004 - Your Kids' Dad - Top 3 Tips to Change Your Mindset

You're listening to the divorce mommy podcast with Julie C.R.D. episode 4. I'm Julie C.R.D. and I want to help you create the life you want and your children need. Let's go. Hey, mamas. It's Julie C.R.D. I hope that you are all doing well. I can't believe we're here on episode number 4 of the divorce mommy podcast. I am so excited that we officially launched and the divorce mommy podcast is out in the world. I am so excited. I don't know about you guys, but if you live in the Northeast and you're also listening to this real time, it is still summer. We have a few weeks left and your kids are still home. I saw this great meme, "mem" -- I'm not sure how you pronounce it, but it was on Facebook and it sums it up so well on how summer goes when you have kids. You start the summer out as Mary Poppins with all sorts of grand plans. And then by the end of the summer, you are literally miss Hanigan from Annie and you're surviving on coffee and wine. So when my kids were little, I would never have felt that way. And I may have even been a little shocked and a little judgy if a mom could feel that way. But trust me, we all get there. And if those of you who have kids, they're a school age, you know what I'm talking about. I do love summer. Don't get me wrong. But it definitely loses its luster by mid-August. And while I love the spontaneous lazy days of summer after a crazy school year, I start to crave the structure of September. And I'll always end up going and buying myself new notebooks and pens when I'm getting the kids supplies. Because I just love that feeling of getting organized again and getting my own fun supplies when I'm getting the kids stuff too. I'm sure I have many of you listeners that love to do the same thing. So I really do hope that you've been enjoying and finding value in the first three episodes of Divorce Mommy. It would mean the world to me. If you could leave a review or a rating as that helps immensely in getting Divorce Mommy out there to more moms who need it. It's just part of the iTunes algorithm. So if you would like to reach out and just do a review or a rating, it's pretty easy. I listen to a lot of podcasts. And when I find ones that I really value, I really do make sure to leave a rating or review or both. And soon we'll start featuring some of the reviews that we get here on Divorce Mommy, which I think will be great. It'll be great if you hear your own review being read. But also it can help other moms to hear how this podcast is impacting them. And I also wanted to let you know that if you wanted to reach out to me directly, if you have any questions you want to ask, if you want to request certain topics, you can do a couple things. You can either send me an email. It's super easy. It's Julie at Divorce Mommy. Blog. Or you could also read more on my actual blog, Divorce Mommy. Blog online. And connect. And if you're on the website, you can sign up for an awesome freebie that my daughter wrote. I mentioned it in previous episodes. But she wrote the top 10 things that your child wants you to know as you are navigating the waters of co-parenting. Full of gold. I highly recommend you download it and give it a read. And I look forward to connecting with you. You can also DM me on Instagram. I respond to all my DMs. And for those of you going, what's a DM? It's a direct message on Instagram. And I'm at Divorce Mommy on Instagram. So definitely please connect. It's, you know, it's me sitting here behind a microphone and speaking into your ears. But I would love to have a conversation. So definitely reach out. We'd love to hear more directly from all of you. So today's topic might be a tough one. It's about your kids dad. So I will prep this episode by saying that I know there are real bad guys out there. I know that there are dads that truly do not deserve the title of dad or father. There are dads that are abusive or toxic for a child's life. Those guys are not included in this discussion, ladies. Okay. This is about the dad that truly loves his kids. And the kids truly love him. And in your heart, you know you want your kids and their dad to have an amazing relationship or at least the opportunity to develop one. So no matter how and why you and your ex-husband ended your marriage, he will always be their dad. And this is where it can get really tricky. You as you as a human being as a woman, you know, as your own person with a life and feelings and emotions might have an incredibly difficult time seeing, communicating or frankly being nice to this guy. I get it. I truly get it. But that's you as you on the flip side. You have these kids or a child who are already feeling what they're feeling that their parents are no longer together or will have those feelings when they're old enough to really grasp the change in their lives. They want their daddy around. They want to see him and not have it be something else that was taken away from them. And you know what I'm going to say. This requires you to be stronger than you ever have been in your life. It will require you to compartmentalize those feelings you have right now about your ex and shift your thoughts and feelings about him really as your kids father, not your ex-husband. Now this may sound simple, me just saying it, but look, I get that this is not always easy. So I'm going to give you some tips that will help you navigate this minefield of emotions that you're either going through, you're about to go through in trying to figure out this new relationship with your ex-husband. So number one, the number one tip I want you to embrace and try to implement immediately is to stop calling him or referring to him as your ex. Instead, call him your kids dad. This simple, almost subtle shift is anything but that. By calling him your kids dad in your head to others in front of your kids will have an impact you can't even begin to imagine or really see initially. Think about right. So when you start a sentence with my ex-husband, blah blah