Divorcing Dads
Honest conversations with divorcing dads about staying connected to your kids while building a life that you love. Topics include co-parenting, fatherhood, divorce recovery, parenting tips, and emotional well-being.
Divorcing Dads
To Protect My Kids, There are Certain Feelings I Must Not Feel
Nearly a year after the divorce, Mark is planning a 2-week trip with his kids, and enjoying his ability to share more of his culture of origin with his kids than when he was married.
Mark continues to explore dating, and finds that his anxiety around dating diminishes as his goal shifts from wanting to be liked to checking if the connection feels like a good match.
While much of Mark's life feels good, Mark is becoming increasingly aware the anger he feels toward his ex and her affair partner. We discuss Mark's conviction that, in order to protect his kids, it's important for him to avoid feeling to too negatively about their mother. We also consider different ways Mark can reduce the intense reactivity he feels when he comes into contact with his ex's partner.
Topics include:
• The benefit of expressing preference for boundaries with ex, even if the ex does not respond or honor it
• Thinking of dating as an opportunity to check for mutual match, rather than as an opportunity to be liked or to impress someone
• The challenge of being a people-pleaser when dating, both with respect to wanting to be liked and with respect to deciding not to go on another date
• Do I need to have clear goals when dating?
• Talking with the kids when they're with the ex: Scheduled? Ad-hoc? How long should calls be?
--> • Kids getting more of the parent's culture after the divorce
• What is an appropriate level of contact and reactivity with the ex's affair partner?
• How to become less reactive to the ex and her affair partner? (minimizing exposure, reducing reaction, speeding up recovery)
* The benefits of making new friends after the divorce, people who don't know the ex
* Wanting to give grace to the ex because she is the kids' mother
* Shifting anger from the ex to her partner
* The natural--and dangerous--impulse to treat the kids as little judges, so they know we are Right and the ex is Wrong
* Creating space to feel and process the full spectrum of emotions toward the ex
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Nearly a year after the divorce, Mark is planning a two-week trip with his kids and enjoying his ability to share more of his culture of origin with his kids than when he was married. Mark continues to explore dating and finds that his anxiety around dating diminishes as his goal shifts from wanting to be liked to checking if the connection feels like a good match. While much of Mark's life feels good, Mark is becoming increasingly aware of the anger he feels toward his ex and her affair partner. We discuss Mark's conviction that, in order to protect his kids, it's important for him to avoid feeling too negatively about their mother. We also consider different ways Mark can reduce the intense reactivity he feels when he comes into contact with his ex's affair partner. I hope this conversation is helpful for you.
Mark:Hey, good, afternoon Aaron.
Eran Magen, PhD:How's it going?
Mark:It's going well, much better than last time, I think.
Eran Magen, PhD:Oh good, I'm glad to hear.
Mark:Let's see. I went to Reno. My sister got married.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, congratulations.
Mark:Yeah, got the kids all dressed up.
Eran Magen, PhD:I remember the little jackets.
Mark:Yeah, yeah, yeah, got the kids all dressed up, I remember the little jackets, yeah yeah, yeah, I'll wear them once and that'll be it, and then they'll grow out of them. I did end up firing off that email to her, Probably just a little bit reworded, but, yeah, suggesting a few options for separating out birthday parties etc, etc. No response yet, but it's kind of par for the course, though for her, like she doesn't like having, she's not like confrontational right. Yeah. And so it's pretty much as expected, you know.
Eran Magen, PhD:How do you feel having sent it?
Mark:I don't really know or feel strongly either way about having sent it. I think it's just fine to get it off my chest and just tell her like, hey, this is what you did, right? I feel like she may not even be aware, like what she did was wrong, or wrong to me at least. She may just not have any concern for my feelings, or so, yeah, that was at least the goal, right, as we talked about last time, the goal was not to make her feel remorseful or whatever, like she already cheated on me, right? So that's already happened. So this isn't to get her to feel, oh, what I did was wrong and that I should apologize for it. Yeah, and I agree that that's actually freeing.
Eran Magen, PhD:Okay, so not looking for an apology, like you said, but just you feel better just having at least voiced your disagreement here and voiced your grievance, yeah.
Mark:Not looking for an apology, but like I don't want to be a doormat either, right, so yeah okay, and I guess in a way it's almost like your response doesn't matter.
Eran Magen, PhD:Well, it might matter, I guess. If you are able to coordinate something that you know will lead to a more predictably calm life for you, that would be nice. Yeah. Okay, what else?
Mark:All that stuff I said about dating Like I'm not sure, Like somebody reached out to me and then now I have a date tomorrow.
Eran Magen, PhD:That's great. What part are you not sure about?
Mark:Well, originally I was like you know, I don't feel like I really have the capacity right now to make space for another person to feel responsible or not responsible, but feel like to make space for another person's feelings. You know, yeah and. But then, like this person reached out to me which is kind of rare on the dating apps, right, and she seemed nice. She kind of hit it off through text and so so we're going to meet up on Saturday and see how it goes.
Eran Magen, PhD:That's great. So it sounds like you're doing a little bit less life planning and a little more following what seems to be enjoyable, yeah, and just kind of see what happens. See what happens, yeah, I hope it's fun.
Mark:I hope it's fun too. Yeah, it's interesting. Like with this person. I don't feel as much of a like, a strong desire to be liked. I just want to see how it goes, you know.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, that's a huge, huge difference in mindset going in saying well, maybe I'm projecting here, but it sounds like less coming in for a job interview and more, maybe saying we're both interviewing each other, or maybe just focusing on the fact that you're interviewing this other person.
Mark:Yeah, yeah, I hope it's a healthy thing to do. I'm not exactly well-versed in this kind of stuff, you know, so it'll just be an experiment.
Eran Magen, PhD:Well, it sounds a little more grounded right, a little bit less of a need to please others and worrying about what they'll think about you, and just being focused on what you're interested in and what would be nice for you and of course, it would need to be mutual for anything to happen, right, but not coming in worried about are you good enough, are you going to be good enough? But coming in wondering if this is something that's going to be appealing to you. Sounds healthy.
Mark:But coming in wondering if this is something that's going to be appealing to you. It sounds healthy. I think so, and that is a thing for me. I think when I'm in times of weakness or insecurity or whatever, I tend to gravitate towards people pleasing tendencies. You know, I don't know. I don't feel like that this time, and I also really don't know why.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, I'm curious to hear how it goes.
Mark:Yeah, there was one person prior where I kind of called it off and they were kind of had maybe a little overly attached and I was just a little uncomfortable with how forward they were being. But I still gave it two or three dates just because I was like, oh, maybe I'll come around or something. But I think there was some people pleasing there too, not wanting this person to be sad or anything and also being myself just a little bit uncomfortable having that conversation.
Eran Magen, PhD:But eventually we had that conversation At work.
Mark:Are you responsible for hiring and firing? Yeah, for some reason, workmark is okay with that. Workmark is fine having those conversations Earlier this year. Three months ago, I had to let someone go and that was a difficult conversation and I said, no, it's fine, I can deal with it, and we had a really good talk and the person shook my hand afterwards and I think that was okay. That went okay.
Eran Magen, PhD:I'm curious about the difference, not just in how you let the other person go right Whether it's at work or a date but the different kind of need that it sounds like you have to please the other person, or how it seems like at work you don't have such a hard time saying no, we should not be together in this case working together yeah whereas it sounds harder and like it was harder in a dating context I think.
Mark:So I'm just spitballing here. I may not know myself that well, but maybe it's just due to familiarity with the situation, like I've been a people leader at work for six years now, so so I have a lot of experience with that myself. Right In the early days, right, I was very much people-pleasing and you know I was great with my role and things like that. And I think back then I would not have been comfortable having those serious, intentional conversations about people's roles being let go or laying people off right, and I'm not comfortable with it now either. It's not like a good thing to do. But I feel like I can tell someone hey, you're not performing as well as we need you to be performing. I can give that honest, candid feedback without feeling the fear that they won't like me. In the early days I would have definitely had those tendencies which I. That's why I feel like it's a weakness of mine, like with the dating thing. It's also like a new thing for me, right. So I think I just fall into the whole people pleasing tendency thing.
Eran Magen, PhD:And at work. If you fire someone, you say you're no longer worried about whether or not they will like you after that conversation.
