The Survival Kit for Divorced Dads #90

Divorce hits men particularly hard, doubling their suicide risk while offering them fewer support resources than women typically receive. Dr. Eran Magen, Assistant Clinical Professor at Yale School of Medicine, draws from both professional expertise and personal experience to address this crisis through his work at DivorcingDads.org.

The conversation explores why men struggle so profoundly after divorce - often isolating themselves rather than seeking support, feeling like failures, and facing challenging custody situations. Dr. Magen breaks down his comprehensive approach built on four essential pillars: navigating legal matters (especially custody arrangements), developing effective co-parenting strategies, strengthening practical parenting skills, and rebuilding a fulfilling personal life.

We dive deep into the complexities of dating after divorce when children are involved. When should you start dating again? How do you introduce new partners to your children? What conversations should you have with kids of different ages? Dr. Magen offers thoughtful, practical guidance grounded in child development and relationship psychology.

Transcript

Welcome and Introduction

Intro 0:00

Welcome to the Straight from the Source's Mouth podcast. Frank talk about sex and dating.

Tamara 0:05

Hello everyone, tamara here, welcome to the show. Today's guest is Dr Eran Magen, assistant Clinical Professor at the Yale School of Medicine Department of Psychology, and founder of parentingforhumans.com and divorcingdads.org, and we'll be talking about effective strategies for divorcing fathers. Thanks for joining me, Dr Magen.

Dr Eran Magen 0:27

My great pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Tamara 0:35

What got you into caring about divorcing dads? I assume that you were one at one point and learned something.

Dr Eran Magen 0:36

Yeah, it's kind of the intersection of my professional life and my personal life. I started a company a few years ago that works on suicide prevention with universities and not with the VA, and so suicide prevention is a big part of my awareness. And then I've been doing work with parents for longer than that. I love parenting. I think it's such an important connection between kids and parents.

Dr Eran Magen 1:00

And then I went through this very painful, very difficult separation after my son was born, Um, and after coming out of it, I mean it took kind of a few years for me to get my legs back under me and once I did, I realized this was very tough and I went and did some research and found out that going through divorce or separation is a huge suicide risk for men, increases the suicide risk for men by a lot, and I thought that's really bad. And you know, having gone through it and having gotten a lot of support and asked for a lot of support, I thought it would just be nice to offer more resources for dads going through this to be able to first stay alive and second stay in their kids' lives, because I think that's also usually good for everybody alive and second, stay in their kids lives, cause I think that's also usually good for everybody.

Tamara 1:51

Yeah, yeah, very important. It seems like men they say and from your research sounds like true that men have a harder time after divorces and after relationships end then women do like I think I've read somewhere a long time ago that like back in the day we had to move on and like have kids and find other guys, so like we're built to get over it faster, or something like that?

Dr Eran Magen 2:07

Oh interesting. There's an evolutionary advantage that's, I don't know plausible.

Dr Eran Magen 2:14

I guess. So I don't know who has a harder time. I know two things From the research. I know that going through divorce doubles the risk of suicide for men, who are already at much higher risk of dying by suicide than women. But it doesn't have an effect on the suicide risk for women, which is great. I don't want anybody to die. But the men experience a big jump in the risk of death by suicide after a divorce, Women don't. So I know this from the research.

Dr Eran Magen 2:43

In terms of the actual lived experiences of people. I also I don't know who has a harder time, but I know that there are far fewer resources for men than for women. Partly it's kind of this self-perpetuating feedback loop, because men tend to look for resources and reach out for support a lot less than women, and so there's this ecosystem of support for women at the end of a major relationship and there's not really the same kind of thing for men. And so between those factors, I thought this this would be a good place to step in and just offer some support based based on my both professional training and my personal experience experience.

Tamara 3:25

Yeah, that makes sense, and women tend to talk more, so we'll just like tell all our friends about it and vent and get what we need, and guys don't tend to talk as much.