blah. It is an immediate negative. There's not a lot of positive when you say my ex-husband, right? So that title immediately puts your brain and your heart, so your thoughts and your emotions in self-defense or anger mode or anxiety or sadness, whatever those may be, even if it's subconscious. We think and feel things without realizing we're really thinking or feeling them or not even realizing the impact it's having within our own bodies. So even if it's a subconscious impact, it's still having an impact calling him your ex-husband. It also makes the receiver of that term have emotions of their own. So for example, if you're talking to someone and you say my ex-husband, whatever, they automatically have emotions, it could be a pity, it could be judgment, it could be sadness. But by referring to him as your kid's dad, it's the opposite. It has this incredibly positive term to it, right? It tells your brain over and over again that this is who he is, regardless of anything else he may be or may have been to you. It also tells your brain to prioritize that feeling you have about him. It has an incredibly positive term to it. incredibly positive impact on those that you're talking to about him. And it immediately puts his status as your kid's father, which should bring respect and caring and loving versus my ex-husband, which who knows what that story may have been, there's probably hurt, pain, anger frustration, right? And most, most, most importantly, when your kids hear this, it makes them happy. Even if that subconscious for them at this point as well, it actually matters for the long term. If your kids constantly hear you call their dad, your ex-husband, my ex, my ex-husband, right? Versus if they always hear you refer to their father as who he is to them, that's huge. Okay? So while it might seem like a subtle shift, I want you to really think about and try to make a conscious effort to call him your kid's dad versus your ex-husband. And even though you may not feel this to be possible right now where you are in your journey, I can tell you that 11 years later of constantly referring to my ex-husband and my kid's dad, that's, I can't even tell you, that's 100% how I see him. Okay? So I really don't, I rarely, rarely, rarely ever call him, my ex-husband, even just saying it was weird. I really do see him 100% as Jack and Caroline's dad. That's who he is. And that's a very important role to my kids. And for me is their father. And I, because of that and because of constantly having that focus of him, I truly can say that I care about his happiness, that of his fiance. I truly have no ill feelings in my bones. Whatever was the past, was the past we've all moved on. And he's my kid's dad. And he's a great dad and he loves his kids very, very much. And it's just such a strange thing to even say ex-husband to me now. So it will happen. It's a little bit of a habit. It's a mindset shift and it works. And, you know, I, I even call like my ex mother-in-law, I call her my kid's grandma. So, and we have a great relationship now. It's powerful. So definitely if you can, I would highly recommend that you start calling him your kid's father or dad, okay? The second tip I'm going to give you is to really be very careful who and what you say about your kid's dad to others. This one is a big one. And it will be much, much harder than tip number one. Okay. So I'm not talking about, you know, when you share the nitty gritty truths and issues with your best girlfriends, you have to. I mean, gosh, that's why we have girlfriends, right? Obviously, you'd be doing that out of the reach of your children's ears or their kids' ears. I'll talk more about that in a second, but you'd be amazed at what kids pick up when you think they're playing and absorbed in something else. They hear everything you know. You've seen it happen, right? Especially when they start swearing. I remember my three-year-old dropped something and said, "Shit." And I'm like, "Oh my God." And I think that, you know, what happens is that they're hearing things constantly when you think that they can't. So I highly recommend that you make sure that you're, when you're are getting into the nitty gritty truths and issues with your best friends that none of your kids are around. But here's what I would say. Outside of your best besties, don't talk ill or throw shade about your kids' dad. Two people outside of that small circle. I would even say, be super careful with family, too. Family and parents of your kids' friends can be dangerous to share too much information about your kids' dad that may not be super positive. So think about it. You know, just like you will always be around him for the rest of your life. Remember what I had said in a previous episode, you guys are together forever. When you have kids, right? Birthdays, graduations, weddings, being grandparents together. So will a lot of your family. You'll all still be at those gatherings together. So do you want your mom and dad and siblings to eye him with anger and heat right at those gatherings? You know, I, and I know you may be saying, oh, well, I already said a lot of bad things and, you know, or bad things, but you, you were so brutally honest with your own feelings that obviously things that may have happened between you and him, you know, that you've shared with family and friends, you know, you can still recover from that, okay? Because everyone's going to follow your lead. This is your kids' dad. This is your life. These are your children. People are going to follow your lead. So even if you said things in the past, if you start shifting how you say and what you say now, they will follow. I have no doubt about that because we went through it. I mean, gosh, in the very, very beginning, it was really hard. And of course, you know, a lot of people knew a lot of our business in our family. And, you know, once we moved past, you know, kind of that initial shock and the initial situation, you know, we, we pretty quickly tried to, you know, get everyone to