Mark:It's not the overarching driver of my words. It's more important for me to get on the same page as to why we need to do this, what the business needs are and why, and maybe why what they're doing is incompatible with what I think I feel like this is corporate speak I'm doing here, but I think, really, like with the person we let go, it was just like our company wasn't a good fit for them. It wasn't just like they weren't a good fit for us. They were a talented person and they were when we hired him and they were when we let them go right. It just wasn't a fit. It was a fit thing, you know, and so it's the same way.
Mark:The person who I went on that couple of dates with, who I had to break it off with, she was a great person. She worked with underprivileged kids and stuff like that and very sensitive. It was just. I think it might have been a bad stage for me where I felt that they were just being too forward or a place that I wasn't ready to be in yet, just because of, maybe, the stressful situation that I was and I just wasn't aware of it.
Eran Magen, PhD:I think I was, and I just wasn't aware of it. I think so maybe we should be checking in with you once you've had a lot of these conversations under your belt and see if, at that point, you're less oriented toward pleasing the other person.
Mark:Yeah, I see.
Eran Magen, PhD:Or not, or maybe you won't need to have a lot of these conversations. That would be even nicer.
Mark:Yeah, maybe we'll find someone and I'll just have a good time going forward. Huh, I'm also not like 100% sure of what I want and I don't want to be like future casting in terms of what I want in a relationship and I don't really want a second mom for the kids, right, and I'm not sure if I want to get married again Again. That's like so far down the line, yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:And I think I mean you're. You're holding this nice balance between having a general sense of what you're looking for and what you're not looking for, but making sure to keep it vague and in the background, while in the meantime you're just checking to see if things feel nice, like if this is immediately contributing to or detracting from the quality of your life quality of your life?
Mark:Yeah, but I don't want to come up to this other person like being all wishy-washy about my goals in life and potentially like leading them on or something, because like, if they want something clearly and I'm not quite there on the same page, then I'd feel bad about that.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, I mean that sounds a little bit like trying to please them, in that you want to have goals if they have goals and you want to have directions if they have direction. That's a good point. And so maybe there's a broader category of people that come in with clear goals and people that come in without clear goals, and those are both legitimate ways of being, and maybe a match needs to be, also in terms of whether or not it's important to you that I have goals that are similar or goals at all. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:But that's something they can decide for themselves, right? Yeah, it is, that's, a good point, and sometimes our goals change based on who we're with right yeah, yeah, it's just like so complicated, like what is the protocol for this stuff?
Mark:you know?
Eran Magen, PhD:protocol for what, for how, to date?
Mark:yeah, like for dating. Sure, it's so funny, like I don't know. It's just kind of such a guessing game when you're talking to someone on these apps. Right? Is it too soon if I suggest meeting up? Or some people want to meet up right away, some people want to chat all the time.
Eran Magen, PhD:Well, I'm definitely not a dating expert. I would say that what I think I've discovered is that being explicit and above board often works out well for everybody. So asking questions to check in about where the other person is and then being clear about where I am is a good idea, and when I don't do it, it turns out to be a bad idea, because then misunderstandings develop like honest misunderstandings. And then, of course, the other side of it is that it could be very annoying if somebody's always asking you before actually suggesting something yeah so there's some kind of a balance to strike there.
Eran Magen, PhD:At the same time, you know, you and I are texting and it's nice, and I say, hey, this is really fun, I'm really enjoying talking with you. Would you like to meet sometime? And keep going. So what's my concern about asking this? Is it that you would say, oh my God, you asked this way too soon, this is awful, goodbye. And then the equivalent of a phone hang up, unmatch, I guess. Like if that's the case and if that's how the person would respond, like, is this the kind of, you know, tenuous connection we're looking to nurture and grow? Or could there be an adult on the other side that says this is really fun, but it feels a little too soon? And then you keep going and then maybe that changes how you feel In the end. I think the protocol is about match yeah. So if something feels right to you and you do it and it feels totally wrong to the other person and this happens a few times then this may not be a great match.
Mark:It's true, that's a good point, and I think my concern originally was like what you said at the very beginning, but like, oh, it's important to play these things out, but it might be kind of annoying to do that too frequently, but then it's like what's too frequent.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, if nobody's ever taking the lead. It's all kind of ongoing conversations, right? You can never surprise somebody with takeout that you picked out for them if you always have to ask them exactly where they want the food from, exactly what kind of food they want, how many orders of which thing. But it's fun figuring it out, I mean. I think it's fun. And it's fun because there is no protocol, because it's different for different people. Some people prefer to be consulted a lot and some people want the other person to take the lead. Sometimes, that's true. Part of the few things that can be enjoyable is kind of this detective game with the understanding that if you make a mistake it's recoverable. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:And I do think that if an early mistake is unrecoverable, then this was probably not a great match to begin with. If I did something that seemed like it could not possibly be fatal, and it turns out to be fit. We are on such different wavelengths.
Mark:That makes sense switching gears a bit and coming up on two weeks. Well, after this saturday I won't see the kids for like two weeks because they're going to go on vacation with their mom. She has a sabbatical, I guess, yeah, so she'll have them for two weeks and take them a bunch of places, and then I'll have them for two weeks We'll go camping in Lake Tahoe and stuff like that.
Eran Magen, PhD:How are you feeling about those upcoming two weeks of not seeing them?
Mark:I'll probably miss them a lot. This past couple of weeks have been just a really good time together, especially with that long weekend and stuff.
Eran Magen, PhD:We spent a lot of time together and the talking yeah are you going to be talking with them while they're on vacation?
Mark:we might do some video chatting here and there.
Eran Magen, PhD:We'll see is it something that you would schedule, or just kind of ad hoc it? Or just kind of ad hoc it usually just kind of ad hoc it.
Mark:We've done like scheduled video chat before we did nightly and or every other night when they were at the parents place. But it just kind of got annoying, you know. It's just like I just want to keep hearing her voice and like the kids weren't really like keen on that, so just like sitting in front of an ipad talking to a parent, so so we kind of stopped that after a little while so how did the ad hocs work?
Eran Magen, PhD:how is it different?
Mark:we haven't had many ad hocs. Actually I just tell them, like do you know, if you want to talk to me, I'll be there, I'll be available, but we can facetime or whatever. But they never seem to want to do it, yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, I think that's the trick, right as a kid, you rarely want to do something other than what you're doing, especially if what you're doing is even mildly enjoyable.
Mark:And I don't want to coerce them to do something that they don't want to do.
Eran Magen, PhD:You know, I think it's okay to schedule times to talk and then also be okay with these conversations being exactly two minutes long, right, where it's just a touch point. You just kind of see the face, hear the voice, maybe ask a couple of questions. If they're excited to tell you something, then they'll tell you. If they're excited to ask you about something, then they'll ask you, and if they're not, they'll, you know, say how the day was and vacation is great. You'll be like great, and then we'll talk on Wednesday. But it at least creates a touch point.
Mark:Yeah, I'll just try to arrange some scheduled times. Obviously I'm looking forward to my two weeks, of course. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:What's on deck for your two?
Mark:weeks. Yeah, we're going camping over at Tahoe with some friends, so we're going to go camping with my sister and my parents and then my side of the family yeah, camping for like two days and then, you know, it's not too crazy. The only thing that we're a little bit apprehensive about is the drive, because it's a long drive. It's like 14-hour driving.
Eran Magen, PhD:Not each way right.
Mark:Just like total driving, yeah, you know back and forth and around and everything, and so and there's all those stops and stuff. But it'll be fine, it'll be a great time. My kids have actually been getting better at Thai, so and I don't know if that would have happened if we had not gotten divorced. It's just interesting. So like I was born in Thailand and so I grew up speaking Thai. So it's just so, I grew up speaking that a lot and my ex was born here. Just so I grew up speaking that a lot and my ex was born here.
Mark:So it's very much like an Asian American kid trying to fit in with the culture and stuff here, and so it wasn't really important to her to do traditional Asian stuff or Thai stuff or even speak Thai or around the kids even and it's not like it's super important to me too, but I do feel like it's something. It would be good for them to get in touch with their roots and discover who they are and where I came from, you know, and where their families came from. They've been using Duolingo, so that's awesome, so they're able to communicate a bit more with my parents, because my mom doesn't speak a whole lot of English. Wow, my parents have been really impressed with how much they've been able to understand, and, as a result, they're kind of growing closer together too, which is cool. And I really enjoy seeing that.
