Journaling Prompts for Divorcing or Separating with Children
Divorcing when children are involved layers grief and complexity in ways that divorce without children simply doesn't. There's your own loss to grieve, and simultaneously the weight of what this means for your children, the impossible work of co-parenting with someone you're separating from, and the guilt that almost every parent in this situation carries regardless of the circumstances. Writing won't make the logistics simpler or the emotions smaller. But it can give you a space to process what's actually yours—your grief, your fear, your guilt, your hope—separate from what you're managing for everyone else.
Journaling Prompts
What is the hardest part of this separation as a parent—not as a person going through a divorce, but specifically as a parent? What worries you most about your children in this?
What do you tell yourself about what this is doing to your children? Is that story accurate, or is it carrying more guilt than the evidence supports?
What do you need right now that you're not able to access because all of your energy is going toward the children and the logistics? What have you put on hold about your own grief?
What kind of co-parenting relationship do you want in five years? Not what's possible now in the rawness of it—but what you want eventually. What would have to happen to move toward that?
What do you want your children to know, one day when they're older, about this period—about you, about the decision, about how you tried to protect and love them through it?