The Silent Struggles of Divorced Parents, Especially Around the Holidays - Interview with Dr. Eran Magen

In this episode, Dr. Eran Magen discusses the challenges faced by men going through divorce, emphasizing the importance of support systems, emotional well-being, and the impact of parenting on children's lives. He shares insights on how men can navigate the emotional turmoil of divorce, reconstruct their self-image, and find joy in life post-divorce. The discussion also covers strategies for managing conflict, dealing with false allegations, and the significance of building a supportive community. Dr. Magen provides practical advice for men to enhance their mental health and well-being during difficult times and especially around the holiday season.

Takeaways

• The relationship between parents and children is crucial for emotional development.
• Men are at a higher risk of suicide during and after divorce.
• Support systems are essential for men to cope with emotional challenges.
• Loneliness is a significant issue for men, especially post-divorce.
• It's important for men to allow themselves to be happy outside of parenting.
• Children are sensitive to their parents' emotional states.
• Scheduling fun activities can improve mental health and well-being.
• It's okay to have bad days; they are part of the healing process.
• 988 is a vital resource for those in crisis or needing support.
• Building a supportive community can help men navigate divorce

www.divorcingdads.org/

www.instagram.com/dadtodads

Transcript

Robert (00:41)
Dr. Aaron Magen welcome to the podcast and happy holidays to you.

Eran Magen, PhD (00:44)
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me here.

Robert (00:47)
Man, I appreciate it. So tell me this. Tell me what exactly do you do? How you assist guys? And if you don't mind providing a little bit of background of how you got into that as well.

Eran Magen, PhD (00:57)
Sure. Let's see. The really fast forward version of my life is both my parents were born in Israel, were in the US for a few years during which my sister was born than me. And then when I was less than a year old back to Israel and I grew up there, did military service, came to the US, did some social work, went to graduate school in California at Stanford and got my master's in education, then my PhD in psychology, and then went and did postdoctoral work and

population health and then worked for a while at the counseling center there. And then after that, started my own company, And this company does suicide prevention work.

So we work primarily with universities. It started out just with medical schools. There's a lot of suicide in medical schools and expanded since to other kind of high pressure programs, law and pharmacy and dentistry and so on. And then this year we started working with the Veterans Affairs Administration. So working with veterans on the same kind of thing. For a long time now, since really the middle of graduate school, I was very interested in how

people support people, And over time, my interest in that specifically started focusing on parenting and how parents can build strong, supportive relationships with their kids. Because I believe really deeply that the most important

relationship that exists is between parents and kids because it shapes the rest of the kids' lives in really important ways.

So on the one hand, I do this suicide prevention work. On the other hand, I'm doing parenting, parenting education, And then in 2019, my son's mom and I separated and I went through a few very, very difficult years. And I leaned very hard.

on my friends and I was very, very lucky and I remain very, very grateful for having had such an amazing support system and it was still very hard. And part of the way that I make meaning when I go through really difficult times is I start writing down lessons to help the next person who's going to be tumbling down that same path and just try to make it a little bit smoother. It just helps me feel better as I go through it, right? Thinking, well, at somebody is going to benefit from

Robert (02:56)
Yeah.

Eran Magen, PhD (03:16)
And so once I got my head kind of out of the water and my feet back under me, I thought this is really something I want to expand on and started doing a little more research into it and learned that divorcing dads are a very high risk population for death by s*****e suicide. You know, if you're a man going through divorce, your risk of s*****e suicide doubles, which means that you are now at eight times

the likelihood of dying by s*****e suicide compared to a woman. For women, that risk does not increase as a result of divorce.

Robert (03:52)
Let me stop you from it. Why do you think that is?

Eran Magen, PhD (03:54)
I think at the very core of it, men in the US tend to not have really close, supportive relationships with other people. And they tend to focus a lot of their energy on work, where they're not close and personal and vulnerable with people, and on their family. And once you take away the family, the average man ends up in total freefall, relationally.

not knowing where to look for support, not knowing how to take care of themselves sometimes, not knowing how to reach out for support, feeling ashamed about needing support. And then you get people just withdrawing and only being locked in the echo chamber that's in their head. And maybe even worse, sometimes getting really negative messages from possibly their ex or kind of people around that story. It's not always the case, but when that's the case, it's...