Mark:Yeah, even my kids. They're like we don't do Duolingo at my mom's house, but I think Pete the younger one brought it up. He was like if we didn't get divorced if you're guessing to get divorced we probably wouldn't do this Duolingo. So that was kind of cool. That's kind of more like me getting more in touch with who I am after the divorce, you know.
Mark:Another thing that happened was I invited some friends to come over and play mahjong, you know, and my friend had remarked and I don't know why she said this she's like oh, it's funny how you, mark, are the most Americanized of all of us and yet you're the one like teaching your kids mahjong languages and stuff. I'm like I'm not Americanized, right, like I just think to myself it's just the past piece of life that I've been in to just kind of suppress a lot of that. I didn't say that out loud at the time. It's just kind of a realization I had later on, because the person who told me that I mean she is Thai-American too, but she's born in Texas, you know, but her parents are very culturally Thai, so I think it's a priority for her just to be in that culture, as it was for me too, you know. So I don't know, that kind of struck me recently.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, I remember somebody telling me about this I can't remember who it was, and I think I mentioned it to you. You as well that one of the really surprising silver linings of separation like this or divorce with kids is that each parent gets to be themselves, sort of uncompromisingly, and the kids get to be exposed to these two different, uncompromised people in a much broader range of experiences, and this sounds like this is a benefit both for the kids and for the parents. Right, and in your case, you're finding yourself reconnecting with that culture. They got pushed to the background a little bit and the kids get to reconnect with it and even with your grandparents as a result, with their grandparents as a result.
Mark:That sounds lovely actually yeah yeah, like when I was married, sometimes I would just like, out of the blue, just speak some phrases in Thai to my wife and she would just kind of look at me funny, like why are you speaking Thai to me? Then I just switched back to English and was like sorry, but really it was like this is who I am. This is just like I would like to express some colloquialisms in Thai, you know.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, the subtle ways, sometimes the not-so-subtle ways that being in a relationship gets us to highlight certain aspects of us right, our personality and our culture, and to downplay others.
Mark:Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:And it suddenly pops back up when we're not in that relationship.
Mark:Yeah, yeah. So it's all good things.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, some good things going on what do you have scheduled for your two weeks without the kids?
Mark:well, I've been meaning to like and I might just do it kind of an impromptu trip, kind of want to just do it haphazardly because I don't want to pay out the nose for a place to stay, yeah, but I think there's some apps that are like last minute hotel deals and stuff like that. So, yeah, maybe do that day, go to a hotel, hang out, see what that's like and try that out. Yeah, and I don't have a lot of time off from work because I have to use that time for my two weeks sounds great.
Eran Magen, PhD:How long will your impromptu trip be then? Is it a weekend?
Mark:yeah, probably just like a weekend. Probably just take a, a Friday off or something, maybe have a three-day weekend. Otherwise it'll just be like a lot of like going to the gym at 6 in the morning because I usually can't with the kids, so going to the gym at 6 if I want to go to work, just being productive at work, so I can have those couple weeks off. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Good yeah, you're seeming in a much more positive place than you were last time we spoke. Oh my gosh yeah even I can tell what do you think made the difference? Is it just the time passed?
Mark:I think it's just the time passed, I don't know. I haven't had to see that person again, so I do feel like if I were to see them again I'd probably be okay. Like, really, I'm pretty removed from it now. You know, I'm just kind of like you know what they deserve each other. It's just like I don't even want to acknowledge this person. You know it sounds kind of bad, but you know, kind of like the things I said last time, right, like I don't even want to acknowledge this person's personhood. Almost it's like I try not to say his name.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, it's easier not to think of him as a person, yeah, when he doesn't have a name, when, yeah, he doesn't have even mannerisms or whatnot. Right, like he has a role here, like Like he's basically the villain. Yeah.
Mark:Yeah, but I also try not to show it too much when the kids mention him by name. You know I don't want it to like those feelings to rub off on the kids. Yeah.
Mark:No, no, on one hand it's probably not. I don't have to be this person's friend, right? Maybe not going out of my way to acknowledge this person. You know it's not a good thing either, right, I say I probably won't be bothered next time I see him. But but if I like, if I'm admitting that to myself, that I don't want to acknowledge this person, isn't that betraying that? You know the original idea. I'm not sure.
Eran Magen, PhD:Because you're avoiding sort of even mental contact with him by not, for example, naming him.
Mark:Sure.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, and so when you see yourself avoiding mental contact, that makes you wonder if physical contact will actually leave you indifferent.
Mark:Yeah, yeah, I don't know, but like the time has made things better, I guess.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, and what's clear so far is that more time without seeing him is better than more time with seeing him. Yeah, yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:And I'll say this I mean on a spectrum where on one side there's you being totally unable to handle the concept of his existence and on the other side of the spectrum is you being completely comfortable with him. No big deal, super zen, you're somewhere in the middle, you're not at any extreme, like the idea of him does not upset you. Running into him repeatedly, unexpectedly, inappropriately, is upsetting for you and then you eventually calm down from that.
Eran Magen, PhD:But that is quite, has been quite disruptive for you or was quite disruptive for you yeah but his sort of existence in the world, and even the kids talking about him, doesn't send you into tailspans. So somewhere in the middle there, okay.
Mark:Yeah, I think you framed it in a less dramatic way like me running into him unexpectedly. Yes, that is disturbing to me, but I feel like that's normal. I don't know.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, maybe there's nothing wrong with the fact that it's disturbing. I mean, maybe it's unpleasant for you, but maybe that's not something that needs to be fixed, especially yeah One thing I am trying to limit my contact.
Mark:Yeah, one thing I am trying to limit my contact. We have a good family friend and they invited my older son to join them this summer in a flag football league because they played flag football last season.
Mark:but they were in different leagues and they both had a lot of fun, but the games are on.
Mark:Well, the games and practices are on Fridays, you know. So basically, long story short, since we alternate Fridays on this 2-2-5 schedule, I told my friend, who or used to be friends with my ex, that we're well, we were all pretty close prior to this. I told my friend hey, like you know, debra might be there for like every other game, because we really hadn't considered that before when they invited my older son, because I'm kind of inclined to say no, you know, I need a break from seeing her all the time. And then my friend was like oh yeah, I'd probably be okay with it, although I'd tolerate, but my husband would probably not be okay with it, although I'd tolerate, but my husband would probably not be okay with it at all. So we just decided not to do the flag football thing this summer because I think ultimately it was the right call, just for everyone's well-being and mental health. I just feel bad for my older son and his friend because it kind of costs them this summer fun.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, that there's a little bit of a zero-sum between what's fun for them and what's fun for you, or even what's hurtful for you and what's fun for them, and you ultimately choosing to go with avoiding something that for you, would be really disruptive, even at the cost of some fun for your kid.
Mark:Right, right, just need a break.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah and I'm thinking back to what you were saying about your reaction running into your ex's partner and it sounded like you suddenly realized that maybe it's okay to be upset seeing him and that made me wonder if maybe part of what was hard for you was your expectation of yourself to not be upset by seeing him. There was some kind of pressure that you were putting on yourself to be okay yeah, that's true.
Mark:I think there is a battle between a few feelings, right. One is, you know, this person was morally bankrupt and should. It means nothing to me, nothing. But like they deserve each other, right, just kind of write them off as people. I guess, you know, I guess it's not the best way to put it, but, yeah, like this person doesn't deserve my attention. But on the other hand, it's like this morally bankrupt person is somebody who's in my kid's life half the time and being upset about that. And then also, no, this person wronged me. You know, I don't think about that part so much, but it's there. Like this person ruined my marriage, and well, she ruined my marriage, but this person had a hand in it, right, also like cheated on his own spouse too. So it's like a lot of push pull okay.
Eran Magen, PhD:So I think in turn, you were saying I'm sort of imagining you making marks in one of two columns right, where, on the right, we have a column that says here's why I should not have any reaction to seeing him, and on the left, there's a column that says here's why it's okay for me to have reactions seeing him. Yeah, and so on the right, on, here's why I should not have any reaction seeing him. You're putting he's not worth me having a reaction. Yeah, and completely separately, he's part of my kid's life and so it's better for me to not be reactive to him, almost to their benefit, so that they don't feel like they have to tread lightly around me when talking about their own life, in which he might appear occasionally. And so these are two really different arguments for why you should not have a reaction to him.
