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Episode Fifteen (Season Finale): Parenting Though Love's Ups and Downs
3.7k Plays5 months ago
As if parenting alone wasn't challenging enough, intimate relationships are another complexity for parents.
Whether you're married, cohabiting, or dating as a single parent, uncertainty is bound to arise. Dr. Caroline Madden, a Los Angeles-based pro-marriage therapist and author, shares her expertise on infidelity, trust-building, and maintaining healthy relationships.
Join us as we explore:
- The impact of parental relationships on children's well-being
- Strategies for mothers coping with betrayal and its effects on family dynamics
- Steps to recover and rebuild trust after infidelity
- Advice for divorced parents re-entering the dating scene
Whether you're working through marital issues or starting anew, this episode guides fostering healthy relationships that set positive examples for your children.
Tune in for an honest, compassionate discussion on relationships, parenting, and personal growth.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Guardians of Hope Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome everyone to the Guardians of Hope podcast, where we bring together parents, nonprofits, legal, and medical experts dedicated to positively impacting children's lives. I'm your host, Cynthia Ramserine. Before we begin, this content should not be used as legal or medical advice. The purpose of this podcast is to inform and unite. So please seek advice from your attorney or doctor to address your specific needs. The thoughts and opinions of my guests are not necessarily my own. This is a platform for sharing.
Key Topics: Parenting and Relationships
00:00:45
Speaker
Now, we cover a variety of topics on this podcast, including parenting, childhood medical issues, and mental health. But one topic I've been wanting to discuss is navigating intimate relationships as a parent. so
00:00:59
Speaker
Whether you're married, living together, or dating as a single parent, there are bound to be times of uncertainty. And through some of it, many of us are you know reliving past childhood wounds. So regardless of the situation, our happiness affects our kids. So healthy relationships equate to healthy examples for them.
Guest Introduction: Dr. Caroline Madden
00:01:21
Speaker
Joining me to discuss this is Dr. Caroline Madden. Dr. Caroline is a Los Angeles-based pro-marriage therapist and internationally known author and lecturer on infidelity in marriage. She's the author of four relationship books, including Blindsided by His Betrayal,
00:01:40
Speaker
Fool me once, should I take back my cheating husband? And after a good man cheats, how to rebuild trust and intimacy with your wife? Dr. Caroline, thank you so much for joining me. Oh, thank you for having me. Why don't you start off by telling me about your work with couples?
Navigating Marriage and Parenting Challenges
00:01:59
Speaker
Okay, so I have been a licensed marriage and family therapist in California and now I'm licensed in additional states but for over 20 years. And so my work is primarily with married couples who are going through some stuff and are trying to turn towards each other to ah stay in the marriage and thrive in the marriage. um And usually they have at least one, if not four,
00:02:26
Speaker
Kids and so, you know balancing that to how to be good parents, but also good spouses and ah Complete human beings. So that's that's what I focus on Great. So ah can you give me some examples of what types of you know problems or issues you see with couples so that we can kind of set the stage here and
Improving Communication and Intimacy
00:02:51
Speaker
Right. Well, all couples come in and say that they want to work on communication and improve intimacy every single one. And a lot of my job is is trying to figure out, well, is it that they're not hearing each other or they're hearing each other and they're not liking what they hear and they actually want their partner to think or be different. So that's kind of all couples. But
00:03:14
Speaker
I do specialize in helping heterosexual couples recover after infidelity. It's usually, not always, but it is usually the man who's gone outside the marriage and then the marriage has been revealed or discovered or whatnot. and ah Then he turns towards the marriage and says, wow, I i you know i i want to keep my wife and my family and and how do I do it? And the wife, who usually again has children, is putting them first and saying,
00:03:46
Speaker
if it can be worked on. um And so that's primarily my main focus and my specialty is couples who are wanting to really work on it to see if they can stay together after the tremendous portrayal of infidelity.
Impact of Infidelity on Families
00:04:03
Speaker
That can be devastating for anyone to go through, but let's talk about, you know, since you mentioned that it's mostly, or you've seen mostly men, or the cheating spouse, I should say delicately, what are the moms going through and how does this affect their kids and what strategies do you provide during this time?
