not add to the burdens of their parents and feared and avoided increasing the conflict between their parents. Many reported gaslighting. 

[Honoring Parents/4th Commandment]: An overwhelming number reported confusion about how to live out the fourth commandment to honor one or both parents, having lost respect for one or both and having developed a strained or broken relationship.  They struggle with forgiving their parents for ruining the family, as well as struggling to forgive others who contributed to the divorce, condoned it, benefited from it, or did nothing to discourage it but could have. 

Grief: Many report feelings of grief coming from the loss of family. They report silent, hidden crying and suffering, not feeling entitled to happiness or trusting it is realistic to be happy. They report sadness and sorrow, regret about decisions made while reacting to their unstable home and unprotected youth. Many have loss of memories from the trauma, feelings of being an outsider in the family/stepfamily, and resentment. 

Codependence: There is a strong need among many to create harmony, fix problems, and people-please, often trying too hard so others and God will find them valuable, as well as also being a “rescuer” or “extreme friend.” Many turned to emotional eating, substance use, or other types of escapism to handle the hidden pain of family breakdown.

Loneliness: Many reported having poor or missing coping skills, an abiding loneliness, and an inability to find connectedness with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, because of what happened with the divorce. They have found communication has broken down within the family regarding important things because the parents are split, and information is lost and not transmitted among people in the family. They noted a lack of belonging, a lack of a feeling that they have a home to go home to, a lack of the ability to know what is normal and what a normal person would do in certain situations. 

Trust: Many have problems trusting others, trusting their words and promises, as well as attachment to others because they fear opening their hearts completely even to a spouse or potential mate. They tend toward being guarded and cautious. They are often defensive and on guard for poor treatment. Some develop a fierce independence, even though they know it can be difficult on a relationship. Some develop a hard exterior which is attributed to learning to be a survivor during the times that the parents were occupied with the divorce, recovery from divorce, and attention on the next relationship. Many fear intimacy and being vulnerable. 

Many fear that conflict leads to permanent separation, and so they avoid conflict, not having seen how to resolve it, and having a fear of it. Many have developed a distrust in either men or women because of what happened during the divorce and thereafter. Many report a distorted image of God the Father and not knowing how to trust in God. Many report being too controlling, being perfectionists (to avoid showing faults and perhaps being rejected), a lack of peace, and constant worry. 

Relationship Skills:  Many lack examples of what marriage should look like, worrying they too will divorce like the parents did, not trusting their own ability to navigate relationships, and hopelessness about marriage being long-term.  Many have been tempted to self-sabotage, thinking a relationship will end anyway, and so they might as well cause the end of the relationship now. Many report that the family does not understand the ACOD issues with which they suffer. Some have difficulty disciplining their own children, this resulting from poor modeling by their parents, perhaps having fear about over-reacting to their own parental neglect.  An ACOD worries about his or her own children who fear there will be a divorce because the grandparents divorced.

Many reported problems with dealing with past abuse, loss of protection from busy single or remarried parents, and neglect. Many blamed themselves. Many felt commodified, had problems with what they had to do in court at the time of divorce, suffered from what happened when parents were dating. Many lost their connection to their faith, lost friends, felt manipulated, suffered with stepfamily problems, felt pressure to be “resilient,” lacked rules and structure, suffered with carrying of secrets, and loss of identity. Many reported their future prospects were impacted in areas of academic achievement, addiction, networking, friendships, goal formation, poverty, suicides, and loss of inheritance. They suffered with parental estrangement and watching their parents decline, especially the abandoned ones, but also those who took the same problems from the first marriage into their other relationships. Many are taking care of an aging parent, while the other parent has moved on. 

ACODs rarely tell their families about this for fear they will be ostracized, judged, mocked, or rejected. Obviously, this list does not apply to every ACOD in the same way, and some things may not apply at all. But much of it may apply to different people you know and love. Thanks for reading.

---

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Dear Divorce

3 minute read

The article below was written by Miranda Rodriguez (pictured above). She gave permission for the article to be shared on Restored’s blog. It originally appeared on her blog, Miranda Kate.co. For the Spanish version, go here.

Dear divorce,

Thanks to you, I learned nothing on earth lasts as long as it should.

Dear divorce,

You spread the heinous lie that ‘happiness’ is on the other side of leaving, that it’s the only answer.

You convinced them that ‘children are resilient;’ after all, we ‘want you to be happy.’

Dear divorce,

You taught me to trust no one, not even those who say ‘I love you’, not even myself.

Dear divorce,

You showed me how my world can come crashing down on me at any moment – so don’t get too comfortable.

Dear divorce,

You made nights slow torture as I tried to manage the pain in the darkness alone.

Stop crying

Stop crying

Stop crying.

Dear divorce,

You taught me to isolate myself, to keep my distance, to remain unattached, to fear instead of love.

Dear divorce,

You made me desperate for attention but wary of affection.

You convinced me to cling instead of trust, because they will leave.

They will.

Dear divorce,

You caused guilt to follow me every day of my life. Guilt that envelops me, though it wasn’t my fault.

It wasn’t my fault

It wasn’t my fault

It wasn’t my fault.

Dear divorce,

You made closeness feel impossible, love seem unattainable.

Dear divorce,

You made me feel unlovable – that I am not worthy and never good enough.

You told me that something is wrong with me – it must be.

Dear divorce,

You filled me with rage but gave me no way to express it. You told me to shove it down, deep deep deep.

I’m angry

I’m angry

I’m angry.

Dear divorce,

You left me with the heart of a broken child, a heart too weak to love, too hurt to be held.

It hurts.

Dear divorce,

You stole my haven, my comfort, my security. You just took it.

You bastard.

Dear divorce,

You’ll never know what it’s like to make a vow to someone and keep it until you die.

You’ll never grow old with the person you promised “till death do us part.”

You’ll never experience the unconditional love from one person all of your days.

You’ll never know what it’s like to come home to the same people, the same person, year after year.

Dear divorce,

You’ll never know what they mean: the words ‘love’ and ‘family’ and ‘stay’.

Dear divorce,

You will miss out on countless moments: Hugs and kisses, tears and breakthroughs, fights and grief, forgiveness and reconciliations, firsts and lasts. You lost them and you will never get them back.

The ghosts of memories will haunt you until your lonely death.

What could have been.

You’ll never know what could have been, what was on the other side of staying – the forgiveness, the grace, the love.

I pity you.

Dear divorce,

You thought you had me. You believed I would buy into the treacherous lies, but I won’t.

You have led many others astray, lured them with your siren’s call, but not me.

I will never be yours – I have seen too much.

The charm of ‘freedom’ is only loneliness. The happiness you promise is empty – a black hole of egotistical wishes.

I know the suffering, I know the fallout, I know the pain. I know.

I will never choose you – not as long as I live.

You are dark, sad and alone.

I pity you.

Dear divorce,

Thanks to you, I know that I will never be yours.

---

To hear Miranda read and discuss the article, go here.

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#004: 7 Tips to Navigate the Holidays for Children of Divorce

The holidays are a challenging time for most children of divorced or separated parents. Most of us feel alone, lost, and uncertain of how to navigate the holidays with our broken families.

Instead of experiencing the joy of the holidays, we often feel overwhelmed, frustrated, embarrassed, and sad.

If you can relate, we made this episode for you. In it, we give 7 tips on how to navigate the holidays so you can enjoy them and hopefully, avoid all the drama.

The advice is from a survey of older children of divorce combined with Joey’s advice on the topic.​

If you love or lead someone with divorced or separated parents, share this episode with them.

Join Restored’s private online community

1. Go here

2. Fill out and submit the form

3. We’ll email you instructions to join

Links & Resources

• Leave your feedback here! If it’s easier, feel free to comment below too.

