Split Personality

Split Personality

by | Nov 21, 2023 | Parenting

Are you a full-time and part-time parent?

Did any of you watch Seinfeld back in the day? I did, and one episode resonated strongly with me. George was struggling with his two personas: Independent George and Relationship George. Relationship George was killing fun-loving Independent George!

Toggling between two different lives is hard.

Mom Renée (“Mom”) is causing all sorts of issues for Independent Renée (“Indy”), and Indy does not get off in the blame department either. Indy seems to forget what Mom's life is like the minute the kids walk out the door to spend time with their dad.

THE LONELINESS TRAP

Suddenly childless and lonely, Indy takes on work, volunteer, and social commitments.

All Indy can think about is that she must fill the hours that the children are absent. Indy must be productive and not wallow in self-pity.

Then, suddenly, the children are back, and Indy reverts to Mom. Suddenly, Mom has to make breakfast, lunch and dinner and ferry kids to various activities while trying to finish Indy’s work all with disruptive children clammoring in the background. How is Mom supposed to get anything done?! The children are no longer with Mom; they are now living with grumpy and stressed-out Renée – “Frantica.”

THE BUSY TRAP

Frantica longs for the peaceful solitude of Indy’s life. “Seriously, what was Indy thinking, lonely? I’ll give you lonely,” Frantica thinks. Frantica would kill for some lonely time when she is in the thick of getting everything done. Frantica looks ahead at Indy’s calendar and cuts a swath through everything. “That ignorant Indy!” thinks Frantica. “I’ll teach her to overschedule and overcommit. She is not doing anything this weekend when the kids are with their dad. She will recharge, lay low, and prepare herself for the week when the kids are back.”

Pain

Then, quicker than you can blink, Indy is back and staring at the weekend ahead that Frantica just planned. Indy recharges in a day, and then peaceful solitude becomes debilitating loneliness. Indy adds as many things as possible to stave off loneliness and creates rules for Mom. Mom must go to yoga during the week. Mom must do better at getting work done when the kids are in bed. “NO MORE NETFLIX, Mom!” shouts Indy. 

overwhelm

Then Mom is back and trying to negotiate these rules that Indy set up. “Indy has not been using that brain of hers again.” She doesn’t know how exhausting it is to work all day, fight with the kids over bedtime routines, and now she wants me to write blog posts and better myself in the hours between 9 to 11 pm?” I cannot do it, thinks Mom. Mom gets depressed and wonders what the point is of all this work anyway. Seriously, Mom says to herself. There must be a better way.

A BETTER WAY

As with everything, communication and mindfulness is critical. Much like the movie Mememto, Mom and Indy have started to leave notes for each other on their shared desk.

NOTES FOR BUILDING A VALUE-ALIGNED LIFE AND FINDING PEACE:

  • Before taking anything on, ask yourself if it fits your values and beliefs. 
  • Why are you taking on this new project?
  • Would you do this if you were short of time? Or are you just doing it to keep busy?

NOTES FOR SELF-CARE:

  • I am sacrificing some of my weekend fun time to catch up on grunt work. Please make sure you try to let go when with the kids and have a fun time with them.
  • I am recharging and using this time so you do not become Frantica. Please remember that your time with the kids is brief; the most important thing is to be present with them and take care of yourself.
  • Please also remember to look for when you can complete work when you are Mom. Schedule a reasonable amount of time for me to complete that work if you don’t, and don’t forget to schedule something fun for me, Indy.

Then Indy adds more as she has more time to reflect than Mom: “I know it’s tough, but remember, you eventually get to have some solitude. Remember to be grateful.”

Slowly, these messages between Indy and Mom are starting to get through.

The shared message they tell the other? 

It's going to take time to get this right. Be kind to yourself in the meantime. 

Are you a full-time and part-time parent?

Did any of you watch Seinfeld back in the day? I did, and one episode resonated strongly with me. George was struggling with his two personas: Independent George and Relationship George. Relationship George was killing fun-loving Independent George!

Toggling between two different lives is hard.

Mom Renée (“Mom”) is causing all sorts of issues for Independent Renée (“Indy”), and Indy does not get off in the blame department either. Indy seems to forget what Mom's life is like the minute the kids walk out the door to spend time with their dad.