follow our lead. And we started to be really protect each other, if you will, knowing that we wanted everyone to get along in the end. In the end, we still wanted to be a family. It was just going to be a different kind of family. So, you know, the other, the other big thing in addition to just how you want people to feel when you're all together is that you don't want them, when I say them, I mean, your family, siblings, close friends to slip and say, something they shouldn't around your kids. You really don't want that. And same goes for your kids, friends, parents, right? So if your kid is having a play date and they've got, you know, little body, you know, over for a play date and body's mom is there too, you want to be careful what you say about your kids dad's at body's mom, especially if it's true, not a super, super, super close friend. Because I'll tell you what, as a mom now of two teenagers, the pipeline of rumors and gossip that stems from kids hearing their parents, discussions in their own homes. And then they share it with their friends and you know what's sharing with friends now is it's social, it's viral, it's crazy, right? This happens all the time. Okay, I have heard about so many different things that traveled from, you know, what you would think is the safe, you know, kitchen or family room in one person's house, you know, through to the teenager or, you know, 10 year old or whatever through their friends who lands up in the next person's, you know, kitchen or family room. So it happens all the time. I see it more and more now too that the kids are older. So at the end of the day, you don't want your kid to feel like crap because they heard something about their dad from another kid. Oh, like no, awful, right? So it requires you to be very conscientious. And I know that that can be hard, right? You got a lot of balls. You're juggling a lot of things in the air, but it's so important to take the time to really think about what you're saying and to whom you're saying it. And are there other ears in the area that might pick it up? The hardest part in all this and the, it really is when your family and friends go there, they're talking to you. They want to put a dig in about your kid's dad or they want to ask you a question about him that isn't the nicest, right? And you know, this, this not only happened to me in the beginning, it still happens now 11 years later. You know, it happens even though everyone can see that we all get along really, really well. It happens about, you know, my kids that are about us fiance, you know, or I'm sure it happens for them about me, you know, where people want to poke. They want to, you know, dig a bit and that gossip and I, I, you have to stop it. I don't go there. I will not go there. I don't feed gossip. I always take the high road. And that is so important. And to be clear, I'm human. Oh my gosh. You know, I have feelings and I go to my tight circle to get advice or share something. But I put my kids first at all times in these scenarios and I don't say anything that I wouldn't want them to hear. And I mess up, you'll mess up. We are not perfect. But try to put this guiding principle into practice. It will get easier over time because it becomes a standard and a principle and you will gain a lot of integrity in it over time. So to summarize, it's to make sure that you're being really careful about what you're saying about your kids dad and to whom. Okay. The last tip I'm going to share with you is to train your mind to see the goodness in your kids dad in the way he fathers. So if your kids love him so much and he really is a great dad and they have fun together. Focus on that. If you keep a journal or a gratitude journal, write down one or two things per day. You are thankful for how he treats your kids. This mindset work pays off big time. As your kids get older, they need the uniqueness of you as a mom and him as a dad more and more. So my daughter, who's turning 15, needs me in a way right now that her dad can't be there for her. Likewise, my 13 year old son needs his dad more than ever. The teenage years are literally no joke. Okay. They are not for the faint of heart. So one piece of advice. If your kids are younger and you're divorced or you're getting divorced or you're separated, putting these things into practice early is huge because by the time the kids are teenagers when literally is I think the hardest part of parenting so far. You want to be a team. You want to have a good relationship or at the very least, if you don't have a good relationship, that's okay. But how you talk about him and how that relationship is for your kids will be huge because they need you or they'll need your husband in husband. Whoops. Your kids dad will need their father in a way that you won't be able to help. So they need to be able to go to both of you for different things. And parenting through the teenage years because it's not easy in general, being divorced just adds a whole bunch of complexity to it. So if you work hard now on this mindset work, it'll peeve the path for the kids to turn to the parent they need at the moment they need them. And it also helps in monumental ways when you hit an issue or need to like set some rules or limits. So for the most part, my kids dad and I can get on the same page after discussion and can make a joint decision on a limit. Sometimes we give and take. Sometimes there may be something that I am much, much more hard-nosed about and he'll give in a bit there and vice versa. There are some things recently that I know just to paint a picture, we have a 5, 10 gorgeous 15, almost 15 year old daughter. And while she's an amazing kid and so smart and great had on her shoulders, we still need to protect her. And I will tell you that her dad is definitely like, he'll put his foot in the ground on some things a bit more than I will. But I want to be on the same page with him. So I will move more towards what he wants to set limits in that situation. And then vice versa, it might be my 13 