Eran Magen, PhD:And then, on the why you should have a reaction to him is well, this person is, like you said, morally bankrupt, like this, is basically a bad person, and shouldn't we all have negative reactions to bad people? And also, in your case, it's obviously very personal. This person participated in destroying something that was very important, and so sometimes it sounds like you tell yourself like, based on these considerations, I should not have a reaction, a big reaction to him. And sometimes you say, well, it's reasonable that I have a reaction to him. Yeah, and I guess my take is the should is probably causing more discomfort than everything else. I think that you, you have the reaction you have to him, or you don't right. It's just that once you tell yourself, well, I should be reacting differently, with more, with less emotion, that's when it gets really upsetting uh-huh, yeah, that makes sense.
Mark:What do I do about that?
Eran Magen, PhD:what do you do about the should?
Eran Magen, PhD:just yeah the should doesn't align with the actual right I imagine going on a camping trip, let's say, because you're preparing for this and inevitably some mosquito bites happen and it's one thing for them to itch and be irritating. It's another for us to get upset about the fact that we got bitten by a mosquito and to be upset about the fact that it's itching, or maybe to be upset about the fact that now we're less inclined to go camping in the next two weeks while it's still itching, because we remember how much it itches. And getting upset with ourselves for the mosquito bites. You know, I shouldn't have gotten bitten, it shouldn't be itching so much. It is itching right, and if we just scratch and kind of move on with our day, there's going to be a lot less internal anguish. So we compare that guy to a mosquito and encounters with him to the bites.
Eran Magen, PhD:I think, whether or not we think we should, we're going to have some kind of reaction. We're going to either care about meeting some people or not care, and we might think that we should care more or care less or what, but we have the reactions that we have and and giving ourselves the shoulds about it is just going to make life harder, right, as opposed to saying well, this is how it is right now. This is how I feel you. If we take a really sideways move here and look at what you were saying before about dating, sometimes you feel like you don't want to date. Sometimes you feel like you do want to date. That's a place where I haven't seen you do a lot of self-judgment about it, right? Sometimes you say, well, I just don't feel like dating and I think that's okay. And sometimes you say, I don't know, now, maybe I do feel like dating and that's okay. It's a little confusing, but you don't sound upset with yourself about these things, right? Your opinion changes. Your reactions change, right.
Mark:Okay.
Eran Magen, PhD:And that seems so much easier. Yeah, say, this is just how I feel right now. Yeah, it's a bit different, though right, because there's not like there's no sort of opposing views here, because on the one hand, the avenging angel in you says it's totally fine to be really upset by and at and with this guy right, wrong behavior. Let me say say differently like this guy acted badly, he is a bad actor. I should be feeling strongly and negatively about him as a form of justice. Yes.
Eran Magen, PhD:And then there's another part of you that is not the avenging angel, but rather the call it the internal Zen master, who says it would be just nice to not feel so disrupted by somebody else's presence who I don't control. Why should I be paying for this person's existence? Yeah, I just want to be done so disrupted by somebody else's presence who I don't control. Why should I be paying for this person's existence?
Eran Magen, PhD:yeah, I just want to be done with it, you know and I think that you can work on either generating more righteous anger or on generating more doneness with it. These are things that you can work on. You can choose a path and you can change your mind on which path you want to choose at any time too. But you can choose a path and there are things you can do to progress along that path. But in the meantime, you're going to have the reactions that you have right, and being upset with yourself for having reactions that are too much or too little just makes it even less comfortable, as opposed to saying these are the reactions I have and I'd like to change them in this direction.
Mark:Yeah, okay, so I'll work on that. I mean, I very much like to become or realize the latter aspect of that. Yeah, I just want to be done with it, you know yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Well, I don't know, Well, I don't know.
Mark:And so when you say that it makes sense that it would be right to be upset with him, right Because of who and what he is and because of what he did. Do you mean that it feels right to do it, like if, by choice, you would choose to react this way, or this is a reason why it makes sense to you that you react this way, but you would prefer not to? I think the latter. I mean it makes sense that I would react this way because of the avenging angel thing, but I would prefer not to.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, this is something that you mentioned last time, when we spoke also, and so do you want to talk now about ideas for ways to either reduce reactivity or recover faster, or something like that? Yeah, yeah, definitely okay and so far have you found something that works for you, either with reference to this particular guy or just other things that are upsetting for you, like what do you do to reduce reactivity or to recover faster?
Mark:um, not really and, to be honest, that is like the only thing that's triggering that reaction in me. You know, people yell at each other at work all the time and people say mean things, you know, and we work with a partner company and there's just very two different work cultures all the time and they clash. But none of that stuff do I take personally, none of it. And so people will call, like, our integrity into question, things like that, and those are things that are very triggering to me, but I don't have a strong reaction.
Eran Magen, PhD:So the only things in the world that predictably elicit a strong negative reaction from you are your ex and her partner.
Mark:Yeah, and the whole thing with the park incident. It just felt like it was on purpose and I was just being bullied, right. So I've always there's some aspect of me that feels like, well, if she's just she's just doing this on purpose and it's best to not have a strong reaction. You know, like we talked last week Like one of the reasons we had for not sending that email was just like it's just I don't know.
Eran Magen, PhD:I'm detracting from the conversation here and so I guess your answer to my question is you don't really have approaches or techniques or habits you bring to bear, because nothing really upsets you very much so predictably, except for your ex and or partner literally, I can't think of anything that has triggered that same level of feeling or reaction within me. Yeah, okay, so in the big picture, there are three categories of things you can do. One is avoid the irritant. Another is find ways to reduce the reaction that you have to the irritant. Okay.
Eran Magen, PhD:And the third is find ways to recover faster so you're not walking around irritated for that long, and there are a few different things you can do in each of these categories. And there are a few different things you can do in each of these categories In terms of reducing the likelihood of running into the irritant. I think that's a category of things that you're well-versed in and are doing as much as you can't always control his appearance to. Yes, have more of a heads up, because it sounds like it's much worse when you're unprepared. Yes, and again, I'm kind of spitballing here, but like, if you tell your ex I never want to see him ever, just don't do this. It sounds like you may see him ever when you expect not to. There's a different version of a communication with her that goes along the lines of I want to know before I see him every time, and maybe that can happen right, so at least you're prepared internally.
Mark:I thought about that and just and this isn't a a bully formulated thought but I'm concerned that if I say that, that I'm opening up a door, for it to be that much more frequently like, oh, he's okay with me bringing him along as long as I give him a heads up. So I'm just gonna give him a heads up every time he does it, so you can just come by and for every pickup and drop off or whatever, yeah, and I don't want that to happen. In reality, I don't want to see him ever, right, or as little as possible, right. Yeah, I don't know, with the whole birthday party thing, this was like less than a week after I gave her that. Like I told her we had to set this boundary right and she totally ignored that.
Eran Magen, PhD:So like I have no reason to expect that she wouldn't abuse that open door yeah, because saying tell me before you bring him along sounds and could be interpreted by her as an open door to bring him along whenever. Is there a combined message? I want to see him zero times, but the times that he absolutely has to be there, please tell me.
Mark:Maybe I don't know.
Eran Magen, PhD:It sounds like the kind of places where you might run into him are limited, right, because pickup drop-off usually happens through school at this point, except for special occasions, right? And then there's like joint events basically.
Mark:Yeah, the joint events are like the concern. Yeah, yeah, like the birthday parties, although I have this proposal set up, so we'll see you know. Yeah, the joint events.
Eran Magen, PhD:And so for the ad hoc pickup, drop-off, in a way it sounds like it's so rare that maybe it's not even worth doing a lot of planning around. You know, in a pick-your-battle kind of of a situation, maybe it's worth focusing on the joint event. Although even for the ad hocs I wonder if you need to be present, in a sense right like, is it enough? Like how much contact do you need? And the thing that you described, the time that you described, I guess you just basically saw him right sitting in the car or something yeah, the first time yeah, like there was was no interaction per se, he just existed.
Eran Magen, PhD:The joint event is much more significant. Right, you exist in proximity, you get kind of crowded out, you end up talking with people you don't want to talk with for a long time and you lose out on all the good snacks, and so those seem important to control. So one protocol I can imagine is being very clear about which events are joint and which are not. I imagine that's already taken care of fully, basically right, like you know if you're going to do something together or separately before it happens.
Mark:Yeah, I mean, if there are any of those joint events, I may just not go to them.
Eran Magen, PhD:you know, yeah, so that's. One option is to just not go. Another option is to ask her very explicitly whether or not he's on a guest list to ask her very explicitly whether or not he's on a guest list yeah, is he coming?