THE LONELINESS TRAP

Suddenly childless and lonely, Indy takes on work, volunteer, and social commitments.

All Indy can think about is that she must fill the hours that the children are absent. Indy must be productive and not wallow in self-pity.

Then, suddenly, the children are back, and Indy reverts to Mom. Suddenly, Mom has to make breakfast, lunch and dinner and ferry kids to various activities while trying to finish Indy’s work all with disruptive children clammoring in the background. How is Mom supposed to get anything done?! The children are no longer with Mom; they are now living with grumpy and stressed-out Renée – “Frantica.”

THE BUSY TRAP

Frantica longs for the peaceful solitude of Indy’s life. “Seriously, what was Indy thinking, lonely? I’ll give you lonely,” Frantica thinks. Frantica would kill for some lonely time when she is in the thick of getting everything done. Frantica looks ahead at Indy’s calendar and cuts a swath through everything. “That ignorant Indy!” thinks Frantica. “I’ll teach her to overschedule and overcommit. She is not doing anything this weekend when the kids are with their dad. She will recharge, lay low, and prepare herself for the week when the kids are back.”

Pain

Then, quicker than you can blink, Indy is back and staring at the weekend ahead that Frantica just planned. Indy recharges in a day, and then peaceful solitude becomes debilitating loneliness. Indy adds as many things as possible to stave off loneliness and creates rules for Mom. Mom must go to yoga during the week. Mom must do better at getting work done when the kids are in bed. “NO MORE NETFLIX, Mom!” shouts Indy. 

overwhelm

Then Mom is back and trying to negotiate these rules that Indy set up. “Indy has not been using that brain of hers again.” She doesn’t know how exhausting it is to work all day, fight with the kids over bedtime routines, and now she wants me to write blog posts and better myself in the hours between 9 to 11 pm?” I cannot do it, thinks Mom. Mom gets depressed and wonders what the point is of all this work anyway. Seriously, Mom says to herself. There must be a better way.

A BETTER WAY

As with everything, communication and mindfulness is critical. Much like the movie Mememto, Mom and Indy have started to leave notes for each other on their shared desk.

NOTES FOR BUILDING A VALUE-ALIGNED LIFE AND FINDING PEACE:

  • Before taking anything on, ask yourself if it fits your values and beliefs. 
  • Why are you taking on this new project?
  • Would you do this if you were short of time? Or are you just doing it to keep busy?

NOTES FOR SELF-CARE:

  • I am sacrificing some of my weekend fun time to catch up on grunt work. Please make sure you try to let go when with the kids and have a fun time with them.
  • I am recharging and using this time so you do not become Frantica. Please remember that your time with the kids is brief; the most important thing is to be present with them and take care of yourself.
  • Please also remember to look for when you can complete work when you are Mom. Schedule a reasonable amount of time for me to complete that work if you don’t, and don’t forget to schedule something fun for me, Indy.

Then Indy adds more as she has more time to reflect than Mom: “I know it’s tough, but remember, you eventually get to have some solitude. Remember to be grateful.”

Slowly, these messages between Indy and Mom are starting to get through.

The shared message they tell the other? 

It's going to take time to get this right. Be kind to yourself in the meantime. 

Single Mom with Teenagers

by | Nov 19, 2023 | Resources

There have been memes regarding teenagers before the word “meme” existed. 

The one that I recall seeing on little plaques in bookstores and novelty shops: 

“Teenage grandkids are every grandparent’s secret revenge on their own teenagers.”

I don’t think my parents need revenge against me; I was a saint.

So, it’s not karma that has turned me into a single mom to two teenage boys; it’s just how my life turned out. And while being a single parent was never my life’s aspiration, I wouldn’t have it any other way as I love my kids, and I know my co-parent and I are happier apart. 

But I can help prevent people from succumbing to the same fate or reassure them that they are not alone. 

It is never easy to be a single parent, even if it’s a part-time single parent with a co-parent. Of course, parenting is usually more manageable if you have a co-parent. I often console myself by reminding myself that at least my teenagers’ dad is working with me to provide consistent parenting to my teenagers, or the gruesome twosome, as I sometimes think of them. 

If you are contemplating separation and think you are better off being a 100% on-duty parent, consider it more. 