  [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the links below, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!]

• Books

  • Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

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Coming Up: Episode #005: 9 Common Struggles of Adult Children of Divorce - Part 1 | LeeAnne Abel

Thanks for listening! Our next episode features speaker, author, and leader LeeAnne Abel. We talk about the 9 common struggles that children of divorce face and some tactics of how to deal with them.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

The holidays can be a challenging time for so many people, for so many reasons. But this is especially true for people whose parents are divorced or separated, particularly if they're teens or young adults. Most of them feel alone. They feel lost, and they feel uncertain of how to navigate the holiday.

Given their family situation and worse of all, they're vividly reminded during the holidays of how broken their families are. I remember one of the first holidays that my parents were separated as a boy. I felt kind of awkward. I felt kind of embarrassed about what was going on with my family. I think most of all, I felt sad.

I was sad because this was one of the first holidays where both of my parents were not there, and so I remember spending most of that holiday, most of that Christmas in one of the bedroom. Playing video games. If the holidays are a struggle for you, this episode is for you. In it, I'm gonna give seven tips, seven practical tips on how to navigate the holidays if your parents are separated or divorced.

And this isn't just my advice. I surveyed older children of divorce and ask them what they would say to you if they could speak to you. And so I'm gonna take their advice. I'm gonna combine it with my own thoughts on. And that's where the seven tips come from. Keep listening.

Welcome to the Restored podcast, helping you cope and heal after your parents' divorce or separation so you can feel whole again. I'm your host, Joey Pontarelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode four and I wanna just dive right in. If you're someone who doesn't come from a divorce or Ed family, you may not understand why the holiday.

Can be so challenging for people like us. And so I wanna spend a little bit of time on that. I wanna explain some of the reasons why it can be so challenging, and certainly there are many reasons, but these are just a few. Like I said at the top of the show, it's a clear reminder that your family is broken and your parents are not together.

For most of us, we, we have fond memories of holidays, and when your parents separate a divorce, those kind of holidays just don't happen again. Those memories, sadly, will never be made again. On a practical level, it's just challenging. Logistically, you could have twice as many parties to attend, or if your parents are remarried, maybe even more.

If you're married, of course you have your spouse's family, and if you have children, you may feel even more pressure to bring the kids around to see your relatives and your parents. An obvious reason is the possibility for drama intention. Perhaps there's already drama intention to begin with. I know if it hasn't been long since the divorce was finalized.

Maybe you're in the midst of it all. There can be a lot of tension, not only between your parents, uh, but also between your relatives. Some of your relatives may be speaking bad about one of your parents, uh, and vice versa. Like I said, I remember just feeling sort of awkward about everything that was going down, and I knew some of my relatives didn't think very highly of my other parent, and so there was just a lot of tension and drama at some of those parties.

And one of the last reasons is that it's difficult to make everyone happy and, and I don't think you should, and we'll get into that in a little bit. But it can be challenging because mom may want you over at this time. Dad may want you over at this time. Dad may not wanna see mom, but mom may be okay with seeing Dad or like I've heard in some families, Mom and dad may still do holidays together, which can bring its own type of challenge.

Relatives can be upset that you didn't go to this party or that party, or you didn't stay as long because you were leaving to, to go to the other side of the family. And so, and at the end of the day, it leaves you feeling frustrated. Overwhelmed. Embarrassed, like I said, and I think kind of hopeless and just sad.

Just sad that your family is the way it is, that your family is broken, that your parents are not together. Even if I always say this, even if it was necessary for them to break apart, it's still a tragedy. The first thing I wanna say is if you feel any of those feelings, There's nothing wrong with you.

You're not weird, and you're not alone in feeling that writer and psychiatrist, Victor Frankel said that an abnormal response to an abnormal event is normal. In other words, when your parents separate or divorce, that's an abnormal event. It's not supposed to happen. And so if you feel anxious, if you feel sad, if you feel embarrassed, overwhelmed, frustrated by the divorce, but especially about navigating the holidays, that's.

And I just want you to know that this isn't right. The holidays should be a time for celebration, not drama. And I'm sorry if in your family there's a lot of tension, there's a lot of drama, and you really struggle to even attend these parties and especially struggle to find any joy in these holidays. So faced with all this, what do we do?

How do we navigate the holidays so we can enjoy them and hopefully avoid all the drama? The first tip is to set and enforce boundaries. Now, boundaries you could think of as like property lines. On this side of the line is me and what I like and what I'm willing to do, and on that side of the line is what I don't like and what I'm not willing to do.

It's out of bounds. Again, it's basically saying, I'm willing to do this. I'm not willing to do that. A few examples are telling your parents that I will not talk to you about the other parent. Another example is saying, I will spend the holidays with both of you, and then maybe laying down some rules saying, This is how much time I'll spend here.

This is how much time I'll spend there. And remember, it's okay to say. No, it's okay to say, I don't wanna do that. I'm not willing to do that. I'm not willing to talk about that, whatever it may be. Once you set the boundaries, you have to enforce those boundaries. If someone steps over one of those boundaries, you have to enforce it.

You have to show them that if these boundaries are not followed, there are consequences. And what you're basically saying, In enforcing your boundaries is that I am not a doormat. These are my rules, and if you follow them, we can have a relationship. I'll come to that party and so. If you don't, then you are self-selecting to not have a relationship with me.

Remember, you set the boundary and if they don't follow it, they're the ones making the choice not to have the relationship, not to have you present at the holiday, not to have you present at the party. It's not your fault if they don't follow the boundary that you set. You're not doing it to them. They are doing it to themselves.

Of course, as part of boundaries, there's likely to be some drama, and so just don't engage in that drama. Underneath this advice for boundaries, there's a few other important points, and one of them is it's not your job to please everyone. You're not responsible for pleasing your parents or your family or your relatives.

You have no responsibility to, to make everyone happy, and so on a, on a practical point, don't feel forced to involve strangers. In your life, whether that's, you know, your dad's girlfriend or your mom's boyfriend or someone else, you shouldn't feel forced to involve them in your life. It should be something that's natural and gradual.

Remember that you're not responsible to parent your parents. You are not your parents' crutch. You're not what holds them up. And don't let your parents emotionally rely on you. I know that sounds like tough love, but I mean it, it's really not good for them or for you if mom or dad are emotionally relying on you, they're opening up to you in a way that just is too much.

They shouldn't be coming to their child with all of their emotional baggage and emotional issues if they do. Kindly and firmly redirect them to their support network. And what I mean by support network is their friends, their family, maybe their siblings, or an aunt or an uncle or their mom or their dad.

Your grandparents could be a counselor, a pastor. Someone like that, they need help, but not from you. And so it's actually more loving for you to redirect them to someone who could actually help them and support them than to keep listening to them and allow them to use you as their emotional support.

And so you could say something simply like this, mom or dad, I love you. I care about you. I want what's best for you, but I can't be your emotional support. You need to go to your friends, to your counselor, to your family. To a pastor and lean on them, Not me. I wanna help you, but I have to help you in another way.

And one of the last points when it comes to boundaries is protect yourself from manipulators. And I'm not condemning parents here and saying that your parents are automatically manipulators, but if there's a manipulator in your family, whether it's your parents or someone else, be aware of that. Protect yourself from anyone who might want to use the holiday celebration or the holiday.

Spirit to take advantage of you or to back you in a corner, so to speak. In any way, don't let anyone use fear, a sense of obligation or guilt to manipulate you. So just keep an eye out for this. Recognize the manipulation, and just distance yourself from that person. It may mean confronting them and telling them, No, I'm not allowing you to manipulate me like this.

