TheGreenButterfly

How to cope when you have to share your kids with their other parent

Monday morning, 7am, my alarms goes off and I can feel it. Slowly creeping up on me. Its small but I know it’s there. That’s how my week starts on the weekend that my children go to their Dads on the Friday. The Friday- yes- 5 days from right now. If you share your children with their other parent do you feel like this too? Even though I know I still have another 4 days with my children the sick feeling that I get when my children leave has already started to rear its ugly head. Now don’t get me wrong. I fully appreciate the importance of my children spending time with both parents and my children love being at their Dad’s, but this is about me- their mother and how I cope when my children aren’t at home with me.

Throughout the week that my children are at home I cope. I get on with the daily chores that we do as mums (or Dads- as this blog can work for either parent), making packed lunches, making dinners, dropping them to clubs and doing homework amongst other things. Sometimes I notice the feelings, but I just push them deep down and carry on. Friday morning arrives though and ugh, 7am my alarm goes and there it is. I feel so sick. It’s a rush of emotions. I already miss them yet my youngest is usually sleeping right next to me. In the pit of my stomach and right in my heart I can feel it. Like a deep sadness that won’t go away. It’s worse when its holiday time for me as I split the children’s holidays 50/50 with their Dad. This time I know I won’t see my children for 12 whole nights and 13 days. That’s such a long time when you don’t want to miss a thing they do. Then I get the feelings of guilt. There are some parents out there who will never get to see their children again because life is so cruel and I know I should be thankful that at least for me it’s only 12 nights, 13 days that I won’t see them for this time around. When you are on the first day though it hurts and when you have alternate weekends it’s a constant revolving wheel of emotion.

I make the goodbye nice and light and tell them that I will be thinking of them and will miss them, but I know they will be having a fantastic time. I kiss them goodbye and die inside a little bit each time they go.

Once they are gone the feeling does start to ease and this gets a little bit easier with each weekend and each holiday they go on, so I start to design coping mechanisms to make the time on my own bearable. I must add here though that this took me a very long time to get to grips with. I used to dread the thought of being alone! Ugh on my own? How awful I thought. Flash back to when I was a young girl and really hating ever being on my own, a deep intense feeling of sadness every time I sent time on my own. I decided all those years ago that I don’t like it and now as an adult its ingrained into my psyche.

So, at first, I would plan every day when I didn’t have my children. I would make plans to see my boyfriend, my family, my friends and wouldn’t allow myself any time to be on my own. But then one day it came! I was on my own. The panic was evident from the minute I realised I was going to be alone, but do you know what? It wasn’t that bad. I had lots of programmes on my sky planner and I could watch anything I wanted to and eat at any time I felt hungry. As time has gone by, I now absolutely love being on my own. I do still plan but this time it’s more about what I can do that serves me.

So, to begin with I always clean the house the day my children go to their Dads. I put all their toys away, tidy up the kitchen from the little belongings they love to keep out, put the Xbox games and controllers away and make my living space somewhere that offers me a peaceful and calm environment. This instantly makes me feel happy. Do you get that feeling when your home is nice and tidy? I also always light my candles in the evening something I never do when my children are at home. I have two boys and my youngest is a bit of a live wire. He loves nothing more than throwing himself around and having lightsabre fights with imaginary characters so I wouldn’t dare risk an open flame in his company lol

I take my dog Dusty on long walks and make time for a relaxing bubble bath. I have a boyfriend and love spending time with him but I also have a lot to do for my counselling course and theatre school business so I actually cherish those days when I can just do what I need to do without interruptions. I’m not suggesting if you are in the same situation that you sign up to a degree course or start a business, but I definitely recommend doing something for you. That can be anything. Maybe start a new hobby. Something you have always wanted to do. Join a class or a group of some kind and it doesn’t need to cost the earth, there are plenty of opportunities out there if you look for them. You could take up reading if you don’t already, join the local library and get a new book out every time the kids go. If you don’t exercise currently then I definitely recommend starting some kind of gentle exercise even if it is just going for a walk or a run, again it doesn’t need to be expensive it just needs to be something just for you, something that you enjoy so that you can look forward to it. Eat foods that you don’t get to eat when the kids are home because they don’t like them. Go to the theatre, the cinema, meet up with friends who you rarely get to see. Go for a mini break if finances permit. Just make sure it is something for YOU. I think that’s the most important bit.

I fully believe none of us in this situation ever envisaged being ‘part time parents’ but it is what it is, and we just need to make the best of our situation.