It's really easy to imagine a path to just complete despondency and total hopelessness.

Robert (04:58)
Yeah, I think I totally agree with you. And that's what I was thinking as well. You know, I had a guy on here, not too long ago, Rod Richard, and we were talking about it he was talking about a recent study he had read. And I think it was since COVID the average man has 1.5 friends. It's not a support system. That's, that's not a group that you can lean on. And so if you think, mean,

I think of myself and there's probably four or five really close buddies I could go to. So let's just say I have five.

That means if we're averaging that out, there's some men with nobody to turn to. If we're looking, if we're to get to that 1.5, there's men with nobody to turn to that don't have anybody to turn to. So I totally agree with you there. I totally do. And I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I was just, when you talked about that, was curious as to your thoughts on it. I didn't want to go away from it.

Eran Magen, PhD (05:55)
I do think it's a really important point and there are a lot of people who don't have confidants People that they can just talk with without any filtering, talk about things that feel shameful, talk about things that feel hard. Lots of people don't have anybody. There are terrifying national surveys about this and you know the Surgeon General famously wrote a book about the loneliness epidemic.

and what it's doing now and loneliness is tough and I think it's experienced more by men because men

have this difficult combination of lacking the skills, often, of building this kind of a good social network. And also the gender role, the gender stereotype is such that men are discouraged from building and having these kinds of vulnerable close relationships. And so of course, they also don't develop the skills. And of course, at times of need, it's

harder for them to go and reach out for support. And I'm talking, of course, in generalities and averages, and some women are different and some men are different. But if you look at the kind of distribution of vulnerability among men and the distribution of close vulnerable relationships among women, you'll find women in the lead to men's great detriment. I mean, I'm saying the lead, but it's not a competition. Everybody can have close relationships. This is not a zero sum game. And men are just not great at that. And so when you

Robert (06:59)
Right, right.

Eran Magen, PhD (07:24)
take away this really important sense of.

I'll say it again. When you take away this really important source of a sense of meaning that men have by being part of the family, maybe a provider, maybe a caretaker, whatever it is, you take away this family and maybe the only people that they get to experience these strong emotions with, positive or negative, and don't have a good support system in place. It's sadly predictable that.

Many men will go through an extremely hard time and some of them will see no way out, feel totally hopeless and eventually decide that they're better off not alive and maybe their kids are better off not having them in their lives because the negative messages are just easy to listen to.

Robert (08:09)
Wow. And as men too, we don't reach out to therapy. I mean, we just not, not as often as women do. And, I know it's harder for us to, to really seek that help. And we have this within us that we can do it. We can handle ourself, try to tough it out as someone that's also gone through divorce. I mean, it's tough. You can't do it by yourself. I mean, I was, I was fortunate where

When I was going through it, thought, I started thinking, and what do I want around me? I can get a bunch of yes men to tell me what I want to hear.

Or I can get people to tell me what I need to hear. And it's something that I prayed about a lot. And it was really amazing just to the different ones that came into my life. And at times, you know, they would tell me, yep, you're spot on. That's accurate. Other times, you know, if they needed to kick me in the butt, if they needed to, you know, tell me, Hey, you need to change your, way you're thinking on that. They were there.

And we need that because you can't go through divorce by yourself. It's too tough. And when we mentioned divorce, we're talking about one of these that's contentious, not the, I've drawn up the papers, you sit down, it, y'all both sign it, everybody's agreeable. We're talking about more contentious. A lot of times where there's children involved as well

I think about we're right now in the middle of the holiday season. Holiday season brings up a lot of emotions, positive emotions, negative emotions. I know for me at times when you're not with your children or when you know you're not going to be with your children during the holidays or just for

partial part of the holidays, especially early on in divorce, you can, man, it can take you to some low places and that's for men or women. But not just, I would love to talk about the holidays, but just in general, what are some of the things that you see coming in that men are dealing with?

Eran Magen, PhD (10:10)
to the extent that we're talking about specifically contentious divorces, where often both parties are saying uncharitable things about each other. One type of problem is when we wonder if our ex is right.

