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Life...
Telling Your Children About the Separation
If you have children, be aware that they will remember
forever
how
you handle this moment.
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Tell them together. Rachel and Patrick are telling their children
together, after they worked out their ground rules. Then
Rachel and Patrick will speak with each one separately, listening to their fears
and reactions.
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Give them time. Rachel and Patrick are telling the children two
weeks in advance of the actual separation, an ideal time. Children need
time to get used to the fact that the parents are going to split up.
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Be calm. Children need to see the separation as an orderly, rational, mature
process, not an irrational or violently traumatic one. If Rachel and Patrick can do
this, children will be less likely to act out and become depressed.
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Give them space. Rachel and Patrick are letting the children react their own ways and in
their own time. The fact that their middle child seems to say little and accept
the separation easily does not fool them. They know he will be very upset.
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Don't raise false hopes. During the separation, Rachel and Patrick
have one intense night together. But Patrick leaves before the children
wake up. He knows that it is important not to re-unite in front of
the children until he and Rachel are very sure that they are going to
give the marriage another serious chance. Otherwise, it would be
cruel to raise their hopes, sustain their fantasy of
reconciliation -- and make it more difficult for them to accept an
actual divorce.
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