I’d love you to share the things that you like to do and always reach out to me if/when you are feeling sad that your children aren’t with you because I’ve been there and I understand,

Much love Binksy

The Home ‘Breakover’ and how I needed one to help me heal

Like many young girls growing up I dreamt of meeting my handsome prince and living happily ever after and for a while I really felt like I had accomplished that and so much more. I was 35 and had a charming husband, lovely house, two healthy and intelligent young boys and a job that fitted in with mum life perfectly.

All that came crashing down when I discovered my husband was having an affair. After deciding to separate officially it took two years before my ex moved out of the family home. My beautiful family home- where I had brought both my children home to when they were born, where my ex and I had shared so many happy (or so I thought happy) memories and where my entire life was based.

As soon as he moved out, I felt such a strong sense of wanting change. After all- he had had the affair and I had to stay living under the same roof, within the same walls, looking at the same ceiling that I had when I was happily married and also when I was devastated, and divorce was looming. My ex got out- he had the change but for me I was just stuck. I also needed to buy new things as my ex had taken the sofas and the TV.

Right that was the decision made. I could have just bought a new sofa and TV, but I wanted to change the whole lounge- no I ‘needed’ to change the whole lounge. Truth be told I wanted to change the entire house, but finances wouldn’t allow that just yet. Moving out wasn’t an option either as my children loved their home and I felt like they had had enough upheaval already from their innocent young lives. So, I looked at the priorities first. The lounge as my boys and I spent most of our time there and my bedroom- which is self-explanatory.

That’s when I started to get excited about my new home, my new life- I spent hours scrolling images, searching for new wallpaper, colour schemes. From what I thought had been a beautiful home I realised it didn’t serve me anymore, so I went from bright orange floral wallpaper in my lounge to a more calming cream and beige stripe and from a brown and dark green floral in the bedroom to a lovely light aqua. I had the ceilings made flat- something I’d always wanted to have done but was forever told ‘it’s a waste of money’ well I can now tell you that that was money most definitely well spent. It’s strange really how just by having the ceilings made smooth how much bigger and calmer the rooms looked. I spent days dragging my boyfriend Matt to various furniture stores searching for the perfect sofa and new bed. I had had a leather sofa previously so naturally I now wanted fabric and again I wanted something cosy that again portrayed the calm feeling I wanted to create around my home.

Next was the carpet, once again I chose a beautiful plush grey carpet but as soon as my eyes turned to carpet, I knew I needed to get all of the carpet in my house replaced. I didn’t want the ‘old’ carpet. Too many footsteps had walked over it, too many memories for it to stay.

It’s amazing how cathartic changing your home after a divorce can be. I totally fell in love with the process of looking at designs that were for ‘me’ I had complete control of what I changed, how much I spent and what overall feeling I wanted to create. I also felt so proud of what I had achieved. I involved my children in the decorating process and whilst they were reluctant to change anything at first, they absolutely loved the new look of their home. I did come up against some resistance from my ex due to the fact our divorce wasn’t finalised and legally he still owned the house too but I sought legal advice and as all I was doing was bettering the house, he didn’t have a leg to stand on.

It’s been four years since my ex has moved out and my home isn’t completely where I want it to be yet but it’s a journey and I am loving the process. Especially how good it has been for my mental health. Coming home to a home that is just ‘my boys and I’s’ and has no memories of when we were a family of four has made such a huge difference to my inner peace and happiness. I can’t quite explain the feelings I had when I finally sat in my lounge and it looked completely different, but I guess it felt like freedom. Freedom from the pain of separation. Freedom from the pain of a life no longer recognisable. Freedom to be me

If you have been though a similar experience to me then I whole heartedly recommend the ‘home breakover’ the home makeover with a difference. The difference to give yourself permission to live again, to smile again and to know that everything’s going to be alright.

How my divorce helped change my life for the better

I thought I had everything figured out. I was married to my best friend, had two beautiful sons that were kind, loving and funny and had a great job that I loved too- Life was great. How wrong could I be but how right could it all turn out in the end.

It was a Thursday morning and I was busily cleaning my house to welcome my husband home after a week away when my phone pinged with a text. A text that I will never forget. Suddenly everything I thought about my life was turned upside down. My husband loved another woman!! WHAT!!! WHO?? HOW!! Of course, he denied it- made up a whole heap of lies surrounding the text but I couldn’t bear it. I begged him to tell me the truth. I had been working as a presenter on a shopping channel for many years and in the same year that I found out about my husband’s affair ,the channel I was working for closed down, my dog had to be re homed, my mum found out she had breast cancer and just the year before I had lost my dearly wanted third child through miscarriage. All I could think was what had I done to deserve such awfulness.