But it also may just mean getting out of that situation because you know that they just won't listen to what you. The next tip is to communicate ahead of time. There's a few important points here, and one of them is that you have a right to express your feelings. Be honest about your feelings and the needs that you have.

In fact, if you're at that point, I encourage you to talk to your parents, sit them down, talk to each of them, and tell them I love you both. But it can be very hard around the holidays to please you both and to not offend you. So I need you to please understand my decisions, my boundaries, and please understand that the tension in our family makes it difficult to actually enjoy the holidays.

But even if you're not there yet, I encourage you to set expectations early by communicating to both of your parents. You could tell your mom, Mom, I will be coming to your party for this long and then leaving to go to dad's party. The reason to do this is so that there's no surprises when the holiday shows up.

Now I realize if you live at home, This can be especially difficult. You may not have as much power to just leave or tell mom or dad that you're not coming to the party, but even in that case, I encourage you to communicate with mom, with dad, and tell them what you're comfortable with, what you're not comfortable with, and my hope is that they'll hear you out and they'll love and care about you enough to understand where you're coming from and give you that respect and that freedom.

That you need. Tip three, take ownership. You can choose how to respond even in the midst of the worst situations. I know it's difficult, Trust me. I know it's difficult, but this is absolutely true. You can choose how to respond even in midst, all the tension and the drama during the holidays. When I say take ownership, I mean do what you can with what you're given.

When it comes to traditions, some of the old traditions that you're used to may die, sadly, but you can make your own traditions, especially if you have your own family, you can spend. The holiday with someone else, with a friend or a family. If your family right now is toxic for you, and if you spend the holiday with another family, I really encourage you to be intentional about that and to choose a family that really exemplifies it shows what it means to be a true, good family.

And as the years go on, keep in mind that you get to make your own family. You get to choose your own family. And again, if you're married or moving towards marriage, just focus on your. This could be a good time to think about what you want for your future family or your current family compared to what you have right now in your immediate family.

And a practical tip is to just plan things around the holidays that can distract from the drama and the tension. An example of that could be going to a movie or doing some sort of activity, whether it. Bowling or glow in the dark, mini golf, whatever it may be, some maybe activity that takes away the tension and the focus on conversation.

The fourth tip is to be virtuous. Vir, of course, is those good habits that we have and the disposition that we have toward what is good. And so give your parents some grace during the holidays. Just understand that they are navigating the holidays too, as someone whose family is broken as well. So be polite, be kind, be loving.

But remember, I'm not saying to just be nice and be a doormat. Stand up for yourself. Set those boundaries. But of course, be loving. Be virtuous. Tip five. Have a plan to take care of yourself. Think ahead about what could happen during the holidays. Prepare for different conversations. You're gonna have, I know this sounds extreme, but seriously, think about, I'm gonna be talking to this family member.

I'm probably gonna be in this situation and this conversation. Think ahead. Think about what you'll say, what you'll do in that situation, and be prepared to handle the difficult emotions that come along during the holidays. If you're from a broken. In my life, whenever I've been faced with a lot of stress or, or difficult emotions, especially as a teenager, I was always tempted to seek comfort in unhealthy things like pornography.

And I know other people struggle with things like alcohol or drugs or binging on social media, overeating, so many different unhealthy ways of coping. And so think ahead to that. How will I be tempted in the midst of that tension, that trauma, that stress? And then think about ways in which you can respond in a healthy way that may be going on a run or spending time with a friend or a good movie.

It's really helpful throughout the holidays if you can have a friend or maybe a couple friends who you can talk to about everything with your family. Don't keep it inside, get it out of you. Find that support and I'm gonna tell you how at Restored, we have an opportunity for you to join our private safe online community so that you can do just that.

You can find support with people who've been through the things that you're going through, and who in fact are going. The things that you are going through, uh, stay tuned. I'll tell you about that at the end. Another great way to get things out of your head, out of your chest is just to journal about them.

And this doesn't have to be in a paper notebook. It could be on your phone, it could be in a recording app. You can just say it out loud. It doesn't matter. The point is that you get it out of your head. And whatever happens through the holidays, learn from it. Look at it as an opportunity to be better, and whatever comes up inside of you, whatever emotions or memories come up inside of you, work through those.

Don't shove them away, but pay attention to that. Tip number six. Focus on the celebration. It can be so easy when there's so much drama and tension to forget about the reason that you're celebrating that holiday. And so try to remember, try to think of the meaning of the holiday and the United States. Of course, we have Thanksgiving, so think through maybe the history and the meaning of Thanksgiving and think about what you're thankful.

Again, even in the midst of a really bad situation, look for what you are thankful for, cuz there's always something that you can be thankful for. Even if it's as simple as the food or your friends who you can talk to about this, or if you love traveling, whatever might be, find something that you can be thankful for.

If you're Christian, of course you celebrate Christmas, but maybe you're Jewish, so maybe you celebrate Hanukkah, whatever it may be, remember the meaning of the holiday. Don't lose the meaning. In the midst of the drama and try to enjoy it. Enjoy the little things, and keep in mind that you may need to lower your expectations of what the holidays are going to be like.

Especially if your parents' separation or divorce is pretty fresh, you may not feel safe or secure at your family parties. And I'm sorry that's the case, but it is the reality and I just wanna warn you of. On a personal note, there are very few places that I feel safe and secure, and so just be prepared for that.

And don't be afraid to, to take a break. You know, help with clean up, help with setting the table, help with whatever someone may need help with. If you need to step away, go for a little walk step outside. And do things you enjoy. Play a game, play a board game. Play a card game, watch a movie, watch sports, whatever it might be.

Do something that again, takes the focus off of any drum or attention and helps you to enjoy the actual holiday. Tip number seven is to ask God for help. And if you're not religious, I'm not trying to stuff God in your face. For anyone who is religious, rely on God in the midst of these situations. If you're Christian, bring Jesus with you into the family party.

You don't have to do this alone. And if everything is a complete mess in your family, uh, first I'm so sorry that that's happening, but I want you to trust that God is not finished. He does not want this to be happening to you. I'm so convinced of that. I struggle with that for a long time thinking, God, why would you allow this to happen to me and to my family?

And that's a huge topic that we're gonna tackle later, but I just want you to know that God is not a sadistic God. He doesn't enjoy watching us hurt. He hates it too. He doesn't like us to suffer, but he does allow it. And that's something that we're gonna be talking about in the future. We'll talk about free will, and we'll talk about how God can bring good even out of the worst situations, even if it's hard to believe.

And I want to end with a quote from Saint Mother Therea of Calcutta, and it's a beautiful quote, and if you're not familiar with Mother Teresa, I think most people are, but she was a religious sister who served in India and really the worst part of India, and she would just serve the poor was so much love and so much joy, and she didn't just capture the Christian world, she captured the entire world secular.

Religious world, even atheist, just had so much respect for this woman. This woman who had so much love in her heart. So much joy and so much wisdom, which I wanna share with you because I think that it is applicable to the situation that we find ourselves in when it comes to navigating the holidays as children of divorce or ed parents, she said people are often unreasonable, irrational.

And self-centered, forgive them anyway. If you are kind people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere. People may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight, create anyway. If you find sincerity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good. Anyway, give the best you have and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway, in the final analysis, it is between you and God.

It was never between you and them anyway.

I hope these tips have been helpful for you. I just wanna name the seven tips again in case it's helpful. Tip one is to set and enforce boundaries. Tip two is to communicate ahead of time. Tip three is to take ownership. Tip four, be virtuous. Tip five, have a plan to take care of yourself. Tip six, focus on the celebration.