Dr Eran Magen 3:31

Yeah, even on the way to the divorce right, Women probably have good close friends that they're talking with and their whole network is sort of revving up in preparation for this to happen. And then when it happens, everybody's activated and ready and men quite often just don't tell anybody, anybody. They're either embarrassed or hope it'll blow over, kind of in denial or whatever, and they just don't share. And so when it actually happens, they're in free fall. There's just nothing around them. They need to start from scratch.

Tamara 4:01

Yeah, I've also heard that they feel like it's more of a failure or they feel like it's a failure like a personal failure when it's that, when it happens for them, versus. I don't know if women necessarily see it that way, or maybe some do, but yeah, I can see that too. All right, so how do you help people We've covered that it definitely is a bad thing and how do you like what's some things you've come to find out?

Dr Eran Magen 4:26

Well, mostly I help by providing resources and support for men going through this. The resources are built around these four pillars of successfully going through a divorce when you're a dad. One is legal, mainly the custody part, because custody overwhelmingly goes to women in the US I believe in the world, but don't quote me on that but one is just if there's a disagreement about who sees the kids when, then that's one part that has to be addressed. So custody and visitation and all of that. And then number two is co-parenting, effectively right, managing the relationship with the person who used to be your spouse or your romantic partner and now this person's function mainly is the other parent of your kids. But this has to be coordinated. This has to be done well Ideally lower the conflict, ideally shield the kids from whatever conflict exists if one exists and then just doing things in a way that works for the kids.

Understanding Men's Post-Divorce Struggles

Dr Eran Magen 5:29

So that's the second pillar. And then the third is just parenting. Because you're still a dad, especially if you're kids and you spend a good deal of time together. You just need to figure out how to do this stuff right, how to feed them and activitize them and play, date them and hang out with them and support them and help them with homework and all this stuff. And then the fourth, just in general, just rebuilding a life that you love, just enjoying yourself even when you're not with your kids, and realizing that you can still do a lot and deserve having a life that you enjoy. So these are the four kind of content areas that I build resources around Legal co-parenting, parenting and then life in general, and I do this by creating resources that people can consume.

Dr Eran Magen 6:13

You know, so videos or articles, or there's a podcast that I do as well, called Divorcing Dads. We have a group for Divorcing Dads to meet and so people can sign up and just join because, again, the problem is they don't talk to anybody, and so this is an opportunity to talk to other dads going through the process and either with me or other people who've kind of gone through it, sort of like a big Sib kind of notion, right. So you have people who are farther down the road and can help you gain perspective and get a sense of what to just get some support. So videos, articles, podcast, uh, the group, uh that we have going these are the main things that that I put together just to offer support and some guidance yeah, and then to just the fourth one having a life.

Tamara 7:02

Since this is dating and sex podcast, do you want to talk about the kinds of resources or what you might suggest for getting back out there in the dating world or even starting sex again? And then also dating while co-parenting, because that's an issue, especially depending on who wanted it and how that's going. And having dates, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr Eran Magen 7:27

So wherever you want to start with, I think the most common question is when to start dating again, and I think it's a lot like when to start eating, ideally when you're hungry, although if you're in very bad shape, it may be a good idea to eat some food and see how you're tolerating it If you haven't eaten a long time, because it's also not good to not eat for a long time. This is where the analogy also breaks down, because it's totally fine to not date for a long time If that's just not what you want or need, but if you're nervous but sort of want to know like you can experiment. Otherwise, you start dating when you want to start dating, and for some people it's weeks, and for some people it's months and for some people it's years, and it's totally fine. I mean, it's part of this recovery from grief really. So there's a grief process that you need to complete and then there's a dating process. Sometimes people overlap it and sometimes don't, but in general it's a good idea to start dating.

Dr Eran Magen 8:25

I think when you're mostly happy with your life and you're just missing another person to be happy with, as opposed to, you're totally miserable and you're hoping to find somebody who will lift you out of it. I'm sure, I'm the first person who's ever said that, and so I'll need to trademark some part of it, but I think it's a good idea to to put your life in order. So, even though I know I know this is what we're going to be talking about here and it's fine, but I think it's also very important to think about the, the building blocks that come before starting to date. How do we build a life that we enjoy? How do we just put together some, a schedule, a monthly schedule, and just create this life experience that we like, that we enjoy waking up in the morning and we enjoy doing the things we do and we have good community and we feel good in our body and we feel good in our mind and then we go out to meet more people.