When I separated, I wanted primary custody of my kids. I thought I was a better parent (I had been the stay-at-home parent for most of their lives). I had a lot of practice in morning routines, bedtime routines, arranging playdates, meal preparation and all other required caregiving duties involved in raising children. I even learned to anticipate the arsenic hour (you know the arsenic hour – between 4 and 6 pm when your children turn into Frankenstein, a werewolf and demon rolled into one?). 

My co-parent was, frankly, useless regarding the typical caregiving duties. My kids would go off to his house and return to mine wearing each other’s clothes. “Uh, Ellis, did you notice you are wearing Rowan’s pants?” Ellis’s pants went to mid-shin. My co-parent promised to arrange our eldest’s birthday for two years before it happened. And when it did, it was because I wrestled it back from him and did it at my place. My seven-year-old had his sleepover when he was nine. My co-parent managed to feed my kids, but I know it consisted mainly of take-out. I’m pretty confident my children only bathed at my house for many years. I typically bought their clothes, arranged doctor’s and dentist’s appointments, and arranged everything related to school (including ensuring they got into a choice program in both elementary and high school). Sorry if you are reading this co-parent, but it’s true. You can argue that I wasn’t very good at making money – also true. It’s a good thing I’m good at managing money!

But, because my co-parent and I shared parenting, I had opportunities to learn how to make money, and my co-parent had opportunities to practice being a better caregiver.

The other life skills I wasn’t very good at were playing and finding joy. I’d forgotten how because I thought it was up to me to carry my kids through life, and there was no time for play.

But I also had a chance to find joy in life again.

I had breaks from parenting, which we all know is primarily unrewarding grunt work. Of course, parenting can also be extremely rewarding. My children’s sweet, angelic faces may have carried me through the tough times (not during the arsenic hour), but once they hit teenagerhood, the rewarding moments seemingly take a hiatus. I’m told they return when your children turn twenty-five, maybe thirty for boys. 

So, as my youngest ticked over the magic threshold into becoming a teenager, I thank my lucky stars every day that my co-parent and I have had enough time to learn how to be better co-parents together. My co-parent is still not quite at the same level as me in the caregiving roles. I’m still not quite at the same level as my co-parent at making money. (What they say is true about women taking a break from the workforce to raise children and the various reasons women earn less than men). But my co-parent and I are exponentially better at our new roles than if I had taken full custody of our kids. 

Teenagers can be brutal to live with as a single parent.

I am still spending many of my waking hours looking after their every need (it’s hard to break years of ingrained habits, and I’m required to feed them, right?), and they now spend their waking hours dodging me. When my children do deign to hang out with me, it’s usually to mock or argue with me. I understand why they are like this. I know that teenagers are going through significant physiological changes – their brains are shedding, their hormones are raging, and they live in a stressful world where they spend a good chunk of their day at what they perceive as a jail. 

I know all this and understand- I empathize with my kids. 

But despite understanding and empathizing with my kids, sharing a space with two very unpleasant people for hours and being one of me against two of them is very hard. Did I already say that? I can’t emphasize it enough. Two horrendous teenagers are being mean to me, and no one else in my home can commiserate with me or remind me that I’m not crazy. 

So, why am I telling you all this? A few reasons.

  • If you plan to have children, ask yourself if your planned co-parent is the partner with whom you want to raise children. And I know we all think they are, only to change our minds after the children are born. So, do some parenting courses and design a contract about who does what when the children arrive before the children arrive. Plan the logistics before you have kids instead of having to do it when you separate, and the separation conflict prevents you from creating a parenting plan. 
  • If separating with kids, before deciding that your ex-spouse would make a useless parent and you had better take it all on, think again. I thought my co-parent would never be able to raise our kids as I could, and I was right. My co-parent has different strengths than me, and our kids have benefitted from our combined strengths, and we have both grown and improved in areas where we had weaknesses. (Caveat: if your spouse and future co-parent are abusive, you may have to be the sole caregiver. If you feel your spouse is abusing you or your children, please seek help for this first). 
  • Separate mindfully and try to separate when your kids are tweens and teenagers only if you and your spouse are on the same parenting page and mutually agree that your family will be better off if you separate. Yes, it’s okay to separate when your children are teenagers if you are consciously uncoupling (either by having a kitchen table, collaborative or mediated divorce). But be aware that high-conflict separations are a disaster for teenage development. And last but not least: 
  • Take care of yourself, take time for yourself, and find some friends to support you when your children become teenagers. My current strategy is to leave the house – they love it, and I love it! Of course, I put house protection in place before leaving. I go outside, sometimes just for a bike ride or a walk. I call my other “mom” friends, who remind me that I’m not crazy. And if you haven’t found “mom” friends yet, don’t worry; they aren’t hard to find. You can often spot them taking solo walks around the neighbourhood, muttering to themselves or looking like they are walking off an argument. Smile at them, say a kind word, and you have likely just found your first “mom” friend. 