00:04:25
Speaker
Okay, and and one, I just want to say my sample size because my books, my three books are heterosexual marriages where the man has gone outside. I want to again stress that when I do cheat, and yeah especially now that women are 50% of the workforce, um and that's where the majority of affairs happen. However, women are more likely to stay in a relationship when their spouse is cheated than a man is. A man is less likely to stay in the marriage when he's found out that the mother of his child or children has gone outside the marriage. So I just want to say that, that there's a sample size skewing here.
00:05:05
Speaker
um Well, let's talk about just the initial discovery of the infidelity, which usually happens. The affair partner calls the wife. She finds an email. Something's just shady going on and her spidey sense is going on. So even though she never has checked her husband's Phone ever in her entire life and has made fun of women who have done that She's finding the Spidey sense is having her go through his phone while he's in the shower or asleep or something like that a
00:05:40
Speaker
Another top, top, top way Infidelity has discovered is that there is a new iPad that the kid gets for his birthday or Christmas or whatever, and it is hooked into Daddy's iTunes account. And so it goes alive and then poppity pop pop comes all of the text messages, some of them way inappropriate on the child's iPad to which she goes to mommy and says, what is this going on? Or she's setting it up and pop, pop, pop. So at least the kid didn't see it. But so that's the number one way it affects children. Sometimes they're seeing the message or pictures from the affair partner.
00:06:23
Speaker
So that's why. But as far as moms, what are they going through?
Emotional Distress in Wives
00:06:27
Speaker
They are going through literal health. They're waking up and this nightmare of never believing this was even possible to happen to them. but They did not marry a man and choose this man to be the father of their children, thinking he was a shady McShader and even capable of this. So she's blown out of the water. Her degree of trust in herself is blown out of the water. Waking up, wanting to believe it's it's a bad dream.
00:06:58
Speaker
Remembering it isn't trying to catch your breath, trying to just even rally, wanting to cry all the time or just wanting to rage or wanting to leave, pack up the stuff and leave, except she has these kids. And but she doesn't want to damage them. She doesn't want to mess them up. And even though obviously her husband should have thought of all these things before cheating on his wife, because this is a natural consequence of cheating, is that your wife might find out and you might lose custody of your children. They don't. They never, they just don't think it through. So she's like an Academy Award winning actress getting out of bed, even though she doesn't want to.
00:07:41
Speaker
doing everything she does for the kids, trying to maintain their relationship with their father, trying not to rage at him, cry at him, have a panic attack. Often women have panic attacks. um And they're scared because how am I going to take care of my kids if I have a panic attack? And then they do it all at the end of the night. They're just trying to be a human being again and having feelings again. So this is one of the strategies I have for husbands is
00:08:12
Speaker
just get the kids out of the house, just so she can feel, just so she could stare at a wall and just not have to do anything. The amount of, viewed as like on a computer, how there's an open tab but that's drawing resources, drawing resources. And in the beginning, it's just stunning. I equate it to ah if someone's gone through a death, It's just this surreal experience. So meanwhile, she's trying to keep it together as a mama bear, trying not to say things to the kids, which I highly, highly recommend not telling the kids.
00:08:56
Speaker
um which is hard because daddy did something bad and mommy's crying all the time and you you want the kids to be on your side and you want everyone to be on your side and some women don't want to tell anyone and other women want to tell everyone and it's like the more people you tell the more it's going to get back to your kids and statistics bear out you're going to stay married And now everyone knows. So it's just hard. It's hard to find support. It's hard to know who to trust. I mean, sometimes the man has slept with one of your friend group. Right. that would really do Exactly. and I was going to say, I really believe in having a network of support, but in a delicate issue or you know situation like this,
00:09:45
Speaker
how How does the mom get through it? I mean, what strategies, how do you help?
Judgment and Seeking Support
00:09:52
Speaker
Well, one, I'm independent from the rest of it, right? So that's just helpful. Some women just instantly tell friends and they can be surprised at people's reactions. One reaction is, well, what were you doing wrong that he felt the need to cheat? and Another one is, well, you have to stay together for the kids. Another one is, well,
00:10:20
Speaker
weak women stay, strong women leave. So even though you have these three kids, you just need to what, like leave in the middle of the night, kick him out. You know, so people will project either what they think they would do, which they don't know what they would do because no one knows what they're going to do until they're faced with the situation or they have been through it. And then you get the advice of, oh, I wish I had done this. I wish I had done that. Well, yeah some of that could be good advice. But then it's also, wow, the people you tell might gossip about you. It's so painful. It's so pain. I mean, you've already been betrayed by your husband and now you're being betrayed by your friends.