year old son where he may have done something and I want to instill a punishment that needs to carry across both homes. And he might not see it as big of a deal. His dad may not see it as that big of a deal, but he will meet me on my side. So again, working through the mindset, getting to the point where you can co-parent well together is critical in the teenage years, at least from what I'm experiencing and from what I am seeing. I have a 4 year old too. Let me tell you, right now the 4 year old is a walk in the park. You know, at the time when my older 2 or 4, I was like, oh my god, this is so hard. Right? You're figuring it out as you go. But let me tell you, I will take 4 over, you know, 10 years any day because it's scary, you know, and not to say, I mean, god, my love for my kids has only grown from the time they were 4 until now. It's the challenges, the responsibility of raising teenagers and getting them over that threshold into, you know, awesome adults in this day and age is hard. So when you have that other person working with you, it is so great, right? And sometimes, as I said, you're kind of the counterpoint to the other, you know, as we try to advocate for one of the kids. So let's say it's a positive thing, you know, my daughter really wanted to go to a girls leadership program this summer and it was expensive. And I, but I could see what an amazing opportunity it was. And so of course, you know, we need to sit down and talk through it and, you know, the benefits and so forth. And, you know, that way, you know, I was able to advocate for her and why I thought it was going to be an awesome investment in her and in her future. So the good, the bad, it's just so much better when you've worked on a constructive, co-parenting relationship. So here are the three tips. I'll summarize them for you quickly that I really think would be great to start implementing immediately. And they're not as hard as they might seem once you get going, I promise. One is shift from calling him your ex-husband to calling him your kids dad. Two, be careful what you say and to whom you say it to about your kids dad. And number three, focus on the things that your kids dad does for them that you are thankful for. It is the more acceptable belief that you can't have a good relationship with your ex-husband with your kids dad. That's the more acceptable belief, right? That's kind of the norm I'm putting air quotes around the norm. And what I'm trying to share with you is that I want for you to have the belief that I have and the belief that I have is that I am thankful for my kids dad and the co-parenting relationship that we have. And I want so much for you to have that new belief. You can have that too. Our thoughts, it starts with our thoughts, it starts with our mindset, it starts with how we're seeing things. And so if our thoughts create our feelings, right? So if you're constantly thinking about him as your ex-husband and all the crappy things that have happened in the past or the sadness or whatever, those are the thoughts, those are the feelings you're going to have about them, right? You're going to feel those feelings about him that your thoughts are creating. If instead your thoughts are, I'm so thankful for how he is with the kids or I'm so thankful that he is taking them on a trip or whatever it may be, putting it from your kids perspective, your feelings about that person will change too. As does then your actions, right? You're going to be able to partner and work with their dad in a much better way if you're feeling different about that person. And you know, I'm not going to show you what I get it. I get that there are some jerks out there that truly are just that. And they are, no matter what your mindset is or how you're referring to him or implementing these three steps will not change him. And I know that. And all I can say though on that is keep your side of the road clean and his will just keep looking dirtier and dirtier. And what I mean by that is you can't change a person, okay? It's not in our power. We cannot change someone else. But we can change ourself. We can change our thoughts and feelings. And it makes, it may not change that other person at all. It might not. But if they can see a change in you, it could drive a change in them. But it may not. But I can tell you this, you will feel better. You will feel like a more positive, happier person, even if this person can't get there. But I sure hope, I sure hope that you have a person in, you know, your kids' lives that wants to love them and be a good dad. and I think that these three tips can really help you in cementing that kind of co-parenting relationship that you want. So I love you all, and if you found this episode helpful, please consider leaving a review or rating, as I mentioned, it will help get this podcast out to other moms who need it. And don't forget to connect with me on Instagram at Divorce Mommy. You can DM me there. You can email me directly at julietdivorcemommy.blog. And I would love to hear if you have any questions, are there topics you'd want to have featured or any questions you have for me? And don't forget to download your free top 10 reasons. I'm sorry, top 10 things that your child wants you to know as you are going through co-parenting. My daughter wrote it. It's amazing. I'll probably do an episode on those topics, because they're pretty phenomenal. But you basically have a 15-year-old kid who has been through 11 years of living in two homes. So she's got a lot of insight that I couldn't even have. So definitely want to get a copy of that freebie to download. All you have to do is go to either in Instagram. You can click on the link right in my profile, and that will send you directly to that download. Or you can go to divorcemommy.blog. That's my web page. And there you can sign up to get on the email list, and you will get emailed the free copy. So thank you so much, and I can't wait to talk with you next time. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music)