Tamara 9:20

Yeah, I was going to say and when you're you mentioned earlier about you know, when you're ready and not like so miserable, you want someone to lift you out of it, because that is when you can fall prey to online dating scams and when you're so desperate to find someone. And those are the type of people that pray or get preyed on as well, like we're just like they, everything nice. They're like yes, yes, yes, and they immediately start falling for that person, and that's a whole nother episode I already had, but I just wanted to also like put that out there to like make sure you're in a good spot so you don't fall for that kind of thing too.

Dr Eran Magen 9:52

Yeah, I think there are so many problems with starting to date when not mostly happy with my own life. One of them is that I'll be completely desperate, which then makes me more likely to fall for scams, like you were saying, but also, I think, makes me more likely to just repeat patterns and find myself in more or less the same relationship that I was in before, having not spent time to learn and figure out what happened and just do it intentionally, and again coming to it from a place of strength. So I I don't need the relationship. So I don't feel like if I meet somebody who like kind of has something that I'm sort of interested in, immediately I need to attach and latch on because that's the person my happiness depends on. That's just not the case, right? If I'm already feeling pretty good about my life, then I can. I can release more easily when I understand that something's not going to work out.

Tamara 11:00

Yeah, like, instead of ignoring red flags because you want someone, you're like all right, like, maybe that red flag, or even yellow flag, is like it's not something you want to deal with. So, yeah, you're more discerning when you are happy yourself. Yeah, definitely makes sense, all right. And then co-parenting and dating, or do you want to cover more, or we?

Four Pillars for Divorcing Dads

Dr Eran Magen 11:26

can come back to it too, like what's, as you've seen, issues, I'm assuming with that kind of stuff where jealousy and that's a huge topic co-parenting and dating. There are a few types of dynamics that can exist between co-parents. I think one way to do kind of a two by two is to say parent one over it or not over it and parent two over it or not over it, and ideally both parents are over it and can just treat each other like people that maybe they don't want to spend a huge amount of time together or maybe they want to spend as little time as possible, but they're just people and you can sort of tolerate it. And if somebody is still very reactive to the other person, then I would put them in the not over it category. And it may be for completely justified reasons, right, maybe something horrible happened, but it's the not over it category at that point over it, either because they want the other person to come back to them or because they just don't want the other person to be happy ever, or for these kinds of reactive reasons. Another ingredient that's worth considering in there is the kids and how the kids participate in the co-parenting dynamic. Ideally the kids don't, right, that's sort of rule number one of co-parenting Insulate the kids completely from any kind of tension between the parents.

Dr Eran Magen 12:44

The kids have a long list of things that are not their job, right, they're not the messengers, they're not the spies, they're not the judges, they're not the cops, all these things that kids should not be doing. And that is very natural for co-parents to turn to kids and try to do, try to get them to do right, oh, tell mom that this you know. Tell dad that it's not blah, blah, blah. What did you see when you went? Could you check to see if mom has a whatever? At the same time, of course, information is going to flow.

Dr Eran Magen 13:20

Right, kids talk and it's a big part of their lives. Like, let's take this you know basic shared custody situation. A kid is going to spend a lot of time with both parents and what happens with the other parent is part of that kid's life. It's okay. It's okay to talk, just like they talk about stuff that happens at school.

Dr Eran Magen 13:37

We don't go, I don't want to know anything about this. Like, of course we want to know as parents, but we want to maintain a delicate balance and not really kind of dig in and try to get more information and use them as spies. So more often than not, we're going to hear about a romantic partner from our child once that person has been introduced to the child, and so it's a big decision and something that requires some intentionality about whether or not and when to introduce someone we're dating to our kids, because part of the fallout will be that the co-parent will hear about it and, if the co-parent is over it whatever that means in that big two by two matrix if the co-parent is over then, it probably doesn't matter very much as long as we're with kind of a decent, you know, non-terrifying person, and if the other parent is not over it, then we're probably going to hear about it and it's probably going to intensify things.