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, and being very clear, saying basically, only one of us can be there and you can decide how exactly you want to portray this. You could say, look, you get to choose Either he comes or I come. Or you might say I'm going to be there and I'm asking that he not be there because that would, whatever, make the event very unpleasant for me. If you intend to bring him against my wishes, I ask that you tell me in advance so that I can not come, something like that. It may seem like it gives her an option, but really it's the same option she has right now, given that you've expressed your preferences really clearly. It just also adds a request to notify you May or may not work. So that's as far as reducing contact those. Then there's what to do in the moment. Okay, I am going to tactfully punt on this one. I'll move to the next category and then come back, okay.
Mark:I was hoping for more guidance on that part.
Eran Magen, PhD:I think it's actually really relevant because if you feel like you have good ways to recover quickly, the contact is going to be less upsetting. Okay, okay.
Mark:So let's just save it for later. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Okay. So yeah, I'm not ignoring completely, I'm just saying let's work on number three and come back to number two. So, in terms of recovering faster, what do you have right now in your toolkit for recovering after being upset?
Mark:I guess what helped was calling my sister, but that also makes her upset, yeah. So I felt really bad about calling her and like two weeks ahead of her wedding and talking to her about this, because she really actually got upset. She didn't get upset at me, she's like no, no, totally call me. You should never hold this stuff back. I would never want you to do that. But she was upset at her, understandably, yeah, um, okay, so calling your sister yeah, like we've talked about it and just have someone to listen was great yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, what else?
Mark:I don't know, maybe just distraction, I guess, yeah. Yeah, like after the birthday party, one of the dads from our old daycare friends invited me over to his place to just kind of hang out afterwards, and they had been talking with my ex's partner at the party, right, so I wasn't really able to catch up with them and so so they invited me over for some drinks and chat for a little bit, and that was nice, but we didn't really talk about that thing, right yeah we just kind of hung out like, shared each other's presence and it was good, I think.
Mark:Yeah, I know, I got home and I was so angry about the whole thing, but it was nice to be distracted for a little bit, just so I wasn't by myself, you know.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, yeah, okay, so so far we have calling your sister spending time with friends. Yeah, what else?
Mark:Well, that's just, experientially, what worked right. There's probably other things that might work, like just exercise or drag myself out to do some exercise. Yeah, it's normally pretty easy for me to just, you know, just schedule things like exercise, like pick up basketball, go to the gym, stuff like that. But to go outside and go for a run, that's something really hard to do, right, but I'm trying. But I I can try yeah, even when you're upset.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, how about going to the gym?
Mark:equally hard well, the gym I go to is like, it's not like, oh, like you just register for the class or whatever, like a circuit training or whatever okay, it's a very organized kind of thing, okay it's very organized, there's an open gym thing, but it's not really, but it's not very practical. Yeah, I think.
Eran Magen, PhD:Great, okay, so, so, yeah. So recovery I think has to do with either processing actively and getting support, or distracting, or just a different kind of distracting, doing something that actually feels really good, like just basically washing good over the bad and flushing the bad out. Yeah, really good, like just basically washing good over the bad and flushing the bad out. Yeah, I think talking to other people is extremely helpful, and having essentially a list in your head of people you could talk to and shamelessly calling one after the other to process, process, process, because it gets better after each one, and by the third, third, you're like well, this is kind of ridiculous. Like I'm done Right, sure, and so to have more people on call, basically, and and just allowing yourself to do that, just saying listen, I mean, this feels kind of ridiculous, but I'm I'm really upset. Can I tell you about what just happened? Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Right, and and letting yourself talk to multiple people about this so that each of them talks with you for however long you talk 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes but you get triple quadruple that time once you're done talking to everybody. I think the active processing and the commiserating is really helpful. I think that community is super helpful to feel like you are with people who care about you and want what's best for you and appreciate you and all of that. But, like you said, it's it's almost a pure distraction in a sense. You're still simmering under the surface and as soon as you're out of there you're back to being upset like it doesn't really contain a lot of processing in it yeah, that's true just kind of covers it over.
Eran Magen, PhD:In a way that's different from, I would say, intense physical exercise, where it really lets something out right. And it seems like I mean I know for myself and it seems like for other people that I'm talking with as well we're less upset by the end of it. Something was processed. And I will say that for me personally, a combination of community with intense physical exercise is like magic when I'm upset. So in my case, when I go to jujitsu and I'm careful I was for a while Now I'm less because I'm less upset by everything going on. But I've kind of gone through most of it. But at the beginning, the first couple of years for me, I was very consistent about jiu-jitsu. Every day, where it's community, people are happy to see me, I'm happy to see them.
Eran Magen, PhD:We're smiling, we're shaking hands, we're making a little bit of small talk and then we're trying to choke each other out and it's very tiring physically yeah, and I just felt really good by the time I was done and then again chatting with people more at the end, but it's this combination of community and very intense physicality um worked very, very well, uh, in that situation and I had it scheduled, like I said, like every day, more or less right. So that kind of whatever happens, I know that I'm going to end up there, whatever happens on any given day. Okay, another category of things that you you didn't really mention, but maybe, if I tend to, of what you talked about, is figuring out just what makes you feel really good and doing that so intentionally feeling good. So the simplest example of this is like watching a standup routine. That is good.
Eran Magen, PhD:Okay, I get that, just saying, yes, I'm upset and I'm just going to go look at something that's going to make my mood better. Problem with being upset? I don't know if it's a problem, but one of the features of being upset, and especially angry, is that when we're angry, our mind kind of turns over and we're in this place where we know that we're right, we know that we're justified and we keep finding more and more reasons for why we're right to be angry. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:And it's a big deep hole that we dig very quickly because we're very energized by being angry yeah, that's right. So we get angrier and angrier for a while, whereas if we are able to switch our mind out of that stance, we can start finding gaps. Not all the world looks bad. We can start finding the absurd in the situation, or just not think about it, like we're just in a better mood, and suddenly we remember that, oh, tomorrow there's this thing that I want to like. Our mind naturally starts going elsewhere because we're not so stuck in the upsetting thing anymore, and so I wonder what, for you, could be things that know pretty reliably, just put you in a good mood, even if you're in kind of a bad mood.
Mark:Yeah, I need to figure out what that is. I mean, like, with a stand-up thing, for instance. That's kind of the same effect as the friends thing. It's just a distraction, right, and then I'll go right back to being upset after that. Yeah, right, and then I'll go right back to being upset after that. Yeah, I feel like I want to do something. It would really occupy my mind in such a way that that would reset something in me, you know yeah like this past week and getting out of town was really helpful.
Mark:you know, like traveling to my sister's wedding. I can't do this every time, I get upset right, but like that was really helpful. You know, like traveling to my sister's wedding. I can't do this every time, I get upset Right, but like that was really what I needed, you know, just to change the context of where I am and not be the divorced person, right.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, sounds a lot like your trip that you took, right when you said that was one of the main benefits.
Mark:Yeah, yeah, that was exactly the same thing Like going away. The same thing like going away, you know, like going away to denmark was great. That's exactly because it just felt like I had my, my own identity. I can't keep doing that, obviously, but but that was like a mindset shift which was really freeing.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah so that sounds like a very worthwhile exercise to figure out what's another way.
Mark:Oh, to do this yeah, you know, what it could be is just like making more friends. So like, a lot of the confidence that I currently have are people who knew her, and that's what like where a lot of the commiseration comes in, because they're all so upset and they share in the knowledge of why I'm angry. But yeah, it's also been really good to make friends who don't know my ex, and maybe there's something there where I feel like when I'm that's really interesting, yeah, yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:So the same thought of having a context in which being a divorced dad is not, like, a primary aspect of your identity with this person. Yeah. Where they just know you as you and the fact of your divorce is kind of in the background as opposed to it being a dominating factor.
Mark:Yeah, yeah, I think they could have a similar effect, you know, yeah, but more economical yeah, until we get really good vr travel.
Eran Magen, PhD:Maybe there is already really good vr travel I don't know. That's such an interesting point that you brought up and, I think, such a wonderful point that you can change your context not just by travel, but by changing your social context in a way. That's great yeah okay, I would still encourage you to think about what are things that you can do in the moment that improve your mood oh, yeah, okay, yeah like you're saying.
