Death vs. Divorce

Nothing shreds the heart of a parent more than the potential loss of a precious child to a horrible disease or devastating injury. Parents faced with this situation would gladly lay down their own life to spare them. Their entire being is fixated on making that child feel safe, comfortable and loved. The rest of the world stops spinning. They walk on eggshells to avoid arguing in front of the child. Gifts are given, once-in-a-lifetime trips are taken. They want to make their child’s remaining time on earth sweet, soothing and filled with love. They’ve been sucker punched with the recognition of the fragility of life and desperately count the seconds they still have. They spend hours on their knees begging god to spare their child. They turn inward, wondering if their own character flaws somehow caused god to strike down their child. They bargain with the Almighty, promising to be a better person if only their child is spared. They torment themselves with every mistake, every wrong choice for their child they ever made. They grieve the times they lost their temper, the times they put their own needs before their child’s, the times they weren't paying attention, every slight they ever visited upon their child intended or inadvertent.

Then, there is the situation where parents are fighting for custody and/or visitation.

I know without a doubt that the vast majority of parents in the midst of a custody/visitation battle love their children and that if their child was dying of some horrible disease or injury they would react exactly as I just described. Sadly, tragically, parents battling over relatively healthy children frequently have taken their eyes off the ball. They visit a hell upon their children that is inexcusable, especially considering that the child is facing his or her own grief at the loss of his or her family.

Parents in a custody/visitation dispute frequently tend to be completely oblivious to what they are doing to their child. They fight in front of the children. They literally wrestle the child from the other parent’s arms during visitation transfers. They casually describe what a so-and-so the other parent is within the listening of their kids. They tell the child that they can’t afford certain things because the other parent won’t pay child support – and that this is “proof” that the child is not loved by that parent. They second guess the decisions of the other parent as a matter of course. They believe the other parent is undermining their relationship with their child and, to keep things even, do the same thing. They complain that the other parent is trying to “control” them. They obsess and dwell upon the slights they personally endured during the marriage as proof of the other parent’s low character, or as justification for separating the child from that parent. They move to new neighborhoods, change schools, expecting their child to simply adjust.

The non-custodial parent frequently drifts off and fails to keep track of the child’s academic progress or medical needs. They show up late for visitation. Sometimes they don’t show up, at all. Many parents are consumed with their “rights,” and give little thought to the “rights” of their child to a loving, calm, stable existence (beyond pointing out how the other parent has failed the child).

They are frequently distracted by new significant others who have stepped in to fill the emotional void left by the end of the previous relationship. Foolishly, they bring the new significant other with them to visitation exchanges. As often as not, the new significant other tags along because he/she believes the parents will get together for a fling (truth be told, this happens a lot!). The significant other and the adverse parent sometimes get into shouting matches, or worse, in the presence of the child. The parents move in (or move in with) new significant others and expect their child to simply adapt to new pseudo siblings, often sharing rooms with virtual strangers perhaps 3 – 5 years different in age from themselves. The parents smooch with new partners in the presence of their children, expecting them to somehow to understand that “until death do we part” is REAL but for some reason, doesn’t apply in THIS case. The child is assumed to be able to figure it out when it comes time to make their own choices in a life partner.

Unlike the parents with dying children who engage in painful soul searching of the type of person and parent they have been in the past, they focus on the flaws of their former partner, cutting them no slack, closing their eyes to their own flaws. They would deny it to the death but there is frequently truth to what I hear one judge say to feuding parents on a regular basis and that is, “You hate each other more than you love your child.”

I wish more parents in custody/visitation disputes would think about all this.