Divorced Fathers. Three Options For The Future - Society

Divorced fathers often visit a psychologist. They make different complaints and want different things. But they all want to understand why everything has developed in their lives in a certain way. They ask if they still have a chance for a good and close relationship, a new family. And why can't they, although five, eight, ten years have passed since the divorce? Let's try to describe the options for the future for divorced fathers

1. Father King

Such men often become the initiators of divorce themselves, they marry several times and they have children from these marriages. The type of the outgoing era. These fathers are over fifty, they are usually financially and socially successful.

During divorce, they feel guilt mainly towards the wife, less towards the children. They easily raise other people's children and do not worry much when someone brings up their own. They love everyone and are sure that everyone loves them too. They are not inclined to devalue the mother of their children; rather, they recognize her as a "holy woman" and "an ideal mother," but at the same time they consider her a lover who has exhausted the necessary resources.

After a divorce, they keep in touch with their children, often at the initiative of their ex-wife, and emotionally reorient themselves to a new marriage. Children from different marriages compete for the attention and resources of the father-king, with all the obvious consequences. Such men rarely come to a psychologist for other reasons.

The prognosis for them is very favorable as long as their sexual constitution is preserved.

2. Father offended

He is rarely the initiator of a break. The wife's attempts to change something in the family situation are simply ignored. Divorce lasts a long time, painful. Both parties use a variety of psychological techniques, including:

• manipulation of children,
• charges of treason,
• dragging children into psychological warfare,
• depriving the family of material support,
• revenge.

Such a man takes offense at everyone at once - at the universe, society, wife and children. And he also takes revenge on everyone at once. To the last, he does not believe that divorce is a reality and psychologically adapts worse than others. Addiction prone.

He is usually pitied by the social environment of the family, because he is a "sufferer." He often disappears for a long time, is not interested in the life of his children (they "betrayed him"), does not give the family money, or he likes to frame every payment in a humiliating way.

Offended fathers often come to a psychologist with complaints of depression, inside of which there is a lot of anger and resentment towards the whole world. They cause pity and irritation in others. Sooner or later, they are no longer invited to family parties, because after them the owners of the house for some reason quarrel.

In adaptation, such fathers are helped by the distance, in which the wife and children are gradually moved to a considerable distance, the whole past life is analyzed: devalued and idealized alternately. The exit from the merger with the family system is very painful and lengthy. Such dads "disappear" not because they are bad people, but because they prove to themselves that they are able to survive outside the family. And this is actually not easy.

Unfortunately, often they themselves spoil relations with children, who were initially full of sympathy for them. But as offended fathers appear less and less often, and if they do, their visits are accompanied by psychological destabilization or inappropriate behavior, children are more and more convinced that "the mother did the right thing, that she got divorced."

The big mistake of such fathers is to fall into psychological regression and "adopt" their children. Children do not like this, because they want to have a strong, protective, mentally adequate father. As a result, the father loses his authority and is annulled as an educator, which again traumatizes him

Moreover, in response, children themselves tend to react with psychological maladjustment. They begin to study poorly, do not obey, get sick, in a word, they try as best they can to return their parents to the position of caring adults. Therefore, so many children are seen by a psychologist during the divorce of their parents.

If the children are small, they, of course, easily fall under the influence of their mother (grandparents). They are easy to turn against their father and intimidate. Toddlers often show a negative attitude towards their father, and he does not know how to deal with it. He comes on a date appointed by the guardianship or the court with toys, and the child meets him with tears, screams, and runs away.

The father asks the psychologist - what does this behavior mean, is it worth fighting when it ends? Will their relationship be restored? Should I show up once a year, or two, or three? Wait until "grows up and understands"? This is an extremely painful moment in the life of such fathers and a difficult experience to live.

My standard recommendation is that if you run out of strength and it's impossible to fight further, show up anyway, at least once or twice a year. It's better than just disappearing. Then, when the child grows up and comes to a psychologist, he will have great difficulties with the perception of the male role in the family and in life. This applies to both men and women. And the child will be grateful to you if at least something will know about you from personal experience, and not from the story told by the mother.