Is Your Emotional Pain Showing Up in Your Finances?

by | Nov 16, 2016 | Divorce, Finances

photo-1465779171454-aa85ccf23be6Let’s face it. Life can be a struggle. As one friend recently posted on Facebook “life is like a roller coaster! I HATE ROLLER COASTERS!” That post got me thinking. I too hate roller coasters, so much so, that I avoid places that have them just so I won’t even have to think about going on one.

But I can’t avoid the roller coaster called life. Sometimes I feel like I’m approaching the top…just cresting the hill to see that giant cliff staring me in the face. For me, that is the worst part of a roller coaster  – that feeling of dread knowing that cliff is coming. I am learning to combat that dread though. Because the other knowledge I have come to understand about roller coasters is that there is always an uphill that comes after the drop.

There was a time in my life when I did not have this understanding, a time when I felt like I was staring down that cliff every day – I could not see the uphill that came after it.

I clearly remember that point in my life and always will. Waking up everyday and wondering what the point of anything was. Everything seemed hopeless and nothing in my life seemed to be working. Everything in my life seemed broken, including my financial situation.

I have since noticed this common theme with many other people. There is a strong correlation between emotional pain and financial woes. If your life is not going according to plan, it is likely going to show up somewhere in your finances.

When I was going through my divorce, I was depressed. I had no self-esteem left. I felt like a failure and this translated to the image I projected to the world. I also was not earning any money and had a belief that I would be poor for the remainder of my life. I used to look at my finances on an almost daily basis simply to confirm that yes, I was poor and then I extrapolated my poor financial situation to be a reflection of myself. I considered myself to be worthless, much like my bank account.

During this period, I was applying for jobs and seeing recruiters. I certainly had the qualifications to get many of these jobs but I did not hear back from a single employer.

While this was going on, I thought the problem was my lack of money. That was the cause of all my woes. If only I could have solved my cash inflow problem, I would have been fine.

That was my thinking.

My lack of money certainly was a problem.

But my lack of money was a symptom and not the root cause of what was going on with me. My emotional state was the cause of all my difficulties including my financial ones.

How do I know that it was my emotional state that was causing all my problems? Well, it has become obvious to me over time. As my emotional well-being has improved so has everything else in my life, including my finances.

When I think back to that time, I am grateful that I got on a path to fix my emotional well-being and did not fall into a trap to simply fix the symptoms. It was touch and go for a while which way my life would go and I credit good luck and the good advice of friends who got me onto a path that ended up truly helping me.

I had met a life coach  – this was through the Minerva Foundation (an amazing organization). I was lucky enough to participate in their Career Kick Start program.  The coach that was helping me recognized I was not in a good emotional state. She did not tell me this, but she listened to me and had the insight to give me the tools I needed to start to recognize it myself. This is another topic for a post, but when you are in a depression, you often don’t even realize it. Friends and family often don’t realize it. I can say, that no one knew how depressed I was. I can put on a brave face and many people can. Sometimes the only way to tell if someone is depressed is to look at the symptoms  – one of which is a person’s finances.

One of the things this coach gave me was respite from feeling terrible about myself. The coaching sessions were the only times I had anything resembling hope in my life.

Then the course ended and I no longer got that respite. I sunk deeper and deeper until one day I did not want to go on.

It was at this point that I reached out to my coach in an email and she called me back right away. This was on a Friday. She gave me some emergency therapy and told me to go see my doctor I did a couple of the things she suggested that I do to get me out of my crisis and surprisingly they worked. I spent the weekend doing what she told me to do and by Sunday I had a moment where I felt hope. It was such and incredible feeling that it made me realize that there were things I could do to feel better.