00:11:01
Speaker
Also, even if you work it through with your husband and you guys are thriving and you're at a better place and you know, you're really happy. You have ride or die friends who are just never going to accept him back. We'll always hate him and never forgive him. That makes things awkward. If you tell, you know, family, then Thanksgiving is awkward. Yeah. So it's just, it's. It's just hard. It's just really hard. And then, of course, if you stay, which, again, majority women statistically do stay, then it's not in the beginning a woman's just like, oh, they'll view him as a cheater. And it's like, well, if you stay, then people are going to view him, sure, as a cheater, but you're the one who stayed with the cheater. And how do you feel about that walking into a room?
00:11:50
Speaker
So, I always think well starting with the objective person, like a therapist, pastor, pastor's wife. someone who is maybe not in the thick of your day to day that you're going to have to see and that your husband's going to have to see. um You know, of a friend that you that you're close to, we all have the friends that we're close to that don't live nearby, that we love, that we should pick up the phone or one of those would be great. Or start small, start small.
00:12:24
Speaker
Don't tell everyone and and think of the people in your life and why you are going to tell that particular person. And how that particular person would be helpful and if that particular person doesn't forgive your husband how that would be but you know he they they don't have to forgive him to. I don't know, still be your friend, but right because in the beginning it's just like this speaker phone. I'm in so much pain. I want to tell everyone that is a mistake. You know, thinking this specific person, I think
00:13:01
Speaker
you know, likes my, I mean, there's other friends that are just so devastated because the husband's such a great guy and they're like, oh, you got one of the good guys. And then to find out that he actually cheated, blows them out of the water. And then you end up taking care of their feelings that they're disappointed. I mean, it's just, that's what I'm saying. You just have to not tell everyone be strategic in who you're telling and get a therapist. Get a therapist or pastor or lady person, however you want to do it, but get someone outside of your every day to run things by. Okay. So we talked about discovery and awareness and then coping with the shock. Now let's talk about recovery.
Recovery and Rebuilding Trust
00:13:48
Speaker
How do couples recover from this and regain trust?
00:13:52
Speaker
Well, in your work. Yeah, well, regaining trust, you know, when people think about regaining trust, they think of it as like a light switch goes back on, right? Because the light switch goes off, you find out your husband cheated, it's like this light inside of you just boom, goes off, you still love them, but the trust goes on. So if people could think more of a dimmer switch, moving the dial of trust in a positive direction, and then I'm not calling infidelity a mistake because it is not a mistake. It is a series of conscious decisions to betray. kindfe But men make many mistakes in the recovery process because no one knows what they're doing and they are dudes and they're just trying to do what they would want to do, which is usually the opposite of what a woman needs. okay yeah so you know So if a dial of trust, the dial of trust can move forward, it also can move back.