Eran Magen, PhD:You know, stand-up is like a distraction and then you're upset again. Well then, what are other things? Are there things that just really put you in a different state of mind? Would you know seeing somebody play amazing music? Do it. Would you know watching people demonstrate really impossible skills? Do it? Would you know watching baby animals be nice to other baby animals? Do it? My mind is gravitating to youtube type stuff because just so accessible and if you find the right thing, it can be so powerful yeah, I'll need to explore that, I think okay maybe cooking.
Mark:I watch a lot of cooking videos on youtube just because it makes everything seem feasible, like I'll actually cook some of those things. I could try that.
Eran Magen, PhD:I always do that anyway, since I cook a lot for the kids yeah, does it put you in a good mood to watch a cooking video?
Mark:yeah, not in like the whole like stand-up comedian kind of way, yeah, but yeah, yeah, I think. So just doing something with my hands, I think it feels great okay, so two more categories remain.
Eran Magen, PhD:originally I said three categories, but I realized it was one more. So category one is avoid. Category two is reduce reactivity in real time. Category three is recover. There's also kind of category zero, which is reduce reactivity overall, not just in the encounter in real time, but we'll get to that one last. So let's go back to category two, which is how to reduce reactivity in real time.
Mark:so let's go back to category two, which is how to reduce reactivity in real time.
Eran Magen, PhD:So one option, and probably the most obvious, is to reduce the amount of exposure in real time in a very deliberate, shameless way. You open the door, you see the guy in the car, you shut the door, right, you just give yourself a second, instead of 15 seconds, of looking right, because, yeah, that's an irritant and it seems silly and it is, in a way, right, but the more we're exposed, the more upsetting it is, and the less we're exposed, the less upsetting it is. And so just giving yourself permission to do this, to to acknowledge yourself this is really. Contact like this is really upsetting. If I see this, I'm going to turn my head, I'm going to close my eyes, I'm going to turn up the volume of the music, whatever it is. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:It's not the be all, end all. It's not like the ideal or optimal way to deal with things that irritate us, but if that's what we need in the moment, that's okay, right. So that's one thing to do in the moment. Another thing and this takes preparation, like training is to have a mental procedure that you can call on that will make it better right then and there, a form of internal distraction that you can call on that you're very well versed in. For example, maybe you practice thinking of a super fun time that you had with your kids that you can really get absorbed in right Sort of training yourself to daydream for a minute so that you can take your mind elsewhere if you need to.
Eran Magen, PhD:Maybe it's not something with your kids, maybe it's something totally different.
Eran Magen, PhD:Maybe it's a Bible verse that you've been studying and you want to look.
Eran Magen, PhD:I don't know whatever it is right, but the thing that you've been studying and you want to look, I don't know whatever it is right, but the thing that you can get sucked into when I needed to, I used I used my son for this and I had like an image in my head and I could go to it and think of a thing that we did, but to take your mind away quickly, and this is similar to this idea of you open the door, you see him, you shut the door right.
Eran Magen, PhD:It's like you open door, you see him, you shut your mind to him and you don't allow more and more exposure to happen. The challenge is that when, when we see somebody who we are angry with, the natural impulse is to move toward right. Anger is about attacking, and so we kind of continue filling our mind with this person, because our mind is trying to move toward a person and being able to shut that down quick helps us less get upset, and so I did feel like at the party I was like actively trying to suppress this fight or flight response or whatever yeah, yeah, and it's hard.
Eran Magen, PhD:It's hard work, right. Whereas if you're able to internally distract yourself towards something else, that is very pleasant to think about or at least very engaging. So ideally you find something very pleasant, like a great time you had with a person you love or a great time you're planning to have with a person you love and planning for it, and like making the plan, thinking what will it be like, like really engrossing yourself in it, at a minimum, something that is very engaging, like maybe there's some work problem that's on your mind that you're trying to solve, right, and just going there in your mind. Another thing to do, potentially sillier, is to do the equivalent of drawing a mustache on a picture of a person you don't like, right, and you can do this mentally. You can just make them ridiculous immediately.
Eran Magen, PhD:Extend the features. Imagine them having weird embarrassing stains someplace on their clothes. Imagine them making a strange voice, whatever it is, just make them ridiculous in your mind. It's a basic kind of defense mechanism, but it works when you need to Like, just make something ridiculous about it, with the understanding that the goal is to keep yourself from getting very angry. So it's also a way of letting out kind of low-level aggression Again, like drawing a mustache on somebody's picture right or drawing a black tooth on their smile, whatever it is. Sure, sure Makes sense and they're silly little things, but the goal is just to kind of keep it under some kind of lid while you're shutting the door.
Mark:Right. Yeah, I think that kind of echoes to the whole my inclination to not acknowledge this person because it's just not worth it.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, okay, yeah. The last thing I wanted to suggest, or maybe explore with you a little bit, is the difference between how upsetting your ex's partner is to you and how upsetting your ex is to you. Or put differently, what makes it so that your ex is tolerable to an extent, but your ex's partner is not? And in the past you said well, part of it is just necessity and I have to interact with her, and part of it is that you also want to reserve a place for her among the humans of the world, because she's your kid's mother and it's important you don't develop such negativity toward her that it somehow affects them. Is that right? Yeah, yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Are there any other reasons that make her more tolerable to you than him?
Mark:that really, actually, I would say that my level of disgust yeah, I guess I'm not sure that's the right word, but for her is has become more equal, but more equalized. It's not actually equalized, but it's more equalized. Like I don't find it pleasant at all to be in her company and I feel that she wronged me just as much as he did. You know, yeah, the only grace that I would give her, just because she's my kid's mom and that's it, and they need her to an extent, right, but yeah, that's it it feels like there's some difference still qualitatively between the two of them.
Eran Magen, PhD:Right like when you see her now, you're not upset for days after yes, that's true.
Mark:I guess I should explore why that is.
Mark:In early days I think it was upsetting to see her right, like there was, like there was that time she came to the house and that was really upsetting the garage yeah, I think it was the same feeling, actually like this, the same thing when, when she brought him to the park for the birthday party thing, right, yeah, I think it was the same feeling, right, like this whole trying to suppress this fight or flight feeling and this anger and that injustice and things like that. Yeah, anyway, I think over time maybe maybe over time it got better or more tolerable to see her again.
Eran Magen, PhD:Well, you had to interact with her and communicate with her a lot right away, like throughout and after the separation and the divorce. Right, there was a lot of communication happening, like you had no choice but to habituate.
Mark:Yeah, please do not suggest that I start talking to this guy, okay.
Eran Magen, PhD:If I do that you won't talk to me, and then where will I go? But that that explains the difference, maybe, or part of the difference. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:But from our conversations I don't remember a time when, even like in the thick of it, even in the middle of it, it just didn't seem like you had the same intensity of reaction to her as you have to him yeah sure like when she came in, she came into your home, opening the door to your home and walking in at night. Yeah right, this is different than seeing her parked in a car outside the house, right, right.
Mark:And then you were almost as upset as you were seeing him in the car outside your house okay, so you're saying the proximity and the severity of it was high, which triggered a reaction that was high and that was as high as a situation where he wasn't anywhere close to that yeah, and I'm.
Eran Magen, PhD:I'm not saying your reaction was too much or too little in either case, I'm just pointing out what I'm seeing like a difference in the kind of intensity of the stimulus, let's say right, but very similar reaction on your end, or maybe even a bigger reaction, for what? What looks from the outside like a lower intensity stimulus, right Him across the street in a car, and so I wonder, I keep wondering, what makes it so that your reaction to him is that much more intense and consistently intense than your reaction to your ex.
Mark:Maybe it's just the newness of it all. I don't know. I don't really know the newness it all.
Eran Magen, PhD:I don't know. I don't really know the newness, in what sense.
Mark:Well, when they rolled up to my home on Mother's Day, that was like the first time that I had been that close physically to him. You know I'd seen him, but like his eyes, you know I could see his eyes.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, whereas, of course, you've seen her eyes many times and, like we were saying, throughout the whole process and after, like you, were constantly in contact with her.
Mark:Yeah and yeah I don't know. And on the other hand, you know she's done a lot more wrong to me than he has in some senses right, Like when we were in the same home. She was emotionally abusive, I would say, and she was cold and mean to me and things like that yeah maybe it's not that I'm so upset at him. I'm probably more upset at what my ex is doing.
Eran Magen, PhD:And what is it that she's doing?