Dr Eran Magen 14:31

So I think those are all considerations. But the most important consideration is what is it going to do to our kid or kids to meet this new person that we're dating? Is it going to confuse them, destabilize them? Is it going to be bad or good or neutral for them? And there are so many considerations there, like, for example, with really young kids.

Dr Eran Magen 14:54

I think it doesn't really matter. They don't care. They're so self-centered. You know, if somebody comes to hang out like one of your friends, parents frequently have their friends over or they'll go visit friends with or without other kids. It's fine. Kids don't care.

Dr Eran Magen 15:07

They hardly remember these people unless you meet them multiple times. They never ask what happened to this one person that we saw that one time because it's part of your life, it's not part of their life. They we saw that one time because it's part of your life, it's not part of their life. They don't care.

Dr Eran Magen 15:20

And then somewhere around 7, 8, 9, 10, you know, depending on how socially aware and cued in they are and probably depending on whether they're boys or girls, you know, just kind of add three years of any kind of maturation if it's a boy required in order to have the same level of social awareness probably. But at some point it starts mattering. And especially if you're starting to interact in ways that are more couple setting up what kind of models you're demonstrating to them and teaching them about how dating works and how relationships work, because we learn almost everything from when we grew up in terms of how romantic partners do or don't interact with one another, and so this is very intense education that we're doing for the kids. Uh, okay, I was talking now for a very long time, so I'm going to pause a little bit for breath and also see what you want to talk about.

Tamara 16:28

Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, I was all that was good and I was interested in hearing it. So, yeah, I didn't want to interrupt with. The only thing I was going to add was just a random thing, that I dated a guy who had kids and it seemed like it was too soon to introduce us. But now that you say that maybe it was just, I came across as just a random friend, hopefully.

Dr Eran Magen 16:51

How old were the kids?

Tamara 16:53

Probably 10, 11-ish.

Dr Eran Magen 16:56

Yeah, kind of on the edge right. But the question is yeah, do you do you feel like when you met them and I don't know how many times you met them, but do you feel like after you met them, they were left wondering where's Tamara now? What happened? Why aren't we seeing Tamara again? Or was it more of like you know, somebody's coworker came one day and we hung out and then dad's coworker never came again?

Tamara 17:18

He brought them over to my place once and then we went to like amusement park with them. So it probably was more something, but not. But then we only saw each other a few more times Like so yeah, I don't, I'm not sure, like that's probably something we he should be concerned about, or or wondering, or know.

Dating Again After Divorce

Dr Eran Magen 17:36

Yeah, definitely his job as a parent, right, not yours as a person dating the parent. But I think if you present it low key enough to the kids, I think it can be okay. I do think it requires some thinking, but also I think it's a very important consideration when you're dating someone as a parent what's the dynamic between them and your kid or kids? It's so important and I can imagine somebody saying you know, we've like, I know I like this person now, but I need to see this person with my kids Because they're gonna spend a lot of time together. So let's see how that goes. Or somebody might say, no, I want to really build a very solid connection with this person and then introduce it. It's all legitimate. There's no like obvious right answer. But when there's no obvious right answer, the other side of the coin is that there's also no obvious wrong answer. I mean, there are some things that are obviously a bad idea to do, but most people won't do them because they're reasonable. So you can choose one path or the other. We're all flexible, we learn, we figure it out.

Dr Eran Magen 18:35

Talk to people Again like talk to friends beforehand. Think about it a little bit. The fact that it's even in our awareness is so important. Just say, oh guys, I started dating this woman and I like her and we met a couple of times and I'm wondering whether or not I should introduce her to the kids. Also, it would be easier to meet because you know they're just at my place often and otherwise I'm not available. What do you? And just ask three friends and just like, start thinking about it. But yeah, just maybe put some thought and intentionality in it and then decide what you think is right.

Tamara 19:04

It's you know your kids best yeah, and do you ever ask the kids like depending on age, obviously, but like, is that one of the jobs they shouldn't have, or is that should they be brought into the discussion as far as if they're ready to see it or not, or maybe they won't ever be ready, depending?

