New York, Actually (From Manhattan with Love 4)

“Excuse me?”

“Lately it’s been harder for me. My personal experience is coloring my professional life. It’s creeping in, so that mostly I don’t notice. Then I’ll react differently than usual. A little more extreme. A little less detached.”

“And that’s usually when you’re dealing with cases involving children?”

“I’ve spent my career dealing with cases involving children. I don’t know why this is happening now.”

She was silent for a moment. “Sometimes something happens in the present that makes us think about the past. For example, if you were dealing with a case that mirrored your own childhood experience, that might make it harder than usual to stay detached. Because whether you like it or not, you’re bringing your personal experience, and feelings, to the situation.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” His voice was husky. “I’m particularly sensitive to cases where child custody is used as a threat.”

“You mean when one party threatens to deny the other access in order to manipulate the marital situation?”

“Yes. And I worry about the damage that witnessing conflict does to a child.”

Molly took a sip of her wine, marveling at how comfortable she felt with him. “Conflict in a relationship isn’t necessarily bad. What’s more important is the way the conflict is played out and resolved. When kids witness their parents fighting, but then resolving the fight, it reassures them. That’s not disturbing in the way that other marital conflicts might be.”

He frowned. “Such as?”

“For example where one parent just gives in. That isn’t resolution, that’s avoidance.”

“Wait—” he lifted his hand “—you’re saying screaming rows can be good?”

“Obviously it’s better if there isn’t screaming, because screaming doesn’t exactly create a calm and positive environment for children and it can be scary, but if the argument is heated and leads to a clear resolution that the child can see, then yes, it would be widely recognized that it might not be so damaging. If one parents screams at another and the response is that the other parent walks out and doesn’t come home for three days, and then there is no discussion, or resolution, that’s likely to be more harmful.”

“Because they don’t see it resolved.” He listened attentively. “They get all the tension, but never see it fixed.”

“That’s right. If one parent continually capitulates and the atmosphere is fraught with unspoken resentment, that’s more harmful than an explosion that clears the air and ends in a resolution. A child doesn’t understand what’s happening. There’s uncertainty, fear, insecurity.”

“So it’s all about resolution.” He put his wineglass down. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Seeing parents argue is a lesson for life. We experience conflict all the time. Not just with partners, but with friends and in the workplace. Learning how to handle conflict is a life skill, and it’s a life skill that’s ideally learned in the home, in a safe forgiving environment. Good parents will show their children how to resolve conflict in a positive, healthy way where both sides feel heard. That way the child goes out into the world and they resolve conflict the same way. It’s self-perpetuating.”

“So what’s your view when a couple aren’t good at resolving conflict in a healthy way? You’re saying their child grows up unable to solve conflict?”

“It’s not quite as simple and linear as that, but yes, that’s always a possible outcome. Maybe they’re afraid of expressing an opposite point of view in case the other person becomes upset. If they’ve seen a parent never argue back, but bottle up resentment, that may be the only way they know to deal with conflict. They walk away instead of dealing with it in a calm, mature fashion.”

“Or maybe they go the opposite way and they’re the aggressor.”

Was he thinking about his father? “That, too. But sometimes what they don’t learn from parents they can learn from other people around them. Siblings. Schoolmates. So it isn’t necessarily cause and effect.”

He let out a long breath. “You know a hell of a lot.”

“It’s my job. I’m sure you know a hell of a lot about yours.”

“So do you deal with this sort of stuff on a daily basis?”

“To a degree. I’m not as deeply involved as you are. I skim the surface. I’ve written blogs on handling conflict within a marriage.” She almost mentioned her new book, and then realized that would steer the con

versation to a place she wasn’t ready to go. Not yet. It was too soon. The relationship was too new and that was a part of her life she wasn’t ready to share. “It’s an important issue. You can’t spend the rest of your life with someone who doesn’t listen to you, who tramples over your views and your hopes.”

“That was what happened to my mother. My father was a control freak with anger management problems. It took very little to set him off. If my mother disagreed with him, he’d explode. If she tried to voice a view he didn’t share, the outcome was the same. If she wore something he didn’t like, smiled in a way that annoyed him—” He broke off, staring at the glass in his hand. “What you said just now—I hadn’t thought of it that way. That conflict in the home can be good for a child. I think I’m naturally wary about advocating to keep children in what I see as a destructive family environment.”

“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m sure there are plenty of times when a child would be better off if the parents divorced. But simply witnessing conflict isn’t necessarily one of them.” She watched him. “I gather your parents weren’t good at conflict resolution.”

“Does throwing plates at the wall count?”

She felt a stab of sympathy. “I suppose it’s one way to go about it. That must have been pretty scary to witness.”