Mark:It's not so much that he as a person is morally bankrupt, like who's with my kids half the time, it's that she's allowing someone who is morally bankrupt to be with my kids half the time. It's not that he was there for my kid's birthday party uninvited or unexpectedly. It's that she brought him to the birthday party and purposely left his name off the guest list. Basically, you know, ran us into each other, right? Yeah, that is more upsetting. Like I'm not writing these emails to him, I'm writing these emails to her. You know about what she's doing, you know.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, and so what she is doing, you said, is she's allowing him contact with your kids and she is ignoring your clearly stated preference not to have contact with him. Right. And those two are the things that are really upsetting for you about his existence or appearances in your life.
Mark:Yeah, I guess. So it's not that I am. I need to think about that a little bit more. Is that really true? Am I not as upset about or at him as I am, just about her actions?
Eran Magen, PhD:Well, she came to pick up the kids. You opened the door. You saw him in the car. Did you immediately think, oh, that's totally not okay, that my ex would bring him here. Or did you think, oh, this person.
Mark:Probably the former.
Eran Magen, PhD:Is a bad, irritating person. Yeah, you were upset with her for bringing him Right.
Mark:I'm just trying upset with her for bringing him Right. I'm just trying to think what's the difference?
Eran Magen, PhD:Between what and what.
Mark:Between me being upset with her for bringing him and me being upset with her that there's this person that I dislike being brought to my home, or that he's a disgusting person. Right, yeah, I need to think about that.
Eran Magen, PhD:Well, here's some thought experiments.
Mark:You go to the supermarket and you accidentally run into him I guess that wouldn't be that upsetting because I could just leave, right. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't feel such a strong desire to punch him in the face. I think I felt a stronger desire to punch him in the face or push him to like something at the birthday party. I think it was a combination of me running into him, kind of thing, you know, in the presence of my ex, and then I couldn't really leave. Yes, sens.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, that's very well put. So it's the combination of the things. One is that she's, it seems like, willfully disregarding your clearly stated boundary, and that you're sort of trapped with him. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Okay, new thought experiment Ready. Okay, you are going to where do people go? Some important office thing, not at work. You're going to some local government office thing. You enter the elevator. There are six people there. Somebody presses a button Somewhere between floor two and three. You discover, to your whore, that one of the six people standing there is him, and then the elevator goes boom and you're stuck between floors three and four. Three and four.
Mark:You can't leave for a little bit there's six people, so there's like other people there. Right, there's four other people. I don't know, realistically I probably just keep to myself in that situation, but are you? Super angry it's like a government building too. Yes, I guess I would be. I guess I'd be super angry after the fact of when it was all over, yeah. And then I'd say after that experiment, if he tried to talk to me, sure, that would clearly be a foolish move. If he tried to talk to me, yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:The other four people would feel very awkward. That's what I have to say to that. But you would be angry with him, even though, uh, this was not about a boundary violation by your ex yeah, that's true yeah, this was an accident.
Mark:He was there, but you were stuck with him right that would make you angry yeah, so I guess that means that this is not exclusively related to what my ex did, but there are elements of just what he did too.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, you're giving him agency which you were clear about before. Right, You're saying he's morally bankrupt. Yeah, Part of what's driving up your reaction to him is feeling trapped, stuck somehow with his presence, which happens if he's near your home, which happens if he's in a birthday party that you need to be attending. What were you?
Mark:saying sorry. The morally bankrupt thing is like I always tell myself like hey, we had just gotten divorced and she had met this person. Afterwards I would be totally fine with it, or I'm pretty sure I'd be totally fine and you'd be fine with the person, I'd be fine with the person and we could be stuck in that elevator and I'd be fine you could be at least civil, but maybe you would not even have a big emotional reaction at all yeah, right, like that would be more.
Mark:We went our separate ways and we are now discovering who we are after our marriage has expired. But in this case, no.
Eran Magen, PhD:Both of them broke a very sacred promise yeah, let's, let's keep playing the thought experiments because they're so much fun. Let's say that, yeah sure, after the divorce she got together with a totally different, different person and you somehow learned that that separate person had had an affair and left his wife prior, but not with your ex, somebody else yeah.
Mark:no, I wouldn't be okay with that either. That would make me upset too, because again, this would be. This would be a person who is in my children's life half the time, and I think that holds true. It would be like I mean, maybe it's not the same thing, but like if this person was like a drug dealer or something like I wouldn't want them there either. That's an issue, right? Yeah?
Eran Magen, PhD:that's an issue, right? Yeah, so part of your action here is or a big part of your action here is driven by, essentially, protectiveness about your kids wanting to feeling, feeling upset about knowing that they're exposed to this negative influence, right, whether that person is dealing drugs or dealing with immorality right, there is like an element of like hey, the kids don't need to know you did that anyway.
Mark:Yeah, it's not experiment. I, I don't. I don't know that we should keep going down this road okay.
Eran Magen, PhD:So your reaction to him, your reactivity to him, comes both from feeling like your ex is disregarding the boundary that you clearly set and from feeling like you're trapped with his presence, combined with the fact that you feel like his presence is negatively impacting your kids somehow yeah yeah, like, where do you draw the line right?
Mark:okay, you had an affair with a drug dealer, okay, those are very severe things, right. But I don't know, like he plays violent video games or something, yeah. Or I don't know like he listens to crappy music, right. I don't want it to be like, oh, I have to approve of everything that my ex is with or everybody my ex is with. That's not what I'm trying to say, that's not what I'm trying to be into, right, and I think we had the conversation before where, like, this person's not going to be another father figure in our son's lives, you know, they're not going to get their values from him, right? So maybe I'll just revise the thought experiment. Like we found out later that they had an affair, would you? Yeah, I would still be uncomfortable. I just don't think I'd be nearly as angry. I think there is the element that my ex cheated on me with another person and that does factor into it.
Mark:Yeah another person and that does factor into it. Yeah, I don't want my kids growing up thinking that with that model of relationships and narratives they're in their mind like there's those statistics, right, like kids who come from divorced family get divorced themselves. And I don't want that because I don't want them to think that these things are meaningless.
Eran Magen, PhD:There's something.
Mark:It's such a rabbit hole.
Eran Magen, PhD:Well, yeah, but it's an important rabbit hole, right, because this is understanding the source of your reactivity and potentially being able to either change it or accept it Right. Accept it, right, and there's I don't know if it's an elephant in the room exactly, but but there is something that we didn't exactly touch on you you kind of mentioned it, but not exactly which is the fact that, in a sense, this is the man who took your wife, sure, right, this is the man who destroyed your marriage, you said, and then you amend it. You said, well, she destroyed the marriage, yeah, and he was part of it, right, and I think that there's it's very easy to toggle between these two viewpoints, kind of like when you're looking at one of these ambiguous images. You know, is it two people or a cup, or whatever? Is that?
Eran Magen, PhD:yeah, yeah sure it's very easy to toggle between those and basically assign responsibility, sometimes to him, sometimes to her, sometimes to both of them that's not wrong, right, that's just like. That's just how messy it is yeah, it is messy, and I'm trying to understand from my side how much of your reaction to him comes from what I would consider a very basic primitive. You took my mate, I want to eat your face off, kind of a reaction because our marriage was over, like that's.
Mark:I think the reason I amended it is like our marriage was over like two years before the divorce was over. I'd kind of suspect that she had already been unfaithful at certain points in there, and even if she hadn't been, she was checked out. The whole thing with the pool incident in Hawaii, you know I still keep going back to that now. Yeah.
Mark:So I feel like there was such a long period when I just had to rely on you know or like hold feelings with anymore. So it's not like I say that to mean like it's not like this person I don't feel very strongly about. Hey, this person took my mate because I feel like she was gone already.
Eran Magen, PhD:I'm okay with it because she's just like a different person in my mind yeah so I wonder to what extent different parts of you are telling different stories or if you're actually quite aligned internally. I can imagine the lizard brain being like this is the destroyer, kill him, yeah. And the neocortex on top saying she did it. I mean, he was just kind of an extra in this movie, right? Could have been anyone, but does that sound right? Is that your experience of it or are you pretty unified internally in kind of one direction or another?
Mark:I want to say it's the latter, like, come on, are the feelings that came up in the recent past? Yeah, sure, there's some lizard brain stuff there.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, sure, I had that whole fight or flight response, right, yeah, and that is very complicated yeah, and at the risk of sounding like a psychologist, I would also say that, especially given that you're very clear about wanting to hold some kind of a protected spot for her as the mother of your children, it may be simpler for you to shift some of your anger to him.