Are we in fact horrible people? Are we bad or difficult in all these ways?

And that, whether or not we end up realizing that the answer is yes or no, the period of figuring it out can be really difficult. And probably more often than not, the answer is partially true. it's, know, partially I'm these things that I didn't realize are partial and partially not. But there's a lot of kind of reconstructing of self-image.

and self-concept that happens during this time because so much of our self-concept gets wrapped into our relationship with the person who's supposed to be the person closest to us who knows us best and so on and what happens when they suddenly start seeing us very differently or tell us that they see us very differently. So that's one enormous struggle.

coming up with a new self-image that somehow integrates this potentially really negative feedback from this person that we were closest to. So that's one. I think a lot of men really spend a lot of time thinking about the fairness or unfairness of what is happening and what is about to happen. And I think that the...

I think that the proxies that people use most often to signal who's right are money and time with kids. So these two things end up taking on an enormous meaning that is far beyond what they actually are.

What do mean I have to pay this person after everything that I already did or after everything that this person did to me? Now I also have to pay them. Does that mean that this other person is right? Does the system think that this person is more justified than me or acted more correctly? Which means I'll fight that much harder for the system to change its mind. And maybe I'll succeed, maybe not, but usually the fight comes at great cost. All because

of associating consciously or not consciously who gets more money or who gets money with who the system perceives as the victim, who the system perceives as the aggressor or the right person. Time with kids is even worse.

Robert (12:26)
Mm-hmm.

Eran Magen, PhD (12:28)
because now in the same way, the system decides who gets more time with the kids and what does that mean? Is the system saying who's the better parent? Is the system saying who was the aggressor and who was the victim? Is the system saying who deserves time with the kids or deserves any kind of consideration? And...

Robert (12:35)
Right.

Eran Magen, PhD (12:52)
I've come to believe that orienting to justice

is rarely a good idea about kind of smaller matters. It's important to have justice in the world, I think. But there's a certain kind of flavor to this motivation that we might experience, this like sudden impulse to like grab an issue and not let go. There's a particular flavor when the motivation is it's just not fair. And when I, when I

Robert (13:05)
Mm-hmm.

True.

Eran Magen, PhD (13:22)
catch a whiff of that particular motivation, I do my very best if it's for myself or with somebody else to take a step back and say, setting aside the issue of fairness, what are other implications? The fairness is real. Of course, things can be egregious and absolutely not okay and unfair and unjust. But setting that aside, will seeing my son

30 minutes later or a day later. Change anything in my life other than my hurt sense of justice.

And the things that come up at that point usually matter a lot more. And being able to take a step back and kind of relax, I think often lets us make decisions that are better for us and better for our kids, even in the medium term. So just learning to let go of some of desperate need for justice and perfect fairness can really smooth the way. But anyhow, you're asking for like a list of the problems. And so one is...

this change in self-concept and needing to reconstruct a self-concept. The other is this enormous sense of wrongness and unfairness that happens. Another, which is really subtle, is that I think a lot of men...

Don't believe.

It's okay for them to be happy and take care of themselves.

outside of this whole divorce thing and in particular when it comes to kids, I think a lot of men that I speak with don't feel like it's okay for them to be happy when they're not with their kids.

It's supposed to hurt when you're not with the people that you love and want to be with and that you're maybe denied access to. You're supposed to feel bad, aren't you? And this is a huge obstacle to being happy, right? Just attaching completely all of our joy in life to this one thing that we don't have perfect control over.

Robert (14:57)
Wow.

Eran Magen, PhD (15:19)
and becoming this, I call this a jack-in-the-box dad, right? Where we're with the kids and we're like, sprightly and happy and we're awesome and things are great, then they leave and then we just kind of withdraw into our box and sit there crumpled, waiting until the next time that they come. But really, not a lot of life is happening in between time with the kids, for example. I think that's another really, really pernicious issue. It's not attempting to create an enjoyable life.

outside of dealing with the kind of fairness issues, the fallout from the divorce.

