Mediation - that has brought us
Up to four o'clock in the morning, I was up, "declares the ten-year-old Anna." And I fell asleep on a bench, dad covered me with his sweater! "Crowed her eight-year-old sister Lisa.The girls come back from the weekend with the daddy very happy.
Monika feels the old anger about her ex-husband rise in him: "Totally irresponsible, mitzuschleifen small children to a rock concert." Recently, she promptly picked up the phone and vented her anger. Bernd and her had argued that the girls had looked sad, maybe even cried. But Monika says only very calmly: "You must be dead tired, please go to bed very early today."
Being able to react so confidently - that was something Monika had to learn with difficulty. It's been five years since her marriage broke up. Monika remembers exactly that night when she had given up. She did not, as so often in the months before, run to the window with every engine sound. But he was sitting in the kitchen, waiting, adjusting the sentences she would say to Bernd when he finally arrived. Then he came. And she said, "I want us to part, it's enough for me, and for the children a clear cut is better than the constant bickering."
Monika had had enough of Bernd's secret love affairs, the excuses, the violent exchanges. Bernd began to rage, denied everything, claiming he had collapsed with colleagues in the pub. Today he admits without hesitation: "I lied to Monika at that time, that's true, I was in love - and our marriage at the end."
The next morning, Monika and the children moved out of the shared family home to their sister in Tübingen. Three-year-old Lisa took the move like an exciting vacation trip. Five-year-old Anna made it clear to Monika that they would not return to dad. Said that mum and dad still like each other but want more time for themselves: "The whole program." She bought the picture book "Papa now lives in the Heinrichstraße", the standard work to comfort children whose parents are separated.
Bernd did not answer. Anna was suffering. She wanted to go home, afraid to never see her again. In kindergarten she had a friend who lived with her father; the mother had emigrated to Australia. One evening, Anna was lying in bed crying and asking, "Is dad going to Australia now?" Monika said no, took the child in her arms. And as soon as Anna fell asleep, Bernd's heart was heavy on the phone. He sounded dismissive, in the background she heard laughter and voices. "I do not want to talk about us," she said as coolly as possible, "all I care about is the kids, please get in touch with Anna tomorrow and make damn sure you do not get out of her life forever! "
The next day, Bernd picked up the kids for ice cream. Monika sent the girls to the door when it rang, not wanting to meet Bernd. The same situation after the meeting: Bernd stayed in the car, the children got out. Monika stood on the balcony and saw how the girls waved sadly after the car driving away. "You were so sorry for me, you had to feel like your parents are enemies because they do not even talk to each other anymore." No way, she decided, could it go on like this.
The next morning she called Bernd again - "a horrible situation, because I thought, now he's probably in bed with his lover." She suggested going to a counseling center together. Bernd was not enthusiastic. He hated "psychologist babble". But also felt that they needed professional support: "I could not talk to Monika at all normal, even in the time before the separation was like that, with each word of mine it exploded and has insulted me guilty conscience and would have liked to be pressed for any meeting. " But he did not want to lose the children, that was one hundred percent clear to him.
Bernd and Monika went to the "separation coaching" with a mediator, for ten weeks, always Thursday night. "That was our salvation", Monika is convinced. Bernd also believes: "Without this woman, we would have argued at every delivery - a horror for the children." That Monika and Bernd share custody, but the children would live with their mother, they agreed immediately. Monika had been home all those years, Bernd had been working in his architectural firm for at least twelve hours a day - "I would not have dreamed of fighting the kids," he says.
With the help of the mediator, they found arrangements: Monika would return to the house with the children, Bernd look for an apartment. Every second weekend the children should be with him, during the holidays one would deny one another. Bernd would pay the statutory maintenance for Monika and the children.And after some time she would be looking for a part-time job as a medical assistant.
Everything perfect so? Monika shakes her head vigorously: "It is and remains a tightrope walk." And a damn long process. Because the realization "We remain parents, even if we are no longer a couple" for practical implementation in everyday life, it is a huge step. Monika knows that having children as close to her father as possible helps the children. On the other hand, she sometimes found the "Daddy Weekends" a torment. Mediation did not help her with her own hurt feelings.
In the beginning she was annoyed at Bernd's changing girlfriends - three different in the first two years after the break-up. Often they were there when the girls visited Bernd. The children are coming too short, Monika feared. She still thinks it is "pretty much wrong what he expected them to do". "Complete boost," says Bernd. "We did something together, but I also took a lot of time exclusively for the children."
A little jealousy also played along, Monika admits frankly. Carefully, she began questioning the children after the weekends. What had been there for breakfast, what the women looked like, how Bernd dealt with the women and the women with the children. The result was actually not disturbing, on the contrary: the girls were looking forward to the weekends, the girlfriends all found "nice". What could she have opposed?