I realized at this point that I could feel good even though my situation was exactly the same as it had been on Friday.  I was still poor (in my mind), I was still worthless and un-employable. My family was still broken. Yet for some reason it didn’t seem to matter as much anymore.

I decided I wanted to feel better like this more often.

So I called my coach back and asked her if I could hire her. She told me how much it would cost (she gave me her deal rate). Her rates were pricey (she’s a good coach) and so it caused me a little bit of angst. Ok, it caused me a lot of angst. I mean MY LACK OF MONEY seemed to be the cause of my problems. Now I needed to find more. I started to loop again. I’m poor, I’m worthless, I need money, I don’t have money. I can’t hire my coach. This soundtrack started to play in my brain and again it seemed like money was the problem.

So I went to talk to my good friend who I relied on heavily to give me advice as I could not make my own decisions at this point of my life.

So I asked her advice. “Renée, you need the help now when you don’t have money. If you didn’t have money problems, you would not need the help.”

Wow – now that I read that, I realize how she knew money was a symptom and not the problem.

I hired my coach and she worked with me for six months.

Now this is the interesting part. During the six months I worked with my coach, my life situation did not change. All the circumstances in my life remained exactly the same and I still had no money coming in. The only thing that changed was the way I started to perceive things. My mental state was the only thing that changed. She helped me realize that I had worth despite my lack of cash inflows.

Then a crazy thing happened. As my feelings of self-worth improved, money started to flow into my life.  It is clear to me now, but I had been projecting my low self esteem to everyone I met. It was no wonder no one would hire me.

Then my life turned into a positive feedback loop. I would feel better, people began hiring me for jobs, money started to come in which boosted my feelings of self-worth. I have to say – it was awesome and also a revelation to me. It still is.

I also started to notice that as I started to get stressed out or unhappy, things stopped working. I would stop working. I would do things to sabotage myself and it would show up in my finances in a negative way.

So now when I start to stress out about my financial situation, I start to look at what the underlying root cause is. There is always something else going on that is leading to my current financial predicament.

Are you stressed about your finances? I challenge you to investigate what is really going on.

 

 

 

Empathy – Good for You or Others?

by | Oct 15, 2015 | Divorce

photo-1444212568492-d2799d30943b

 

Empathy is an interesting thing. I’ve always felt like I have a bit too much of it.  I could easily empathize with someone who was in pain and I would spend a good chunk of my time figuring out how to help that person.  If I couldn’t help them, I would feel bad.

I always thought my empathic nature was a benefit to others and just slightly detrimental to me as I spent way too much time trying to solve other people’s problems and then I would feel terrible if I couldn’t help.

Today I had a bit of an epiphany. I realized that my empathic nature has been helping me more than I ever realized. What I discovered is that having empathy for others and having an understanding of how their lives have their own hurdles,  helps me reflect on my own challenges…which often seem trivial in comparison.

I start to see how my life is actually pretty wonderful and my mood swings towards being grateful for my life circumstances. I become happier and my life flows better.

Why did I have this thought today?

I was recently helping a couple who are separated have a discussion about money. They are trying to map out their financial future going forward as single parents, co-parenting their two children.

One parent is re-entering the workforce after a hiatus of six years to look after their young children. The other parent is taking on half of the parenting burden as they switch to a week on/week off parenting schedule.

The parent re-entering the workforce  is uncertain of the future and how to cope with starting a new career while maintaining a hint of her prior life as a stay-at-home parent. She is afraid her kids will think she is abandoning them and she also knows she will miss being with them when they are at their dad’s home.

The parent taking on more parenting could not get past the fact that he would still be contributing money to the other parent while looking after their children 50% the time. He thinks he just took on 50% more work without seeing any benefit at all.

As they talked they got more and more entrenched in their individual positions and I could tell they had stopped listening to each other.

As I watched their dialogue deteriorate, I thought about how their inability to see each other’s perspective was hurting each of them.  I don’t know what they were feeling, but their language indicated that they were both feeling like the victim in their current situation. I do know that feeling like a victim often leads to feelings of anger and depression.  Before I stopped them, they had gotten to the point where they were searching their memories for other instances where each perceived that they had been treated unfairly. Their focus became who had it harder in life.

Now – this couple is very angry with each other, but I kept thinking – wouldn’t it be nice if they could each see each other’s perspective?