And tip seven, ask God for help. Like I mentioned during the show at Restored, we have a private online community, and the main benefit of the online community is that you can speak freely. In a private setting to people who also come from separated or divorced families. If nothing else, they can just encourage you and listen to you.

But often what I've seen in our community is that people will actually give some wisdom and some guidance on what you're dealing with, and you'll be challenged to grow into a better, stronger person. And even if you're not interested in sharing a lot in our community, You can still benefit from hearing what others are going through so that you know that you are not alone.

Now, if you wanna join our private online community, you can go to restored ministry.com/community. Again, that's restored ministry ministry singular.com. Slash community, again, restored ministry.com/community. When you go on there, you're gonna fill out a form, submit the form, and we'll get back to you, uh, with the next steps and welcome you to our community.

If you'd like to access the show notes for this show, you can go to restored ministry.com/four. That's the number four. Again, restored ministry. Ministry is singular.com/four restored. ministry.com/four. Big thanks to everyone who filled out the survey. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and taking the time to do that.

Thank you so much for listening. If this has been useful, please subscribe. And the reason to subscribe is not only to be notified when new episodes go live, but also it helps us get more visibility on the different podcasting apps so that we can help more people. And please share this with someone that you know who could really use this.

During the holidays, and please know that I'm thinking of you. I'm praying for you. I really wish you the best this holiday season. I hope you can navigate that holidays successfully so you can enjoy them hopefully without all the drama. And always remember, you're not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person you were born to.

#003: How Craving Wholeness Motivated Her to Heal | Beth Sri

Beth’s parents divorced when she was very young. However, she still remembers the cardboard boxes and feeling confused about her dad leaving.

Over the years, she saw her parents’ divorce impact her in various ways. She recalls looking for external approval, feeling lost, and the challenge of constantly navigating between two homes. She also shares what she has done to heal and how her life is better now because of it.

By listening to Beth’s story, you’ll find that no matter how broken you feel or messy life becomes, there’s always hope. She also shares some practical tips on how you can heal too.

At the end of the show, we introduce a free online tool for you to use at RestoredMinistry.com/story

If you love or lead someone with divorced or separated parents, this episode will help you to better understand them and how to help them.

Links & Resources

• Leave your feedback here! If it’s easier, feel free to comment below too.

  [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the links below, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!]

• Books

  • Emotional Agility by Dr. Susan David

  • Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak by Leila Miller

  • Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce by Elizabeth Marquardt

  • Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life by Dr. Bob Schuchts

  • Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

• Research

  • The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce by Dr. Judith Wallerstein

  • Teens who can describe negative emotions are better protected against depression

• Podcast

  • The Place We Find Ourselves by Adam Young

• Join Restored’s private online community here.

• Follow Beth Sri

  • Instagram: @mrsbethsri

  • Facebook: Beth Sri

  • Website: Born to Do This

Enjoy the show?

To be notified when new episodes go live, subscribe below.

Coming Up: Episode #004: 7 Tips to Navigate the Holidays for Children of Divorce

Thanks for listening! Our next episode features 7 tips on how to navigate the holidays for children of divorce, so they can enjoy them and hopefully avoid all the drama.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

#002: How 70 Adult Children of Divorce Have Suffered | Leila Miller

When your parents separate or divorce, it hurts and you feel alone. You feel like nobody can understand what you are going through.

At Restored, we know how that feels. But we want you to know this: You’re actually not alone.

To prove that, we talk with speaker and author Leila Miller about her book Primal Loss, which features 70 stories from children of divorce. We uncover the shocking ways divorce has affected them, even years later as adults, and some practical advice to deal with it.

If you love or lead someone with divorced or separated parents, Leila offers some practical advice for you too.

Links & Resources

• Leave your feedback here! If it’s easier, feel free to comment below too.

• Book: Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak

  • Get the free digital copy here

  • Buy a physical copy here [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through this link, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!]

• Follow Leila Miller

  • Leilamiller.net

  • Leila’s Facebook Page

• Research

  • Dr. Judith Wallerstein's book: The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce
    [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through this link, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!]

  • 1/3 high conflict divorces, 2/3 low conflict divorces

Enjoy the show?

To be notified when new episodes go live, subscribe below.

Coming Up: Episode #003: How Craving Wholeness Motivated Her to Heal | Beth Sri

Thanks for listening! Our next episode features mother, wife, and leader Beth Sri. She shares her story as a child of divorce, her process of healing, and the transformation she experienced.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

#001: How Restored Helps Children of Divorce

Are your parents divorced? Are they separated? Has that brought a lot of pain and problems into your life? Do you feel alone and unsure of how to deal with it all?

If you answered yes, the Restored podcast is for you. In this intro episode, we'll talk about how your parents' divorce is still affecting you, what you can do about it, and how this podcast exists to help cope, heal, and feel whole again.

Also, if you love or lead someone with divorced or separated parents, the Restored podcast is also for you. We want to help you, help them.

Links & Resources

• Leave your feedback here! If it’s easier, feel free to comment below too.

• Heritage Foundation Research

• Dr. Paul Amato’s Research

• Dr. Judith Wallerstein's book: The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce
  [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through this link, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!]

• Research: 1/3 high conflict divorces, 2/3 low conflict divorces

Enjoy the show?

To be notified when new episodes go live, subscribe below.

Coming Up: Episode #002: How 70 Adult Children of Divorce Have Suffered with Leila Miller

Thanks for listening! Our next episode features speaker and author Leila Miller, who wrote the book Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak. [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through this link, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!]

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Are your parents divorced? Are they separated? Has that brought a lot of pain and problems into your life? Do you feel alone? Do you feel broken? Do you feel uncertain of how to deal with it all? If you answer yes to any of those questions, this podcast, the Restored podcast, is for you. Now, if that doesn't describe.

I have another question. Do you love or lead someone with divorced parents or separated parents? If so, the Restored podcast is also for you on it. We feature expert interviews and stories that give practical advice on how to cope and heal after the trauma of your parents' divorce or separation so you can feel hold.

Keep listening.

Welcome to the Restored podcast. I'm your host, Joey Pelli. This is episode one. Thank you so much for listening. In this episode, we're gonna touch on a few things. First, we're gonna talk about how your parents' divorce is affecting you. And what you can do about it. Uh, we'll touch on why studies show that people who come from divorced families typically struggle more in romantic relationships than people who come from intact families.

We're gonna talk about restored. What is restored and why does it exist. What you'll find is that it exists for you, and we're gonna also talk about the plan for this podcast. What's touc come down the road and how this can be valuable. To you if you come from a divorce or separated family or you lead or love someone who does, Anyone from a broken family knows that when your parents separate or divorce, it hurts.

It's painful even when it's absolutely necessary and it makes life harder. A lot of unique problems and challenges that children of divorce have to face that other people. And most young people I've found, feel alone, feel broken, and really uncertain of how to deal with it all. In fact, that was Mary's story as a little girl.

Mary watched her parents fight all the time. Their marriage was a mess, and they needed some serious help, but they never got it. Fast forward to when Mary was in high school, Mary's mom came to her and said, I want to divorce your dad. Mary didn't quite know what to say, so she said, I just want the fighting to stop.

Her mom went through with the divorce and what seemed like a solution to really bad situation, just made things worse. It just brought more pain and problems into their lives instead of fixing them. Now up to that point, uh, Mary was a pretty good girl. She didn't drink or party or do anything like that, but that all changed when she went off to college.

She got into the party scene, started drinking heavily. That led to dating the wrong guys. She married one of those guys. He ended up being a drug addict and an alcoholic. They got pregnant and because Mary was terrified that her baby was gonna grow up in that hell, she got an abortion. That obviously brought a lot more pain into her life and eventually she divorced her own husband, repeating the cycle, started by her parents, and once the dust settled, she fell into a deep depression and she still deals with all of this to this day, years later.