At first we tried to save our marriage through counselling but things had changed and we agreed that it wasn’t going to work. This of course is the very condensed version of the pain and torture I experienced from not just his words and actions towards me but that of my own mind and here is where my story starts and what I want to focus on in this blog post.

During this time my own mind was such an enemy to me. Negative thoughts filled my head almost every minute of every day- What was wrong with me? Was I not pretty enough? No one else will want to be with me. I am such an awful person to live with. It was constant. I remember crying myself to sleep, waking up thinking it was all a dream then realising it was actually my reality and crying all over again. I felt so unbelievably lost. I had always been such a strong person (I thought) yet everything I thought I knew was gone. Suddenly there was no security, no familiarity and I had no idea who I was or what I wanted

My divorce process eventually took just shy of five years to complete and I endured some of the toughest experiences of my life to date. Following a completely harrowing experience at the hands of my ex-husbands lies I decided to stop playing and start fighting through the courts for my freedom and stability for my children.

I spent many a day crying and even the smallest of things could set my emotions rolling down a hill. I wanted the pain to be over, I wanted to feel happy again, I wanted my life back, but I knew I didn’t want what I had previously had- talk about confused. That’s when I found counselling.

At first, I had started looking for a new career, ways to make an income to support my boys and I as a single parent family. I felt like I needed to make enough money to cover ‘two parents’ instead of just one and that was hard. Through looking for a new start- a change of direction- and more income I realised that I wanted to help others. I wanted to be able to help my children navigate their way round a painful family breakup and also help other people going through similar experiences to what I had avoid all the mistakes I had made. If I could help just one person avoid all the pain then my life would have meaning again.

So, I decided I wanted to retrain to become a counsellor. Although I had visited counsellors a few times in the past, they had never amounted to anything. I guess I just wasn’t ready to make a change back then. Now things were different. I discovered that I needed to complete a BA Hons degree in Integrative Counselling before I could find work in this area and begin helping people. Retrain? As a mature student? Write an essay? Well that’s another blog post all in itself. I also discovered that I needed to have my own counselling- this put me off at first as I had a preconceived idea of what counselling was for. Again, how wrong could I be.

Through my own studies, own counselling sessions and self-reflection I am now a completely different person to who I always thought I was as a wife. I had been with my ex-husband for 20 years and I fully believe I lost myself during that time. Luckily through my horrendous divorce I have re discovered ‘me’ and learnt to love ‘me’ again too and for that I am truly thankful.

Self-love is so important. I am so glad that self-love is now accepted as the norm rather than being a dirty word. Being able to look after you and your needs is just as important as looking after someone else’s needs even your children’s because if you aren’t ok then who is going to take care of them. Self-reflection can really help on your journey to self-love too. Simple things like writing a journal can really help you to look at how your mind is behaving and how you can make changes for the better. Writing things down can really relieve stress too. Just putting pen to paper can put a completely different perspective on situations and allow you that thinking time to really know your true emotions. Too often during my divorce I would rush into my responses and when your emotions are at their highest this really isn’t wise. Now I try to wait before I make a reply so I can be sure my emotions have well and truly settled back down.

I also thoroughly recommend talking therapies. I am a talker- I will talk to pretty much anyone and am lucky to have shared my story with many of my friends BUT it’s not the same as seeking professional help from a trained therapist. They will offer you a safe place to be able to explore you own emotions without any kind of pre-determined judgement. If you do choose to seek a counsellor then I highly recommend finding one that has completed their training, is a member of a professional body and also one that you connect with as the therapeutic relationship between you ‘the client’ and them ‘the counsellor’ is quite possibly the most important aspect of all.

If you do choose to seek therapy I wish you all the best in your search and hope you will follow me for more advice on talking therapies and tips for all thing’s ‘wellbeing’

Binksy.

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me.

Through my own studies and self reflection I have begun to thoroughly discover who I really am. About 5 years ago my life was turned completely upside down and the life I thought I was going be leading suddenly changed. I felt like I lost myself so I have started this blog as a place to share tips and advice for all things to do with personal well-being. I hope you enjoy the content love from Binksy 🦋