What if they both recognized that the other person had similar fears and concerns? Both of them are starting something new and both have fear of the future. If they could each put themselves in the other’s shoes, they would each stop focusing on the negative aspects of their own lives. Instead of using all their emotional resources to shore up their own feelings of hurt, they might start thinking about how the other person had it equally bad and then maybe, just maybe, they might start trying to think up solutions to help the other person.

This would be natural collaboration. And where did this natural collaboration come from? It came from empathy and understanding of the other person.

I realize that with this couple, this is too big a challenge at this point, they dislike each other too much. So that is why I suggested taking a breather from the discussion. Perhaps time and distance will allow their natural empathies to grow and we can get back on the subject of their hopeful futures another day.

The Chicken or the Egg in Divorce

by | Oct 10, 2015 | Divorce

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Divorce is usually the end result of a typical progression of circumstances.

It usually goes like this:

  1. You get married
  2. You begin navigating your married life with your partner
  3. You and your partner start experiencing challenging life circumstances
  4. You and your partner begin to realize you approach life’s challenges differently
  5. You attempt to negotiate with your partner on how to proceed with your marriage
  6. Your attempts to get along with your partner fail. (This step can take considerable time and energy)
  7. You, your partner or both of you decide the next step is a divorce (and by this point, you are both likely emotionally exhausted).

Now comes the hard part. Not to minimize steps 1 through 7, but people often get stuck at step 7. They decide they are done with the marriage but have no idea how to proceed to getting a divorce. It seems so daunting that some people decide to stay in the marriage. Others let the lawyers take over and others try mediation or collaboration.  Some others just go their separate ways and stay legally married but live apart.

At step 7, my ex and I tried a little bit of everything. We talked to lawyers, we talked to mediators and then we picked the collaborative approach to divorce because we thought the next step after step 7 was: get a separation agreement. Because you need a separation agreement to get a divorce right? So step 8 must clearly be… get a separation agreement. We picked the collaborative approach to divorce because we wanted to stay out of the court system and the collaborative approach seemed like the best choice.

As noted, both partners are likely emotionally exhausted by the time it gets to the discussion on how to proceed with obtaining a separation agreement and both partners probably do not even feel like discussing it with their respective partner. I don’t think I would be underestimating things if I said that if you are this point, you probably really dislike your partner and do not want to have to work with them at all on anything again. After all, you couldn’t reach agreement in marriage – why should you be able to reach agreement when drafting a separation agreement?

That said, a separation agreement was fixed in my brain and my ex’s as the next step. We started working really hard at getting that agreement. We worked for nine months with our collaborative team to get that agreement.  I wanted a separation agreement at all costs because now that I knew we were done, I wanted our divorce all sewed up and sorted.  I know my ex did as well. We wanted to know what the rules outlining our lives were going to be so we could start living according to those new sets of rules that would be defined in our separation agreement.

We got our separation agreement. We were done right?

It did not appear that way. We had an agreement but we both had very different understandings of what it said. We spent another three months arguing over what our agreement meant and during that time we made very little progress with implementing any part of our agreement.

 

Every time we tried to discuss anything in our agreement, I got angry and upset and I know my ex did as well. We often reached deadlock and our conflict levels did not decrease. In fact, we ended up in court because we could not agree over one section of our agreement. What happened? We were supposed to be done once we had our agreement, but here we were in court!

It turns out that just because we had that agreement, that did not mean we were done. We were far from done with each other.

I was not done with my anger and I still could not have a constructive discussion with my ex and judging from some of the emails I was getting from my ex, he was still very angry with me.

This led me to an additional step – step 9: heal myself and let go.

Step 9 took considerable time for me and it involved many different sub-steps.

I am done now with step 9 and the interesting thing about that is that our divorce is finally truly done and over.

Many people had tried to advise me to do step 9 first and I just wasn’t able to at that time but now I wonder if it might have been a better progression. If I had been in a better emotional space  (and ditto for my ex) we would have been able to listen to each other and understand each other.  Our separation agreement would have been a better representation of what we both understood it to be.

I’m not sure it’s possible for most people to heal themselves before entering the process of getting a separation agreement. I would like to think with hindsight I would choose a different way if I could do it again, but I know at that time, I wanted a separation agreement at all costs.

Where are you in the process and what steps are you deciding to take?