What if Mary could have gotten the help that she needed when she was dealing with all that stuff as a teenager? As a young adult, what if I could have helped Mary? What if restored could have helped Mary, given her the support she needed, helped her learn how to cope in healthy ways instead of unhealthy ways, and how to find real healing.

I can't help but think that her life would not have turned into the tragedy that it became. Mary isn't alone. Each year, over 1 million American children suffer the divorce that our parents. That statistics from the The Heritage Foundation, and if you're one of them, if you're like me and you're one of them, you can relate to Mary's story.

Again, I created this podcast, The Restored Podcast for you specifically. Now, divorce is a heavy topic, but it needs to be talked about. And for anyone listening, especially any parents out there, You know, you've gotten divorced. We're not here to condemn you, right? We're not here to condemn anyone or tear our parents down.

We're rather, we're here to focus on how we can help the children who are often forgotten. Like Mary, my parents are divorced too. I'll never forget the day that they separated. I was 11 years old and my mom sat us down, my siblings and me to break the news, and as soon as I. My whole world just shattered.

Without a doubt. It was the most painful day in my entire life. And as a boy, as an 11 year old boy, I didn't know what to do with that news. I didn't know how to deal with it. And so I just hid the closet and cried, and a million thoughts raced through my head, and I worried about my parents. I worried about my siblings, and I worried about myself and what would happen now sitting there in that closet, I felt so.

I felt extremely abandoned, and I felt like I wasn't good enough because if I was, why were mom and dad going separate ways? I became very bitter, very angry, uh, very sad. I isolated myself and just felt very lonely, and in an attempt to numb the pain, I turned to pleasure. Around that time, a friend showed me some pornography, and so I, I got into porn.

Even though it brought some momentary relief when I was looking at it afterward, I just felt so empty. Even at a young age. I knew that I wanted to be happy, and I knew that this was not making me happy. And so I needed to change. Not long after that, I heard a talk by Jason Everett, and in his talk he spoke about pornography and how harmful it is and how it just poisons us and our future romantic relationships, our future marriages.

Around that time too, I, I met some really good friends. The people I was hanging out with weren't good for me, and so got some new friends and I noticed. When I spent time with them, I was just happier and they happened to be, uh, Christians. They, they were Catholic Christians, and so I, I tried to spend more and more time with them, and that helped a lot.

But even though life was getting better for me, I still felt very broken inside. I knew that I wanted authentic love, I wanted freedom. I wanted happiness, but I felt stuck. I felt held back by my own brokenness. And so I realize this principle that I believe is true for all of us, and that is our untreated brokenness is one of the things that holds us back most from becoming the person we deeply desire to be.

I'll say that again. Our untreated brokenness is one of the things that holds us back most from becoming the person we deeply desire to. And so I knew I needed to heal. I looked around for some help. I looked for a book, a speaker, a retreat, something out there, and I found nothing. There was next and nothing out there to help people like me and certainly nothing practical.

There were some studies and some research that had been done on children of divorce, but nothing specifically speaking into the pain and problems that we deal with, and I knew I wasn't alone. I looked at my siblings and I saw how they were struggl. I looked at friends of mine, close friends of mine, and I saw how they were struggling with their parents' divorce or separation, and I heard about other people too and how they were struggling, and so years later I started restored and ever restored.

We create content that gives practical advice to teens and young adults on how to cope and heal. After the trauma their parents divorced their separat. At this recording, the, the type of content that we produce is talks, podcasts, episodes, and our blog articles. In the future, we're gonna do things like videos, books, and, and much more.

We have a lot planned ahead. We also offer online community just to give support and, uh, help everyone to have a safe place to talk about, uh, the pain and the problems that they deal with from their parents', divorce or separation. And we also have a way to find a coach, a counselor, or a spiritual. Uh, to guide you.

My goal with all this is just to give. What I wish I would've had years ago. Now, I, I mentioned that restored is focused on teens and young adults, so anyone from 13 to 30. But of course, anyone can listen to this podcast and if there's something that's useful for that audience and someone else finds it useful, that's awesome.

We love that. Now, I also mentioned that anyone who loves or leads children of divorce or separation, uh, this is for you too, whether you're, you know, a boyfriend, a girl, Family friend, a cousin, an aunt, an uncle, whatever the case might be. Uh, if you're a teacher, a coach, a youth minister, passer a priest, this is also for you as well.

We wanna help you help them. A little bit about me. I'm not a psychologist, I don't have a PhD, but what I do have is 15 years of experience wrestling with this stuff. I've done 10 years. Spiritual direction or coaching. And if you're not familiar with that, it's just basically a, a mentorship where a coach helps you in life, deal with whatever you're dealing with, and especially helps you grow in your spiritual life.

I've done five years of counseling, three years of listening to people like us and researching this topic heavily. Now I'm not pretending to be perfect and trying to tell you guys that you just need to be like me. Not at all. That's not what this podcast is about. I have learned a lot along the way and I wanna share what I've learned if it's helpful, but we just wanna help you guys and if that means you learn something from me, from my experience and what I've learned in the research, I've.

Great. Um, but maybe it's from someone we bring on the show or a story that you hear. We just wanna help you guys in whatever way we can. And I'm still learning. I'm still growing, I'm still dealing with my own brokenness, but the whole goal here is for me to help the people who are a few steps behind me.

And if I can't help them, then I'm gonna get you the help that you need in some other. Let's talk a bit about divorce and how it affects the children. Now, I think most of you guys would agree that divorce is a tragedy. It's a really sad thing. Even in cases where it's extremely necessary, it's traumatic for the children, right?

It wounds us. It overwhelms our ability to to cope and deal with it all. Even with that, there's some people in the world who say that divorce is such a good thing that we need more divorce. In fact, you can Google this. There is such a thing as divorce parties. These are parties to celebrate your divorce.

You get a divorce, you invite your family, your friends, to celebrate your divorce. It's like a reverse wedding. Now, some people say that divorce doesn't hurt the kids, or you know, they're resilient. We hear that a lot, that the kids are resilient or even if they admit. Divorce does hurt us. The kids, they usually say that it's not very significant.

It's a small hurt and it doesn't last very long. The problem with that is that it's just not true, and even though some people who say that are probably have like the best intentions, they just haven't seen the research. Even those of us though, who do admit that divorce is a bad thing, I think we've just become so numb to it because it's so common.

When I give talks, uh, I ask the audience to raise their hands if they come from a divorce or separated family, or, uh, if they have a friend who does. I know someone who does, and every time I've given it, it's been practically a hundred percent every time. I, I'm pretty sure it's been a hundred percent.

It's hard to count when you're up there, but pretty sure it's always been a hundred percent and. This is a tragedy. This is such a big problem in our world, yet hardly anyone's talking about it. I wanna take a second to speak to those of you who do come from a divorce or a separated family. Guys, I'm so sorry for what you've had to go through.

You've had to endure more pain in your short lives than some people have to deal with in their entire lives. Every child deserves. A healthy family and two parents who love each other and stick together. Guys, the divorce was not your fault. The divorce was not your fault. No matter what anyone says, there's nothing that you could have done to prevent it.

And there's nothing that you did that caused it. It was between your parents, not you. And of course we were affected by it, but it nothing you did cause. After giving a talk recently, a girl came up to me and she confided in me that her dad, even though she's in college now, her dad still blames her for the divorce that happened years ago when she was a kid.

It's so sad, and I want you all to know that you are not doomed to repeat your parents' mistakes. You are not doomed to repeat your parents' mistakes You. Your own story. We fear that, don't we? We're afraid that we're gonna get divorced, that you know our life, our marriage might turn out the same way our parents said.