Robert (15:51)
Wow. That is so sad. And I can see that with different ones that I know. And I've seen that lead to a spiral of drinking and then heavily drinking and just their whole self worth just spiraling down the drain as they go. And in turn, unfortunately, what I've seen happen,

is because of that, that leaks in over to the time when they do have with their kid, because eventually you can't get a hold of that. And in, and in turn that ends up impacting negatively impacting the relationship with their children.

Eran Magen, PhD (16:31)
Yeah, yeah, and even if we can sort of hold it together when we're with the kids, but we fall apart not with them, kids are telepathic, right? Like they'll pick it up and then you start creating all kinds of issues for your kids. Because now they feel guilty. When they leave, dad gets really sad or you know, something. And that's not great to put on them either. And at any rate, what kind of model do we want to provide for them for the kind of adult they can grow up to be?

Robert (16:41)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Eran Magen, PhD (17:01)
I'd like my son to believe that he can be happy and satisfied kind of no matter what. That his happiness does not depend on one particular person. That there are fun, interesting, meaningful things to do and that if there aren't, that's okay. And there are other things to do during this time, right? I want to teach him all of this. And the main way that kids learn is by example.

Robert (17:01)
That's it.

Totally agree, And the thing is, everybody's going to get knocked down in life, whether you stay married or not. You're going to lose a job. Something's going to happen. You're going to be negatively impacted in your life more than likely. And teaching your kids how to deal with that. And I looked at it

How do you want your kids to see this? how do you want to, your kids are watching you as an example. And when they're faced with these things, do you want them to crumble? Do you want them to, you know, sit and wallow in misery? Or do you want to, or do you want them to pick themselves up, you know, brush themselves off and.

get back in there, know, improve themselves, get back in the fight. And I think that's a kid. You're, right. Kids do watch whether you're, whether you say it or not, it's amazing how much children can pick up, whether it's telepathically, whether it's seeing your facial expressions, your body language, they watch you all the time and they can also hear it in your voice. They're, they're sponges, little spies.

Eran Magen, PhD (18:32)
Yeah, yeah. And I think the given just how perceptive they are, I think there's really no point in trying to happiness and trying to fake being okay. Like it really takes the work. Like we need to figure out ways to actually become okay and then better than okay and figure out ways to flourish in order to convey all this to them, in order for them to learn all these things.

We need to get okay and part of getting okay is learning to be happy on our own separately from everything happening around the divorce, the money, the kids, whatever it is that's getting disputed, the things other people say about me or don't say about me. To learn to be okay with those things. And it's nice because there's no compromise here. It's actually good for us and it's good for the kids. We're not picking one or the other. It's just good for everybody. so very often, one of the most important...

things I have to say to divorcing dads is start making your life better. Let's think about ways to just have you enjoy your life more and not focus on like the tactics, you know, the fights and the just, what do we do to actually enjoy life right now?

Robert (19:44)
What are some of the ways that I'm kind of jumping ahead? But what are some of the ways to make your life more enjoyable?

Like if you want to give me three or four just that quickly come to mind that men can work on.

Eran Magen, PhD (19:57)
Number one, by far and away, is spend time with people that make you feel good. And you can't really walk down the street and just snap your fingers and have a new best friend materialize. But there are things you can do to spend more time with people that make you feel good. So joining any kind of a positive community. You wanna join a martial arts group, you wanna join a running group, you wanna join a painting group.

You want to go to a chess club. You want to go to an archery range. You want to go to, you know, volunteer at the pet shelter, whatever is a thing that you actually like, especially because these are so community oriented. Thank you. Yeah. So not, not a specific activity, right? But kind of a mindset and an orientation to life. So wherever you can go that you're ideally something you've been curious about for awhile and didn't do or remember really enjoying doing 15 years ago. And where did that go in my life? You have time now use it.

Robert (20:32)
church, temple, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah.

Eran Magen, PhD (20:53)
And so to go and join some kind of a community and just multiple times a week come to a place where people are happy to see you. They smile when you come, you smile at them. You're happy to see them. That makes an enormous difference. So that's by far and away, the most important thing, connect with people that make you feel good. Once you're there, pursue friendships. You see somebody who seems cool.

you know, you think you'll enjoy time together, suggest spending time together. It's a little awkward. Think of it as practicing for dating later, whatever, you know, you need to do in your head, but just most people want more friends. Most people don't have enough friends, not because they already have 70, but because they have one and that person is sometimes not available. So you'll be doing the other person a great favor too.