Dr Eran Magen 19:20

If they're ready to meet someone that you're dating.

Tamara 19:26

Or even find out that you're dating. If you think you're going to start dating, even asking that question would you want to meet my new person, or is that all adult decided and kids don't have a say in that part of it I'm a big fan of bringing kids into conversations, even fairly young kids, as long as it's stuff that they can understand and stuff that they might remotely care about.

Dr Eran Magen 19:47

So I think, you know, with a two-year-old I don't think it's worth having a conversation about. You know, daddy's considering dating again and maybe it's like I don't know, that they care, and I think that's probably true up until somewhere around like age six or something, when they probably five, maybe six, like they probably have a sense of what this means and they know some friends whose parents are together and some friends whose parents are not together. And to them I mean, depending on when the separation or divorce happened, it might seem completely normal to have divorced parents. But at that point, if you're thinking that it's going to intrude on their lives, that they're going to feel it at some point, I think it's important to have some kind of conversation. If it's never going to really interact with their lives, I don't think it's critical. Just like, again, you don't talk with them about many things that don't touch their lives, right, they don't want to hear about your running club, they just don't care If they're bigger.

Dr Eran Magen 20:48

I think, again, it's reasonable to talk about with them and just, you know, each kid is different. We have to pay attention to how they're responding. Do we think this is creating anxiety for them? Do we think this makes them happier or excited? Um, and just just follow the child. I think that's, in general, my my favorite thing to do, right Involve them and involve them in a age appropriate way and then follow their reaction. If they're leaning in, we can do more of this together, and if they really just don't care, then I think it's up for you to choose. But I don't think it's a strictly adult. Only we don't talk about it. Certainly if the kids are older, right, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16. Like this is on their mind, they're dating, they're trying to figure it out. Also, they might be like well, this is weird, that's not dating, and we're like what's happening?

Tamara 21:46

Or it's good to talk about these things, cause, again they have so much they can learn from you about this process. Yeah, it reminds me of a show on Netflix, alpha males, where, well, this is like the extreme one of the one of the daughters of the men, like they're older men but uh, and she's older as well, but she actually goes on Tinder for him and like creating a profile and like sets up dates and says she, he should sleep with at least 10 people before to get over his ex and she helps her, helps him say all the right stuff to get the girls or whatever. So a little extreme there, but yeah, that's's.

Dr Eran Magen 22:16

that's a good ally to have in your back pocket yeah, and and younger kids.

Tamara 22:20

You know the ones that are dating. Yeah, they might know even more. Or if, especially if it's been, you know, 20 years since you've ever dated and don't know the scene yeah, and again it goes back to that point that we were talking about before when to start dating.

Dr Eran Magen 22:32

Right, if you're coming to it from a strong place, then from a place of strength strength in your life, I mean, and being happy in your own life it's very likely you're going to be projecting a sense of, like, ease and comfort. Maybe you're experimenting with things and figuring out, you know, and learning about it as you go, but it's okay, you're not desperate, you're not upset, and I think you're teaching a lot by showing this kind of energy to your kids as you're talking about it, to the extent they want to hear again. Most kids don't even want to imagine their parents kissing anyone, uh, and so this may be just kind of a passing thing. It does merit a more serious conversation if, if you are feeling like you are considering a long-term committed relationship with somebody who will also be in the lives of your kids and you want them to meet like I can't I mean, there are multiple ways to do it you could do just a casual meet and just see what the dynamic is like. That's probably a very fair way to start, but at some point there's going to be a conversation that says you know, do you remember the lady that we met and her kid?

Dr Eran Magen 23:32

Right, blended families also have right. Do you remember the lady we met and her kid? We all went, yeah, it was great. We went to the water park and then we all went to the movies Great, yeah. So I intend to keep seeing her. I really like her and I want to ask how were you feeling with her? And probably the kid is going to say something like it's fine, it seems fun. Is she going to move in? A more aware child might ask, and then you give the answer right, this is probably a good thing to talk about with the kids and not just declare. But again, as long as that person is not moving in the next day, the kids are probably going to be like, yeah, fine, you know, why would they care?