But I'm here to tell you that you don't have to repeat that past, You can write your own story. Now, diving into some of the research, how does Divorce effect the children? So the research shows that children of divorce are more likely to have social. Behavioral problems, difficulty in their relationship with their parents, difficulty in romantic relationships.

They're more likely to get divorced. They have higher frequencies of depression and violence. Higher risk for suicide attempts, reduce physical health, lower levels of success in school, more emotional problems. And typically have lower self-esteem. Now, this wasn't just one study that found this. This is from a meta-analysis study, which is basically a summary study of 67 different studies about children of divorce and the effect the divorce has on them.

And it was published in the Journal of Family Psychology by Dr. Paul Amato from Penn State University. Another researcher who spent so much time with children of divorce was Dr. Judith Wallerstein, and for 25 years plus, she studied children of divorce and she wrote a book called The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce.

And in it she reports her findings from a 25 year long study. She followed around 131 young people from 60 families, and one really important. Note about this study is that she only chose children who never had emotional or developmental problems before the divorce. And she compared them of course, to, uh, children from intact families over the years and after years of researching this, she said our findings challenged the myth that divorce is a transient crisis.

And then as soon as parents reestablish their lives, the children will fully. That doesn't happen. She found in her research that children of divorce were less likely to get married. They were more likely to divorce, less likely to have children. They're more likely to heavily use drugs or alcohol during high school.

They were less likely to finish high school, less likely to go to college, and more likely to drop out. They're far less likely to receive financial support from their parents for college and the men. Interesting. We're far less likely to enter into an intimate relationship. Dr. Judith said 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 things don't work that way. Children frequently do not share their parents unhappiness with a problematic marriage while a divorce brings pain into their lives. That until. Has gone unrecognized. She goes on to say, We are allowing the children to bear the psychological, economic, and moral brunt of divorce.

The really key takeaway from her research is that the effects of divorce actually aren't fully experienced until adulthood years later, and the most obvious way that it becomes apparent. Is in our future romantic relationships. And you might be wondering why is that? We're gonna get into that in future episodes of the podcast.

But a basic, the basic reason why is that we lack a roadmap for love. We don't have a roadmap for love. Our concept of love and marriage is very broken because more than anyone else, our parents teach us about marriage and they teach us about love. And if we didn't see that go. Then we have a really broken idea of what it's supposed to look like, and I think that's a big reason why we're less likely to marry and more likely to get divorce.

I mentioned that we're gonna talk about that in future podcasts. We're also gonna talk about what you can do about it. At this point, I hope you can see that divorce is bad for the children, even in. When it's necessary, it may just be the lesser of two evils. And it's painful, right? It makes our lives harder.

Now, you may be thinking, are there ever any exceptions to this? And you probably caught what I've said a few times, that there's extreme cases where it is necessary. And before I get into those cases, I just wanna say, The goal is always to reunite the couple and bring the family back together if it's possible.

And sometimes it's not possible, right? We're under no illusion here at ReSTOR, but that's always the goal. Now, some of the cases where divorce is necessary is when there's violence, when there's abuse, you know, no one should live in that situation. We are. Encouraging that at all. You know, you there needs to be physical separation in that case, and if it's necessary, divorce extremely high conflict marriages where there's just always so much drama.

Now, side note on that, research shows that less than one third of divorces are actually like that. I always thought it was much more, but less than one third of divorces are actually like that. And more than two thirds, more than 66% of divorces are actually low conflict. So they don't have all that drama.

They don't have, you know, maybe the violence or the abuse. And the last reason I'll mention is for legal reasons. So imagine a mom who is a full-time mom. She, she's at home with the kids and maybe she has three kids, let's say, and dad one day just picks up and leaves with another. At that point, it may be necessary for the mom to pursue a divorce in order for her to get some money for her and the kids and provide for herself and just while she gets on her feet.

Again. Having said all of that, I want you to know that we're not belittling parents or their suffering. I can imagine what it's like to live in. Difficult marriage. I am married, so I know that marriage can be hard, but I can't imagine to live in something that's so intense. That being said, we believe that children, parents, and society deserve better than divorce.

We believe that we need to be supporting them. Supporting these families, supporting these marriages and helping them fix or heal the problems in their marriage and help them thrive, help them have great marriages, instead of leaving them feel like they only have one option and that's to leave their spouse or to get a divorce.

In the majority of cases, there's simply a better way and we need to be doing all that we can, uh, to help couples like that. If your parents are divorced or separat, I know hearing all this can be pretty depressing, so bear with me. There is hope. The first thing I want you to know is that you're not alone.

You're not alone to face all of this. We're here to help you. You are the hero of your story, and we just want to guide you. We just wanna help you along your journey. How are we gonna do that? We actually have a very simple plan. The goal of this podcast is to offer practical advice from expert interviews and stories.

Focus on two area. The first area, how to cope in healthy ways. The second area, how to actually heal the expert. Interviews are gonna be conducted with authors, speakers, researchers, psychologists, counselors, marriage experts, uh, spiritual coaches, life coaches and so on. In these interviews, I'm gonna be asking questions like, how do you begin to.

Right. What's the process look like? How does someone overcome their porn addiction? Right? Drinking habit, overeating, cutting. The list goes on and on. How do I cure the loneliness? I feel, How can I overcome my fear of love? How do I build a really good marriage when I didn't see it at home? How do I build a divorce proof?

And so many more questions like that. The idea with the interviews is for us to do the hard work and give you access to people who you may not have access to In this podcast. For the stories, we're gonna be talking to other children of divorce, especially those who are older, so they can shed light on not only what happened and the pain and the problems that they dealt with, but also.

How they found healing and what their life looks like now, and how they feel so different now because they went through the healing process. You may be wondering, why are we gonna focus on coping and healing? Specifically, coping is all about survival. In simple terms, coping is the thoughts that we have or the actions we take, and in response to the pain and problems in our lives and the stress in our lives.

And what I've seen in my own life and working with and speaking to so many children of divorce is that when your parents separate or divorce, it hurts, right? It's painful. It brings a lot of problems into our lives and to numb the pain and distract ourselves from the problems that we face, we usually.

to unhealthy things, right? We turn to unhealthy ways of coping. Like I mentioned porn in my own story, drinking drugs. The list goes on, and when we do those things and we seek and escape in that way, it always leaves us feeling empty, and it certainly doesn't make the pain or the problems go away. It doesn't solve anything.

And so it's so important that we learn to cope in healthy. If we wanna find the freedom and the happiness that we long for, because life in our family situation is gonna throw a lot more pain and problems at us. We're also gonna get into specific situations and, and how to deal with them situations like, you know, what do you do when your parents turn to you for emotional support in an unhealthy.

Or what do you do when mom or dad starts talking bad about the other one? What do you say in that situation now? How do you set healthy boundaries? What do you do when holidays come around and it's really painful and, and much more. There's so many unique and difficult situations that we wanna help you learn to navigate, uh, and deal with.

Now, shifting gears from coping to healing. Healing is all about growing and thriving. If you, if you Google healing, You'll see that it's the process of becoming healthy and whole. And we all know what this looks like in physical healing, right? You break your arm, you go to the doctor, they examine your arm, you know, they put you in a cast.

Maybe they have to do surgery or do something more extreme, but they give you pain medication and you know, you do physical therapy for a while and then eventually your arm is, is whole. It's, it's healthy. The same thing needs to happen in our emotional and psychological lives too, because we experience very real injuries, very real hurt in those areas of our lives.

But because we can't see them often, we don't do anything about it. You. As I've said a few times now, when our parents separat a divorce, it wounds us. It hurts and left untreated. Those wounds usually bring more pain and problems into our lives, and they, they hold us back in life, right? They give us that feeling of being stuck.