Mark:Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, you also seem kind of like dubious about the whole. The holding the spot for her as a mother of my children, Does that? Do you feel that doesn't really make sense or is unnecessary?
Eran Magen, PhD:I think if you're able to do that, that's amazing, because I do think that priority one is preventing conflict and inner conflict for the kids and, given that kids are telepathic, whatever you feel towards their mom is gonna at some point, in some way rub off.
Eran Magen, PhD:And so or osmosis its way into their brains, and so I think whatever you can do to keep any kind of harmony, or at least minimize disharmony, even internally, will be of benefit to the kids. And so I am totally with you actually on wanting to protect their mom's position internally for yourself in order to not generate more tension for them. Otherwise, I think it would be a different story, right? If there were no kids, you'd be kind of free to be super upset with her for as long as you needed, until you were done processing it. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:So I think that's very important. I'm kind of amazed, honestly, at how well you seem to be able to do that.
Eran Magen, PhD:I think that the price you're paying may be this shifting of emotions to the nearest obvious target, which would be her partner yeah which, if that's what's happening, could also make total sense, and really it's not like he did nothing wrong, like I have no problem with you being upset with him. I only wish for you to not experience the negative results of that, right? So I'm just. I'm just trying to ask questions to help you shine some light on it, because sometimes light helps make things clearer and lighter.
Mark:Yep, okay, yeah, I mean I kind of touched about upon another thing. Well, like I own it and several times in the past you know three or four weeks or the past three weeks where I've contemplated like I would never do this, but I've contemplated, like just doing the nuclear option, like just saying, hey, tell them the kids, like, hey, your mom destroyed our marriage, she, she, you know, she cheated on me and I was very upset. But I'm not going to do that. It's just I feel like a lot of the injustice sometimes, like she gets to enjoy this, the fact that I won't do that, this benefit.
Eran Magen, PhD:She murders and inherits, right? Yeah, and I think many of us consider our kids in a way like little judges, way like little judges, like we want them to know the truth so that they can render correct sentences and say oh, you're right, you're the good person in this story. You've been wronged, you did absolutely everything you could right toward us, toward mom, and you've been wronged horribly, because we want somebody to say this to us and we want somebody that matters to say this to us, and the person that matters the most is our kids and, as you know, right, that's absolutely the last thing we should be doing to our kids, because that'll totally screw them up.
Mark:Yeah, but the impulse is so natural it's also like if I have to keep this secret, you should have to keep the secret too, or you should also take care to to not parade him around in front of me so I don't have to deal with these things and don't feel these things and don't feel tempted to want to do that.
Eran Magen, PhD:I think that's wishful thinking, but you know well it's, it's fantasy and there's some release in the fantasy. Yeah, right, especially when you know that you don't intend to actually pursue it. Yeah, it's okay to have some fantasy right I guess.
Eran Magen, PhD:Regarding the part about holding a spot for their mom, a protected spot for their mom because she's their mom, I also want to add something to what I said before about how amazing it is you can do it and how it reduces tension for them and all of that.
Eran Magen, PhD:I stand by all of that and it is important that you have an opportunity to feel your feelings, and it may be a complicated tap dance to figure out a way to, yes, be as upset with her as you need to be and shield them from that and process it so that you can move on from that. And so maybe they get exposed to a little bit of that, telepathically, I mean not because of anything you say explicitly or do explicitly in front of them, right. Telepathically, I mean not because of anything you say explicitly or do explicitly in front of them, right, but you're still left with the opportunity to process it. Because if anything concerns me here is that sometimes it sounds like you're not quite letting yourself place the full weight of responsibility on her, although I hear you occasionally being quite upset with her, which, honestly, is a relief to me, right? Yeah?
Mark:I don't know. It's somehow related to the whole. I feel like I have to hold this burden of keeping that secret from my kids. You know, and therefore you know, there are certain feelings that I also have to not feel.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, given your buy-in to this idea of child telepathy, right, which I share, right right. Yeah, so I'm sure we'll talk about this in the future again, but I guess I want to push against that gently and say it's still important for you to be able to feel your feelings, because everything you're doing you're teaching them right, and right now, part of what you're teaching them is to not feel your feelings.
Mark:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true, like when I expressed a lot of my anger. I think I told you this. Like when I expressed a lot of my anger to one of my friends at church, they were like, oh yeah, we felt like this for a long time. Yeah, you're just catching up? Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, and so I think I have lots of thoughts about this. But part of the benefit of having many days go without you seeing them is that you have time to do your thing and think your thoughts and have your feelings right, and it's not that you need to portray their mom as a positive person to them constantly and defend her spot and whatnot right Like she doesn't need to be in a presence in your relationship with your kids, which means that you can have a relationship with her representation in your mind.
Eran Magen, PhD:That does not that your kids don't need to have contact with.
Eran Magen, PhD:This is the same as you, you know, being upset at somebody at work that your kids don't know and that probably doesn't come into conversation too often right right okay, right, but to yes, allow yourself to to feel the things and to process the things, rather than feel like you need to protect her, to carry that burden, to require of yourself to somehow stay positive and keep her in the light as much as you can for their sake no, I don't think it's that extreme, yeah, yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, yeah, but to allow a little more. Right Again, I think it's a worthwhile, at the very least, thought experiment. Yeah, yeah, because I think the cost of suppressing emotions or emotional processes on one side is that the energy is going to pop out elsewhere. Yeah.
Mark:I think about the early days when she was running them into him, you know, to try to get them kind of used to me being gone and used to his presence, and how frustrated my kids felt at that point and it still sticks with me to this day. And you know like it was to the point where he moved in and I asked my kids how they felt about that and they were like it's not like we can do anything about it and that was kind of heartbreaking yeah, I agree.
Eran Magen, PhD:The I mean the helplessness of children is heartbreaking and especially in a case like this, when they they're just so like painfully pragmatic about it.
Mark:Like Asher, the older one still talks about like I mean, he doesn't talk about how he's frustrated, but he's like I'm okay, but he still kind of alludes to like sometimes he has to put up with certain things and you know, whereas the younger one, not blissfully unaware but like he's just very much still, you know, trust his mom yeah, and we'll see what happens right over over the months and years.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, in terms of how this plays out in their life, in terms of how much time they want to spend there versus with you yeah, we'll see and I think it's important to also just make sure that we put this into good perspective like how are they doing in general? What's their life experience in general? Everybody has some frustration, some upset, like is this a big thing that's preventing them from enjoying their lives? Is it a constant, serious irritant? Is it like an occasional small one?
Mark:I think in general, things are pretty good, even these things that we're talking about. It's just minor annoyances that occur Like once a fortnight or something right, yeah, you know where we come from, and stuff like that. All these things, I think, are for the better. I actually had a conversation with the boys last night as they were going to bed and it was like you know, after traditions, brushing the teeth and stuff, it's a little sad, but you know, it's like I still miss mommy. You know I'm sad about the divorce, and then we kind of talked about a little more. Have you noticed that we're doing new things, different things than we used to, things that we probably wouldn't have done when we were together? He's like oh yeah, that's true. And then I don't know if I should ask this, but I was like do you see anything different in me? Cause I feel like I'm much better off than before. Yeah.
Mark:And Asher, the older one, was like yeah, yeah, I can tell that you're happier too. So overall, I think there's some sense of like this was the better thing to do. Yeah.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, which doesn't change the fact that there's very unpleasant things to deal with in the meantime. Yeah, yeah, which doesn't change the fact that there's very unpleasant things to deal with in the meantime. Yeah, but yeah, this is in a way the lesser bad.
Mark:You were talking, I think all this stuff came up because he's also sad because, you know, it's the last day of school and he's going to miss all of his friends, and so my kid loves school, so they're going to miss all their friends. And I was like well, because last year he ended on the last day of school. He just cried the whole time. And I was like well, do you want to end the school year on a happy note or in treasure the fun you had, or just be sad? And he's like no, I want to end it with a happy note. Then you have to maybe try to think about all the happier things, like all the happy moments you share with your friends, rather than just being sad. He's like okay, I'll try, we'll see how it goes. And then, like you know, in a half an hour, a lot of big feelings.
Eran Magen, PhD:Last night I bet possibly today too.
Mark:Yeah, honestly today too. Yeah, it'll be my last night before they go off for two weeks. We'll go to the beach tomorrow. Um, all right, hey appreciate it.
Eran Magen, PhD:Yeah, my pleasure, good to see you. Bye, bye.