Co-Parenting While Dating

Tamara 24:14

Are there different considerations when it comes to starting to have sex with other people for the first time, or similar to dating, where if you're healthy and fine and good, or do you have any thoughts on definitely waiting or definitely don't?

Dr Eran Magen 24:31

is around accidental pregnancies and finding yourself with more kids, which I know is kind of well, I'm guessing, is kind of sideways from what you may have been asking about, but I think is critical. I had such a fear when I started dating of like finding myself with another child, because I'm so totally committed to my child. And if I accidentally found myself with another child, with a woman who were not in a committed relationship, and then she decided to move somewhere, what would I do? I would tear in half, terrified, me Terrified, and so I think that's a big thing to think about.

Dr Eran Magen 25:09

I mean, it's never a good idea to have a child accidentally with somebody who don't have a strong relationship, in my opinion. But I think it's even worse when you have. The consequences are even worse when you have already a kid or kids that you're committed to and you're trying to be as responsible as you can, but then suddenly finding yourself with another person that you are committed to the child, right, uh, another person and this, this level of responsibility. So I I think that's a hugely important like you, hugely important consideration. You cannot afford accidents there.

Tamara 25:43

You have to be a grown-up about it yeah, no, actually, and I'm glad you did mention that. I actually know someone who um assumed she was too old to get pregnant and got pregnant at 44 yeah, no, people with someone who had kids. He didn't necessarily want the kid, but she kept it and yeah.

Dr Eran Magen 26:02

Yeah, and then after the races, right, it's yeah. So I think that's a hugely important consideration. Otherwise, I don't know that it's different, you know, after a divorce or with kids or without kids, than it was before. Sex does different things for different people, right? For some people, it's this huge and instant source of attachment, and for other people, not.

Dr Eran Magen 26:24

I think it is a very good idea to talk about it, but I would say the same for people who are not divorced or are not men or are not parents, like. I think it's just a good idea for everybody to understand. What does this mean for you, what does this mean for me? How are we staying safe in terms of pregnancy, in terms of potential sexually transmitted infection? What's okay, what's not okay, things like that. I think that's such an important conversation what do you like, what do you not like, like sort of the usual things that are a good idea to talk about. I don't think that changes before, but I think it's a good idea to be aware what this does for us before, but I think it's a good idea to be aware what this does for us.

Tamara 27:07

Yeah, I was going to say I could imagine having men who've been married a long time and newly out there. Perception is that women are more aggressive, are going to be more open to it, try harder than back when they were younger, and that wasn't true.

Dr Eran Magen 27:16

Potentially, I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, depending on who you are, but like just the whole different world of it, yeah, and I think you know, for some people got married really young and did not have or doesn't matter if they were young, I guess. Some people got married early on in their sort of uh, sexual trajectory and didn't get to know a lot of people at that level of intimacy. And some people are shocked at how different different people are in terms of what they like and what they don't like and how they react. And again, the meaning that comes with sex, the meaning attached to it.

Dr Eran Magen 27:57

So it can be very confusing relationship and suddenly being with a person who's just nothing like the person you remember, who you maybe assume is just the ambassador for all people of that sex. In sex they're not Everybody's super different and that's part of the discovery. So I guess and then it's even more so if prior to being in that marriage or long-term committed relationship, you were not with many people before, so all the more so you think like, okay, this is just how it works and then, you discover, like not everybody likes doing it upside down, hanging from the ceiling, or you're like everybody does and maybe not everybody Like who knows right, it's just everybody's different.

Talking to Kids About Your Dating Life

Tamara 28:40

Yeah, for sure, yeah, no, I'm just just I don't know. Yeah, I will leave that the comment I was gonna make to myself. But yeah, definitely yeah, and, like you said, if they're like well, this always worked, so I'm doing this, and they're like and they're the other, and a lot of times. Another issue is people are afraid to like hurt people's feelings, so they won't say anything or just kind of, and and then there's there's a whole nother dynamic to like this thing always works, I'm doing this, but the woman's too afraid to say like oh, no, really actually do this, and that happens a lot too. So it's just yeah, all kinds of stuff, but anyway, back to so, back to the gist of your, your thing you do and divorcingcing Dads and giving resources. How can people reach you? I know we mentioned your websites, but are there any personal way to reach you or you prefer to go through the website?