So we can't simply treat the symptoms in our lives, the porn, the drinking, the drugs, whatever else it might be. We have to go underneath and get at the root cause, the root issue. And I, I noticed that in my own life. Like I said, you know, when I got porn out of my life, life was better, but I still felt broken.

And so I was just treating the symptoms and I think so often in a world we do that, right? We just treat symptoms, we don't actually get to the root problem. One of my parents separated. It left me feeling, uh, abandoned and not good enough. And those are very real wounds. A wound of abandonment and really a wound of inadequacy or just not feeling like you are enough.

So many of us. When we experience wounds like that, we stuff them away. Now, if you stuff your wounds away, or you live with them for so long, they'll seem normal. You'll just think that, well, this is the way that life is and this is the way it's always going to be. And I'm here to tell you guys, that's not true.

All right. Your life can be better than it is today. You can actually find healing. You can actually reverse those unhealthy ways of coping. You can find freedom from your wounds, and you can feel whole, and we're gonna prove it to you in this podcast through the stories that we tell. Two obstacles I think we face when it comes to healing is that one, we don't make it a priority.

Like I said, we might. Get comfortable in life. So we don't give any time or attention or effort, uh, to dealing with it. And I hope that through listening to this podcast and these future episodes, you'll realize that healing is actually worth the effort. It's worth your time. It's even worth the pain that you're gonna need to go through to find it.

The second thing I think is we don't know how, We don't know how to heal. Over the years, I asked so many people, How do I heal? And to be honest with you, I didn't get very good answers. Certainly not practical and actionable answers. And so listening to this podcast, our hope is that you'll know how to heal, and we're working hard to make all of this content, all the advice that we're giving.

Very practical, simple, and actionable stuff you can actually start doing in your life. I want to end with this. You may be thinking, what's the point of all this? Why do I even need to heal? Why do I need to find healthy ways of coping? Why can't I just leave what's in the past, in the past and be done with it?

I wanna tell you a beautiful story of Lina Everett's healing. Uh, as a response to those questions, her earliest memories are of her dad hitting her mom, her, her parents got divorced as well. She suffered sexual abuse and high school. She got into drugs, alcohol, sex, and she just felt miserable. Too similar to me.

She heard a talk that changed her life. And she stopped drinking, stopped doing drugs, and stopped sleeping around, and it was difficult for her, but life got better. But even though life got better, she still felt broken, and it wasn't until a few years into marriage. When she became a, a mother that her brokenness started to surface.

She started to feel angry a lot and just was experiencing all these messy emotions. And what she realized is that for so long she had stuffed to weigh so much of her brokenness, and she was seeing it come out now on her children and her marriage on her husband, and so she said, This stops with me because she knew that if she continued down this path, she was gonna pass on her brokenness to her husband and to her kids.

And so she dedicated herself to her healing and she got a counselor. She went to counseling. She got a good spiritual coach. She's Catholic, so she spent a ton of time praying, spent a lot of time in adoration, and this was a three year major healing process. Afterward, she said that she felt so transformed.

She felt so free. She felt so light, she felt more confident, she felt stronger. She felt like a better wife, a better mother. She wasn't ashamed of her past. She didn't feel the need to keep secrets. In short, she just felt so free, so whole, and she just wasn't afraid. Guys, that is what healing is meant to do for you.

That's what I want for all of you to experience the freedom and wholeness like Sina felt, and I, I wanted you to imagine that. Imagine that you feel like Chris Sele very broken, all these messy emotions. A lot of pain and problems in your life, and then imagine going through that healing process and feeling so transformed.

Life isn't perfect, but you are better, and you are stronger, and you're more confident and you're, you're experiencing that freedom that you long for and you feel whole, not broken. And we have to acknowledge too, that at an extreme, our lives could become like Mary's life. They can turn into a sort of tragedy or maybe it's not that extreme and maybe life just continues on, but we lack the meaning that we long for, we lack the freedom that we long for life is kind of dull.

It's not the adventure that we want it to be. And I, I don't say that to scare you, but just to acknowledge the fact that if we don't do anything about our broken. Then that's the path that we're heading down, and I wanna leave you with this. It's a quote I heard the other day that's attributed to CS Lewis.

He said, You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. We can't reverse what happened to us. We can't change our past. In that sense, we are a victim, but we're not meant to remain victims. We can write our own story and we can choose. What our future will be like.

We can heal, we can grow. We can learn how to deal with the pain and the problems in our lives in a healthy way. Guys, that's what we want for you, and we're gonna help you get there. With this podcast, we're working hard to really make this useful and valuable to you. And if it was useful and it was, I invite you to subscribe just so you'll be notified of, of new episodes that come out, and you can do that just on your preferred podcast app.

Otherwise, you can go to our website, restored ministry.com/podcast. Uh, again, that's restored. Ministry Ministry is just singular restored ministry.com/podcast. When you go on that page, you'll enter your email and your name and we'll notify you when new episodes. Thank you so much for listening. Always remember, you're not alone.

We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person. You deeply desire to be.

Watching Your Family Die

The story below is from an anonymous author, written at 21 years old. She gave permission for this story to be told.

HER STORY

I don’t know exactly why my parents chose to separate and pursue divorce. They have never seemed to get along super well, but as a child, I failed to realize the depth of the issues that were going on.

My mom planned to be with another man years before I was born, but somehow changed her mind. After I was born, she packed my brother and me in the car and threatened to leave my dad unless he did what she wanted. This happened on several occasions.

My parents never slept in the same room when I was growing up. I can remember telling them they should go to dinner together when I was younger, but they would almost always decline, saying that they didn’t want to leave me and my brother alone (my brother is two-and-a-half years older than me). When they did spend time together, they would return from their outing irritable. My mother would go to her room and my dad would go into his office and work (he worked from home).

Their fighting used to make me upset and insecure as a kid, but when they converted to Catholicism, I thought they would be together forever since the Church does not support divorce. I failed to realize the difference between divorce and separation, however.

I also failed to fully realize that my parents were human and therefore not perfect. More recently, family issues have escalated. These have resulted in my dad pursuing legal separation or divorce – whichever is cheaper.

My brother recently overheard a phone conversation my mom had in which she expressed plans to be intimate with the man on the phone, but said she couldn’t because she already made plans to be intimate with a different man (and it’s not my dad). I am sure this has not helped her relationship with my dad.

My parents are still separated, but have not actually moved apart yet. They live separated under the same roof. Yes, it is as miserable as it sounds.

HOW THE SEPARATION MADE HER FEEL

When my mom told me she and my dad were separated, I can’t even describe how horrible I felt. It was like my world was falling apart in a thousand ways, like my image of family being forever was a lie, like even my faith was somehow flawed. After all, they were Catholic! Separation led to divorce, and divorce wasn’t a thing.

I wondered how God could have let this happen, and I wondered what was going to happen to me. I was looking at colleges at the time and had planned to go to school close to home so that I could commute. Where would I be living now? Would I have to go back and forth between my mom and dad? Or was I old enough to decide for myself? I had a horrible knot in my stomach that has never really left.

I remember how I felt when I went to bed that evening. My world was shattered and my heart was broken, but maybe it was just a bad dream. When I woke up the next morning, the memories of the previous evening washed over me. I felt hopeless, miserable, abandoned by God, and terribly alone, like someone had removed me from my home and left me in the middle of nowhere with no supplies and only the assurance that I would figure it out. I remember the feeling so acutely because every morning since then I have felt that way to some degree.

HOW HER PARENTS' SEPARATION HAS IMPACTED HER

My parents’ separation has impacted me in a multitude of ways, some of which I am still working to identify.