00:14:48
Speaker
Right? So how couples get through this? One, the man needs to give an accurate timeline. And this is where men and women are different. My individuals who are men who have been betrayed by their wives, the last thing they want to know is details of the hotel or where did you meet the guy or how did you talk to the guy. Often they don't even want to know the man's name. ah because then they would have to do something. Like, well, now he knows I know I need to do something to him or talk to him. What should I do? So they they would rather just not even have to deal with that. Meanwhile, women want to know every single detail. What was the hotel? What did you talk about after you made love? What's her name? Often by the time she's even confronted her husband, she's already done an FBI equivalent
00:15:37
Speaker
CIA background check. She already knows what elementary school the affair partner went to. I mean, she the deep dive, right? So the first thing is him being totally transparent, answering all the questions. Writing a timeline is helpful. Writing a timeline of when everything happened and writing it down. Because women simply cannot move forward unless they feel they know what happened. I equivalent, it's like the movie Sixth Sense. here which hopefully we've all seen, but at the end of it, you thought you were watching one movie and you were actually watching another movie and that's the woman's life. I thought I was in this life where everything was alive and I was actually in what timeline was I in? What was going on? What were you doing? Okay. So women can't move on and men don't understand that because that is not necessary for them. And in fact, it's,
00:16:34
Speaker
It's detrimental to them. So they're they're kind of doing the golden rule, which is like, I wouldn't want that information. You say you want it, but there's no way you could want it. But women need that. A man, no matter what the reason he feels he was justified in cheating, he wasn't, and needs to accept responsibility. Because she'll ask, why, why, why did you do this? And he will come up with this list of reasons. And then she'll turn on him and say, you're blaming me for the affair. And then they get caught in that trap. He just needs to be there's no excuse for what I did. I need to look within of why I thought that was a good idea. Right. He needs to read a book, go to counseling again, go to AA if sexual addiction or alcohol or whatever. Like he needs to say I'm looking in the mirror and dealing with why I did this and and just settle the relationship of the PTSD. He needs to absolutely cut the affair partner out
00:17:30
Speaker
blockity, block, block all avenues, okay, if possible. And sometimes, you know, situations make it more ah difficult. Importantly, as if the affair partner contacts him, he needs to tell his wife. there can be no more secret conversations even if it's like i'm turning towards my marriage and i don't want to talk to anymore no no no no all any sort of anything the wife say hey i know this isn't going to make you happy but the fair partner contacted me how do we want to handle it and then
00:18:03
Speaker
Once a woman is feeling like she's not being blamed and a man is taking responsibility because it is never about the wife. It's never about the marriage. It really is about the individual who decided to go outside the marriage because it could have been with alcohol, cocaine, Amazon addiction, gambling, other other vices. This is just device that ended up having tremendous collateral damage. But if it wasn't one thing it would have been another and he really needs to address what that's about. And then moving into this new marriage because it is a whole new marriage with um a woman who's been betrayed and doesn't trust herself and
00:18:50
Speaker
him dealing with that, that it is a business as usual. You know, it used to be he could be, you know, really nice to the waitress or get other women's Instagram accounts or, yeah you know, say happy birthday to an ex on Facebook or, you know, he just did so much that. He just can't do anymore. He really needs to look through the optics of if my wife saw this, how would she feel? Right. And that that is really a critical point when a man can understand how much his wife does love him.
00:19:25
Speaker
how betrayed and sad. You know, they get the anger, right? Like, oh, my wife's going to be so angry. They do not get that their very strong wife is crying in the fetal position in the bathroom or having panic attacks or just crying all the time because she loves him. You know, usually they build this narrative that the wife doesn't like him very much. And then they find out that that near narrative is just horribly, horribly false. um and they see the damage they've done and that the idea that they would do anything that their wife might hear about or see and feel that way again literally makes them vomit and that's
00:20:09
Speaker
That's healing in a relationship. And and final healing is the wife trusting herself again. Because often the wife's like, look I looked at my husband. He could never do this to himself again. He feels so bad about what he did. And he's done all sorts of deep work on himself. He would never do it again. But then she doesn't trust herself. Like, well, I trusted him before and I was wrong. And so that's the last stage of healing is where a woman really feels like I do trust my judgment. I do trust myself and trust together people. But that that takes a long time. Yeah, it does. So that leads to my final question here. What if there is no resolution? Do you have advice to parents who divorce and have to start all over again after this?
Introducing New Partners Post-Divorce
00:20:59
Speaker
Well, there's two different versions of this, right? there's the That they try to work it out in a couple's counseling. And it's not the infidelity itself that breaks up the marriage. It's that they truly have grown apart or have different worldviews. Or even if a woman does finally understand how we could have done this and whatever, she just can't move forward with someone who is capable of this. And that's absolutely can happen. Or he leaves with the affair partner. OK, so leaving with the affair partner is its own separate podcast, honestly, of how awful that is and how to negotiate that with kids and having to see the woman who wrecked your life or was a participant in it, because obviously it was the husband's fault, but she didn't help or she did help.
00:21:54
Speaker
So there's that. And then there's just like, hey, what do you do when you get divorced? You know, I i say I have one rule, one rule only in my practice, and that is after divorce, You do not introduce the person you're dating to your children for six months. Six months, not four months, not two months, not three days. Six months that you're in a committed, forward-moving relationship. Not a situationship, not where you already know you have different life goals, but where you're like, wow, this is a real thing and we're moving forward.
