About Relationships: Let's Not Argue About Custody
Posted: Saturday, October 22, 2011
by Elsabe Smit
The Intuition Coach
I want to leave my marriage. Will my husband allow me access to the children when I leave him?
This is a challenging situation because it goes against the norm. People would expect a woman to leave her marriage and by default take the children with her.
However, let us not look for right or wrong and be the judge of a situation that we are not part of.
Going against the norm requires a lot of courage, because people judge very easily.
So how does she prepare herself for this big step before taking it? How does she protect her children against any potential back-lash and potential emotional upheaval?
There will be emotional upheaval anyway, and the children will experience a sense of loss. They will also experience other strong emotions such as anger and perhaps feeling abandoned.
This lady needs to first find self-love before she makes her move.
Ending a marriage often results in a feeling of failure. People often have the fantasy of a marriage “till death us do part”, and if the reality looks different, it means that you have failed. The truth is that any relationship has a natural life cycle. When the relationship reaches that natural end, not recognising it and holding on to the relationship for dear life would mean failure. Not letting go would also mean daily emotional pain, especially if one partner moves on and the other partner holds on to the fantasy.
What difference will self-love make? It will make a world of difference for everyone.
If you can discover and recognise your “good” traits, then they will start to balance out your “bad” traits. For example, let’s say this lady feels like a complete failure as a mother, because she does not have a natural mother’s instinct. She wants to leave her children behind because she feels that they are better cared for by her husband.
What if this is a relief for the husband, who is frustrated by the fact that his wife does not conform to the norm? What if the husband is by nature much more caring and affectionate than her and he does not want or expect her to change?
There is a human and traditional rule that says all mothers MUST feel an instinct to take care of their young. However, we all know mothers who on the surface fulfil that role, but they are physically and emotionally cruel to their children.
Here we have a mother who wants to turn her back on tradition and follow her heart. She knows that her husband is a far better carer than she will ever be, and she is willing to leave the relationship so that she can make space for him. She is doing this in the interest of her children – which is far better than staying in the relationship, being desperately unhappy and creating a very stressful environment for the children. If she can find love of herself, she will be able to relax about her decision.
This will have an immediate positive impact on her children, because they will intuitively feel that she is all right and they do not need to be concerned about her. It will also have an impact on her marriage relationship, because it will bring clarity in a situation that must also be quite stressful for the husband.
Once she is able to accept her decision in the interest of everyone, she will be able to leave the situation without any self-blame. Her children will benefit from seeing her when she is happy, and they will be able to build up a different relationship with her with less expectation and less stress.
We also need to remember that these children as well as the husband have a soul contract with her, that they entered into before any of them were born. They are now living that soul contract. If she feels strongly enough that she needs to leave the marriage to continue with her life and only see her children occasionally, then is that not far better than remaining in a situation that is highly stressful?
Would the people who stand ready to judge her rather see her destroying herself with an addiction that is far more destructive for her, her husband and her children?
Love does not necessarily mean living under the same roof. Love means accepting and loving yourself, so that you have love to give to others.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)The only question that really needs to be asked is whether or not the children will be better off with their mother or father and you already answered by saying "She knows that her husband is a far better carer than she will ever be".
Mothers are not always the best care givers, I've seen too many cases where the father is far more interested in the children's well being than the mother could ever be, and in those cases the father should always be the primary custodial parent.
Pat JohnsonThank you for your comment, Patricia.
It was also important for me to give guidance to the lady on how to prepare herself for the situation. Even though she knew her husband was a better carer, she still had to deal with the separation and her own emotions and she did not feel quite prepared for it.Absolutely, but 1/2 the battle is won by her acknowledgment that the father is the better parent. I don't think anyone can ever be fully 'prepared' to give up custody of a child but I give this woman a lot of credit for doing what is right for the children.
I agree about the importance of self-love, and that if a mother can't stay, it's better for the children that she at least acknowledge that rather than remain and visit her frustration on them.
But I think the children will still suffer, and there's no getting around that. But perhaps when she does repair her own damaged self esteem she can reconnect with her love for them.
In any event, I do believe that acknowledging and dealing honestly with the truth is the better thing.
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