I blamed and still blame myself for the separation, largely because I was told it was my fault. This has led me to struggle with really disliking myself.

I don’t trust people and I don’t trust God. After all, if my own parents couldn’t be trusted, how can I trust other people? And if parents are spiteful, how do I know that God the Father isn’t more of a Zeus-like god, striking me with a spiritual lightning bolt when I step out of line?

I struggle in all of my relationships because of my lack of trust, and I can’t even imagine being in a romantic relationship. Marriage seems to frequently end in misery, and even though I know this is not true all the time, I still struggle with feeling that it is not worth it.

Parents (or at least my parents) comfort themselves with the thought that their kids are resilient and will be just fine, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that our worlds are destroyed by the dissolution of our parents’ marriage.

I struggle on a nearly daily basis with suicidal thoughts, and though I have never attempted it, I have come very close. Sometimes, the family tensions are so enormous that the only means I have of dealing with them is cutting. It is a terrible coping skill that I would not recommend to anyone. Please, if you are reading this and thinking of using self-harm as a coping skill, do not do it!

Family problems are intense, horrible, destructive, and can make you feel utterly miserable. Talk to someone. Go for a walk or a run. Listen to music. Pray. You are strong and you will get through this. Don’t give in and don’t give up.

Despite the negative changes, my parents’ separation has also changed me in positive ways.

I am far more independent now. I am closer to my extended family than I was before (I have lived with all of my local extended family at some point since the separation). I can empathize with people who are struggling because of their parents’ divorce/separation. Almost all of my friends at college come from broken families, so the benefits of being able to empathize should not be overlooked.

Even though I struggle with my faith more now, I also think I am closer to it. My self-harm habit has put me in the confessional a ridiculous number of times (I have most definitely found myself saying, “forgive me Father for I have sinned, it’s been a day-and-a-half since my last confession”), but this has also allowed me to encounter the love and mercy of Christ. No matter how many times I fall, He is there to forgive me and pull me back on my feet.

My parents’ separation has led me to view life differently, to realize that even seemingly perfect families have their demons, and to understand just how difficult parenthood and family life are.

ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHOSE PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED OR SEPARATED

It is so hard to give advice for this situation.

I guess I would start first with this: God loves you. I know it sounds cheesy and unhelpful, but it’s true. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Your parents might not seem to care about you while they wage war against each other; God cares. Maybe one of your parents is leaving you; God will never leave you. Draw close to Him. Tell Him how you feel. If you can’t trust anyone else, trust Him.

I love the song “Stars” by Skillet because it talks about everything God created, how He holds the stars in place, how He tells the oceans how to form, and how despite all of these majestic things He created, He also holds and knows your heart and calls you by name. You are just as majestic as the heavens and the seas to Him.

Second: it’s not your fault. Maybe your parents told you it’s your fault, so you blame yourself. Maybe they didn’t, but you think that if you just hadn’t acted out that one time (or all those times). Or if you had done what your mom or dad told you to do the first time. Or if you had done your chores. Or if you had been a perfect son/daughter. Then your parents wouldn’t have split. It doesn’t matter. Your parents made a vow to each other and to God, and they were to stay true to those vows, no matter what happened. Nothing you have done can change that.

Third: reach out to someone. Maybe you are comfortable talking to someone you know well, or maybe you are afraid of what a friend might think and you would rather talk to someone you don’t know well. Maybe you want to talk to a counselor. Whoever it is, just PLEASE reach out.

The thoughts and feelings that stem from your parents’ marriage dissolving are powerful, overwhelming, and too much to keep locked in your own head. I know it hurts. I know you don’t want to talk about it. But you will most likely find that talking will help. It helps even more to talk to someone who experienced divorce and/or separation as a kid themselves.

Fourth: it’s okay to not be okay. I think people try to console children of divorce/separation with comments like “at least there isn’t abuse,” “at least you know your parents love you,” “there won’t be as much fighting now,” or “it will get better.” Even worse, you might have been told that you need to get over it, that it has been long enough that you should be over it, or that your parents weren’t happily married and so the destruction of their marriage was necessary since everyone deserves to be happy.

When I found out my mom was cheating on my dad, two people told me “I know you are upset, but your mom is cheating on your dad, not on you.” Though well-intentioned, that comment did not help at all. When a loved one passes away, it is expected for you to mourn. Why shouldn’t it be the same when you are watching your family die? Your world is being shaken. You are the physical manifestation of your parents’ vocation and love for one another. It is understandable that you feel upset, broken, and just not okay.

Fifth and lastly: try to be gentle with your parents. I know they are the source of your pain. I know they are difficult. I know they try to make you choose sides, and then get upset when/if you do. I know they act more like a child than you. I know that the parent-child role is reversed and you feel like it is your job to be the parent to your squabbling, toddler-like parents.

My grandmother called me one day and asked me to physically check on my mother, or to have my dad do it, as she was worried my mother was a risk to herself. My dad thought it wasn’t serious, so I had to drive over to my parents’ place (as I mentioned previously, they were and are separated, but living in the same house). She was fine and very condescending about my concern for her.

It is hard in these moments to gentle, kind, and merciful to our parents when we really just want to throw things and scream. But we are called to honor our parents (when they are acting reasonable) and to love and forgive always.

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED AND SEPARATED FAMILIES

I don't know what specifically needs to be done, but teens and young adults from divorced and separated families need to know that someone cares about them. There are so many support groups out there for spouses who are divorcing/separating, but almost nothing for the kids. These teens and young adults need support too. I am not sure what form that support needs to take, however.

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I Just Want to Feel Healed

The story below is from an anonymous author, written at 25 years old. He gave permission for this story to be told.

HIS STORY

My parents were always arguing when I was younger and I think my dad had another woman. He moved to a different city and then my mum followed. Mum has Alzheimer's now so I don't know her version of events but my dad said they became just like friends which I take to mean he was unhappy with their sex life.

I used to blame my dad for everything but now I realise there were two adults involved. Mum could be extremely stubborn and just did things her way. Dad is very unstable and mentally ill.

HOW THE DIVORCE MADE HIM FEEL

For years I suppressed it especially as my dad had two further divorces and my mum got dementia when I was 16. It was normal at school, even though it was Catholic, and nobody cared. All people care about is the adults having 'freedom of choice'. I feel sad, lonely and disparate, like I have two irreconcilable sides to my personality. I just want to feel healed but I am carrying around all of these wounds and scars.

I really liked where we were originally and my whole life was totally uprooted because of my parents' inability to love one another. Looking back now I feel like they failed me and can't help but feel that if they loved me more then they would've stayed together. Why weren't me and my siblings good enough?

HOW HIS PARENTS' DIVORCE HAS IMPACTED HIM

From 17-24 I slept around, did drugs, drank, smoked and treated women like sexual objects. My dad was a womanizer so I just followed suit. I hated God and was angry. I had this constant feeling of melancholia and I never understood why. I suppressed it and told myself I was stupid and a baby. I hated myself and still do sometimes.

ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHOSE PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED OR SEPARATED

Don't let people tell you to be grateful that you have two sets of Christmas presents or that it's “normal.” Don't listen to the lies. Allow yourself to be sad because you need healing. Reject the culture around divorce. Lies everywhere we look. Finally, don't blame yourself even though that's the easy thing to do.

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED AND SEPARATED FAMILIES

The Catholic Church needs to be more proactive about it and stop focusing their attention on trying to give communion to the divorced and remarried. There ought to be greater understanding about the hurt it causes and how we can overcome it. It's such an overwhelming problem I think the Church is scared to tackle it head on through fear it will offend people and drive them away but the children come first.

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