Dr Eran Magen 29:31

Yeah, I mean the website has all the information. It'll have my email and it'll have the videos and the podcast and the support group and all of it.

Tamara 29:38

So it's divorcingdadsorg and it's just all there and any closing comments or things you wish we would have covered and didn't. Thank you, that's so nice.

Dr Eran Magen 29:49

Three things, with your permission. Three things. One, even if you don't have a lot of people, you're comfortable reaching out to reach out to people. Reach out to somebody and talk to somebody, right. Reach out to your friends or your therapist somebody and talk to somebody right. Reach out to your friends or your therapist if you have one, or your coach or your family or your faith leader or whoever you find. And if you're in a bad spot and you don't know who to talk, to call 988. It's a free service. You're paying for it with your tax money. It's confidential, it's 24-7 counseling, available countrywide. 988, like 911, but 988. Always a good idea to talk, always better to talk than to not talk. So that's one.

Dr Eran Magen 30:37

Number two is just remembering how important it is for kids to have their parents is just remembering how important it is for kids to have their parents. I think at the start of a divorce or separation many men feel like garbage and feel like maybe their kids are better off not having them in their lives. There's easily there's a lot of negative messaging that men can get in the process of divorce or separation. Personally, kind of systemically, it happens, and it's so important to hold on to the realization to the understanding and belief that kids are better off when they have good contact with both their parents, and you are one of those two parents and kids will be worse off if one of the parents checks out geographically or by dying or by becoming sort of emotionally disconnected. It's just worse for the kids. Your kids need you. They do better when you're there. They do worse when you're not there. So just hold on to that. That's number two. And number three is you totally get to have a life that you enjoy, regardless of what's happening in the divorce and regardless of what's happening with the custody. Maybe you miss your kids horribly and you only see them a little bit and you're in court and you're trying to get more time. Or you were in court and you're not going to see your kids a lot. Maybe you see them every other weekend, which happens quite frequently, and you desperately want to see them more in your work.

Dr Eran Magen 32:08

First of all, they're not going to forget about you. I mean kids are hardwired to love their parents. It takes so much for kids to disconnect from parents, so worry less about that. When you're with them, be awesome. But when you're not with them, enjoy yourself right. Don't be a jack-in-the-box dad who's kind of hiding in his little box and only springs out happily when the kids are around and it's fun. And then the kids go and then goes. I say this as somebody who was a jack-in-the-box dad for probably about two years, maybe a little longer.

Dr Eran Magen 32:38

But you can have fun Like it's totally fine. It doesn't mean you love your kids less if you enjoy yourself when they're not there. Schedule activities you enjoy, take the class you've been wanting to take all this time and couldn't do that trip that you've been thinking about for the past six years. But just build a life that you enjoy. Get enough sleep, do the basic things, but it's totally okay for you to enjoy yourself, even when things are not going well vis-a-vis the divorce and even custody. Just have as much fun as you can. This is your life. Do that and then be a great dad too. These are the three things.

Key Takeaways for Divorcing Fathers

Tamara 33:12

So thank you. Yeah, no, that's awesome. And the one about still having a life, like I just, I knew someone that basically was he was murdering himself. You, I knew someone that basically was he was martyring himself. You know, he felt so bad that it went bad. So he was like just going above and beyond and not having as much of a life or like not willing to date as much because you know he felt so bad about it and I pointed that out and it seems like to make a difference. But, yes, thank you very much for being on. That was great stuff, Very informational and educational and interesting. All right, and yes, thanks again. And if you like this episode, be sure to tell your friends about it and rate it as well. And thank you once again, Dr McGinn.

Dr Eran Magen 33:55

My great pleasure. I'll definitely be telling my friends about it.

Tamara 33:59

Thank you Alrighty, thanks everyone. Bye. Frank Talk, frank Talk Sex and.