A Note to Recently Separated Fathers

January 17th, 2009 by Mark Arram (MBACP)

The pain you feel is real and is hard to incorporate into your life, now you live
away from your children and ex wife. Counselling offers a real way of integrating the feelings of anger and resentment from the family break up that may get in the way of enjoying time with your children. By starting a working relationship with a counsellor, a first good step has been taken in making things better. The brave man who wants to go it alone, simmers in resentment. The independent man who thinks they can work it all out for themselves really needs to connect with the loneliness that comes when the children have been dropped off at their home that is no longer available to them.

A recent separation can have devastating consequences. The newspapers regularly carry stories of screwed up men who injure and murder their ex wives and children, acting out feelings that are real in all men. Yet a man, who shouts at his ex wife in a cafe, upsetting a few tables in the process, may not be wrong, in displaying his hurt to the world. After all, women are to be admired for the profound ability of expressing their emotions non violently. Us men, tested to the limit by the ups and downs of our relationships, need to learn how to talk passionately without recourse to violence.