With a huge number of divorces in our country, the family needs regulation and balance of interests of all parties - women, men and children. She herself is completely unable to cope with this. There is neither a culture of conflict resolution, nor responsibility sufficiently deterring aggression

Civilized divorce is a rarity and a huge human achievement. And so, the more I work with this, the more I tend to the idea that it would be right to undergo therapy for all family members during a divorce.

It is necessary to somehow regulate the turnover of aggression, just as we agreed not to use explosive bullets, antipersonnel mines and biological weapons

Let's return to the offended fathers. Divorce for them becomes a royal portal to a personal crisis, in which all life attitudes and experiences are revised. Many life hypotheses are extremely severely disappointed - that “I did everything for the sake of my family and children,” that “life for the sake of the family” guarantees lifelong gratitude and love. In fact, such a father has to start all over again, he has a lot of fear and confusion. It is not entirely clear how exactly to start if the previous plan did not work out?

This is a long process: from three to ten years with a successful outcome.

• If the outcome is unsuccessful, offended fathers are forever stuck in the position of victim and resentment, become unpleasant evil people.
• With the successful development of a personal crisis, offended fathers take their part of the responsibility for a broken marriage, restore working relations with their ex-wife and children, get out of regression and restore their authority. They form a new life plan, in which the family may not be included. Very often they abandon the family project in favor of personal freedom and comfortable loneliness.

3. Father-mommy

This type of father is extremely common among 35-45 year olds. Such men themselves were often deprived of their father due to the divorce of their parents or for other reasons, and were much closer to their mother. They gave themselves a vow never to disappear from the life of their children, so that they would not suffer as they did in childhood.

According to psychological karma-irony, they themselves often provoke divorce. They are unable to cope with the inevitable difficult periods in family life or simply do not want to endure unpleasant things. For this (my) generation, the “endure for the sake of children” philosophy no longer works.

They come to therapy with a psychologist with one problem - relationships with women do not work out. As a rule, these men do not disappear from the lives of children - on the contrary, children spend all weekends and vacations with their dad. Fathers are aware of all the problems in a child's life, most of them spend a lot of money on children and ex-wife.

Such a man is prone to strong competition with his ex-wife in order to be their best mom - to properly raise, feed, dress, etc. They are actually very good fathers. They are not ready for anything to lose the love of their children and fight for it to the last

Needless to say, almost all of their new relationships are doomed from the start. And there are a number of reasons for this:

• In fact, they support the old family system, moving away from it only a little distance. They divorced formally, but not psychologically. They are strongly connected with their ex-wife, they have an intense emotional relationship (the fight is very exciting).
• They spend almost all resources (financial, temporary and mental) on maintaining such a family system, little or not enough remains for new relationships. The new partner realizes this pretty quickly, begins to fight for them and loses.

Such a strong love for children is like betting on zero in a psychological casino - a huge risk. Which, sooner or later, mothers and mothers begin to realize. They, like the previous generation of mothers, "lay their lives" on this love and would like guaranteed compensation in the form of reciprocal feelings of their children.

But life has its own program - no matter how close the parents are, sooner or later peers become more important. And then the children grow up, create their own families and “abandon” their mothers and fathers alone. Often quite late, after thirty, but the stronger the loneliness in which such men find themselves. Lonely, no longer very attractive to women, deeply disappointed in relationships.

But this is in perspective, and when they come to a psychologist, they still have hope. Quite ghostly, because they "merge" the relationship as soon as they cross a certain line, after which it is necessary to change the old system. They also have no motivation to change it because women cause aggressive feelings.

There is, of course, the illusion that sooner or later there will be someone who “understands everything,” will be wise and somehow solve the unsolvable puzzle of the life of a father-mother. But in reality, such a man immediately sees in a woman a dangerous enemy who seeks to subdue and force him to work. And he has children in the first place. So it's best not to change anything.

This is the kind of love and perspective. As a consolation, I think men will be good grandfathers. And the grandchildren will give them love in return

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