00:22:30
Speaker
Why is that? That is the whole thing. Oh, fall in love. I never thought I would love again. Oh, my God. Yes, you fall in love again because you're a human being. And it's all good in the beginning. And then around like four or five months, people's true colors show. And it doesn't mean true colors means that you're going to dump them or break up or whatever. But it means you start not being in the the high of the relationship of finding love again after your divorce, um but you can't have your kids come bond with whoever it is and see that person and you can't do, oh, this is mommy's friend. If you're in a heterosexual relationship, if you end up being with a woman, I i think they can hide it better.
00:23:13
Speaker
You know mom just has a new friend But when another man is coming around like even five-year-olds know that's mommy's new boyfriend um And they have feelings and all of that stuff and you don't want to go through all of that until you're short The other thing is it's fun being in love. It's fun being you know for the first year two years it gets to be like you know a bummer when it settles into quote unquote world relationship status so the last thing you want to do is bring in reality as you're having fun plus one of the reasons marriages don't work out is women go to and to mommy mode.
00:23:50
Speaker
in a great mommy mode with being a good wife, which it's different, just like for men, they equate being a good provider with being a good husband. That's also different. Okay. But you go into mommy mode right away. And you lose the fun, you lose the fun of being a woman, right? Because if your ex has the kids, and you have some time, you can have some fun, go on some trips, right hang out with your girlfriends and and things like that. Everyone's like, Oh, I'm going to be so sad being without my kids. Let me tell you, you get over it. If you start rebuilding your life as a human being, but do not let your
00:24:29
Speaker
new person meet your kids. Now, if you've already know each other through school or PTA or something like that, like obviously there are exceptions to to that, but women fool themselves. And at month four, they're really feeling that way. And even though I'm like, do not do it. How many rules have I had in our entire therapeutic relationship? None, just this. And I'm never wrong on that. It just doesn't go well. It doesn't go well for the kids because how, you know, it's, it's, How do you break up with someone that now your kids like? Yep. They have to go through it all over again. Yeah. And that's like heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. And I do, I do think it is a good idea based on your co-parenting relationship that if your new partner is going to be meeting the kids, you tell your ex. Hi, ex. I'm dating Y.
00:25:26
Speaker
This is a little bit about why. It'd be great if Y and your X can meet. He's not giving approval. It's not veto. Right. But I do believe that your ex does care about you a little bit, definitely cares about his kids. Right. And what you don't want is the kids going in and saying, Oh, mommy has a, you know, has this person or whatever. You you you don't want it to be foreign information that your ex is just finding out. You want your ex to be like, Oh yeah, I met Y. Yeah. He seems cool. Is he good to you?
00:25:59
Speaker
but You don't want to create this mommy versus daddy thing just in case new boyfriend isn't appropriate with the kids. You don't want it to be like, oh, anything that happens with mommy and the new boyfriend, I can't discuss with dad because he's going to get angry or he's going to get blown out of the water. he's go You want that level of communication to be like, you could tell me Oh, you had a great time. You went to Disneyland. That's wonderful. You want to keep those communication open. You don't want it to come as a surprise because the other thing is he's going to surprise you. Then he's going to have a new girlfriend that you don't know anything about. And it just like ended to do the right thing, depending it depending on the ex, obviously. But that tends to go much better than
00:26:46
Speaker
the kids just hearing through the grapevine through their kids that you're dating someone that does not support your success. A solid co-parenting foundation is necessary. And regardless if the relationship works out or not between the parents, being aligned on all
Resources and Contact Information
00:27:03
Speaker
fronts is really important. So that's great advice, Dr. Caroline. Thank you. Dr. Caroline, how can listeners get in touch with you or find your more information about you or your books? Oh, well, my books are available, wherever books are available now, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. I have a coaching website to help couples from all around the world work on recovering after infidelity. And that's just my name, caroline dot.com. Or you find me on Twitter. I know I need to get updated into the different social links, but I'm Twitter at CMAD and MFT. t
00:27:45
Speaker
a Twitter. so Perfect. I will link all of this information in the podcast description, but thank you so much for your time and for sharing your experience working with couples with me and everyone who's listening. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for having me.