But then Anna told one evening that she could not sleep properly at the weekend, because Bernd's girlfriend in the next room had "always squeaked so funny". Monika responded immediately - "okay, maybe a bit hysterical," she says today. She wrote a fire e-mail. The printed version is still in her diary: "I do not want your children to visit you when you visit one of your numerous wives." For sex education, it would be too early for both of them, I would say. What is more important to you - your children or your wife's stories. " Bernd called immediately. Blinded by rage. He shouted, "Keep out of my business, I do not control who's with you!"
Two weeks later, on Friday night, he picked up his daughters as if nothing had happened. His girlfriend was in the car. Monika saw this as a provocation - and remembers: "That was one of the moments when I felt absolutely powerless, where I thought: God, I would like him to disappear completely from my life." But Anna and Lisa came back in a good mood. Told about the fun picnic by the lake. The children were obviously fine.
The painstakingly balanced balance is temporarily reeling when Monika meets a new man. This time it's Bernd who is worried: "I was scared, they build their nice little family there, and I'm superfluous," he describes his feelings. When Lisa talks about the nice "Fred", who is so patient with repairing children's cassettes, he hisses, "Then let him adopt you!" Totally stupid, he finds today. Lisa did not know what to adopt. Anna understood exactly what it was about. She snuggled against her father and muttered, "Do not have to be angry, you're the most darling." Bernd had to laugh.
We are separated, we are different, but the children should not suffer, said Monika and Bernd again and again. A tedious learning process. Monika continues to find it difficult to accept Bernd's way of life and upbringing. She thinks he behaves "way too casual". She finds enough examples: he does not care whether the daughters practice their musical instruments and how much sweets they eat. He lets the children walk home two kilometers from the outdoor pool alone. Why not, Bernd counters, after all, they are old enough. He thinks, "Monika is a bit of a scare-monger, she's making a big mess about things she could solve on her own, I'm not going to let myself in. If the kids are with me, I'll fix everything without Monika."
Monika starts working in a doctor's office four mornings a week. Every Wednesday Bernd takes care of lunch, picks up Lisa and Anna from school, brings them home in the evening. Slowly Bernd and Monika find a way to exchange about difficult topics. Often by e-mail. "That's not as emotional as on the phone," says Monika. "She can not explode right there," he jokes. And he too has time to relax when he gets angry. For example, by emailing him, he should pay for the cost of Anna's cello lessons. The next day, Bernd drives by Monika, drinks a cup of coffee and says, "OK, but why do you have to write this in command?" He's right, Monika admits.
And actually, she has to admit it - albeit reluctantly - that Bernd's totally different style sometimes does the two girls really well. Like the story with the summer holidays. Bernd made a three-week trip to Romania with his daughters.They were traveling by train and lodging on a farm in Bukovina. Monika had been against this journey. No sea, no playmates, only horses, meadows and pastures. Deadly for the girls, she found. And the medical care? Under all sow! "Why," she grumbled, "do not you just go to Italy to the beach - that would be much more fun for the two of them!"
Bernd was not deterred. And Anna was annoyed about her mother: "But we want to go to Romania with Dad!" They drove. And there were no problems at all. Bernd was even able to motivate his daughters to go on longer hikes, learned to ride horses and burn liquor schnapps, and all three of them thought up a Romanian-German thriller on long evenings under the magnificent starry sky, with which they would one day become famous. "The girls returned enthusiastically and raved about their holidays with their dad at school," Monika admits. She has even apologized to Bernd for her "Miesmacherei".
Together, the couple has recently visited various high schools in Tübingen to find the best school for Anna. And next they want to plan together Anna's communion, as a big family party. The children should be present during the preparations. They love it when their parents sit together and talk to each other in a relaxed way. Friends instead of enemies are.
book tips
E. Mavis Hetherington, John Kelly: "Divorce - The Perspectives of Children" (Beltz 2003, 19,90 Euro)
Sigrid Born, Nicole Würth: "ZDF WISO Divorce Advisor" (Ueberreuter 2003, 15,90 Euro)
John Haynes u. a .: "Divorce without losers, family mediation in practice" (Kösel 2002, 19,95 Euro)
At the IAF (Tel. 069/713 75 60) there are (in each case including dispatch and postage) the brochures "separation and divorce binationaler pairs" (11,40 euro) and "accompanied handling" (10 euro)
"Single parenting tips and information", for 5 euros to refer to: Association of single mothers and fathers, Federal Association, Tel. 030/69 59 786
Jochem Schausten: "Separation, Divorce, Maintenance for Men" (Haufe 2002, 16,80 Euro)