If you feel that you have like a nice connection and you're like, Hey, do you want to go whatever, right? Get some hot cocoa. You want to go on a hike, you want to whatever it is. People are so happy when this happens, but in order for this to happen, you have to meet people. So that's kind of step two is like make friends and spend time with them. I think at a tactical level, it's about scheduling time with people that make you feel good, whether it's friends or communities.

actually putting it in your calendar. And even putting it in your calendar strategically. There were times when my son, before we got to shared custody, he would have dinner here and then would leave. His mom would pick him up. And it was so sad after he left every time. So sad about the everything, right? It's unfair and I miss him and I, and you know, it kind of grew in my mind. it was, and then I realized like everything I said before, this is not great.

Robert (22:38)
Yeah, yeah.

Eran Magen, PhD (22:45)
for him, like I need to change this. I don't want to get sad. I was kind of barely holding it together until he left. And then I shut the door and started crying. Like, that's not good. I mean, of course he's going to pick up on something. And so I started scheduling. I realized that there was a class I've been wanting to take in the area, jujitsu class that starts 30 minutes after he leaves. Transit time is 20 minutes. Perfect. So like as soon as he would leave, I would like go in, change, get in the car, start driving and

it completely changed the experience of separating from him. Cause now I'm going towards something, not just away from something. And so to strategically schedule things that are fun, you're going to have like some bad tense interaction that you're expecting schedule time with a friend for afterwards, whatever it is. So schedule fun regularly in your schedule and then schedule schedule ad hoc pick me ups, particularly after times that you expect to be difficult. So that's

the number one thing in terms of feeling better. Spend time with people that make you feel good.

Robert (23:47)
Yeah. I was in the same place. So when the boys would leave, when my sons would leave, you, it's easy to get in that already missing them and you're going in their room, straightening stuff, whatever it may be, picking up their iPad. And it's like, you start really start missing them. And I, after a few times, it's like, all right, I got to get out of the house. I'm going to start. I literally, man, when they would leave it's.

All right. Get my gym clothes together. Within 10 minutes I was gone. I was making sure I was in the gym. I was out of the house, go there, get everything out of me for an hour and a half. So then when I come back, you know, I'm physically exhausted and in a way mentally more refreshed and in a place where I could help myself or, you know, in a place where I could get through it a lot easier. Totally agree.

Totally agree is keep, keep yourself busy and schedule something. And I, it's funny, I've never heard anybody else say the same thing about quickly shifting to another gear, but I do believe that. Yeah.

Eran Magen, PhD (24:57)
Yeah, rewiring the meaning of these stressful events, right? So at some point it shifted to me. I was shocked to realize when I was looking forward.

to 6 p.m. because that meant I'm gonna go to this class that I really enjoy. And like I finally succeeded in just rewiring and the association with that, you what was before a really dreaded hour. So that's number one. Yeah, spend time with people that you enjoy in terms of feeling better. Number two is fight less.

Robert (25:13)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eran Magen, PhD (25:31)
recognize the cost of fighting.

Some things are not worth fighting over even when you're right. To fight is to lose a friend. And this I think is especially, let me say it differently.

Robert (25:40)
That's a point.

Eran Magen, PhD (25:46)
This is something that friends are especially helpful with, or possibly therapists or a support group, people to help us recognize what's not worth fighting over. Because this is where we can get really, become, this is where we can become real prisoners of our need for justice, need for fairness, or just our fears that are maybe not realistic, right? The fear that our kids will not remember us, or fear that this...

one event that is so important we won't have with them and then they won't have childhood experiences, it's just easy to spiral. Right? And friends can say, calm down. Like it's his third birthday, he's not gonna remember it in two years, nobody cares. know, lay down tracks for a better future, but don't go nuts over what's happening right now, it's not actually that critical. So learning when to let go. Picking your battles very carefully and trying to pick as few battles as possible.

Robert (26:25)
Right, right.

Eran Magen, PhD (26:42)
That's number two.

And then number three is kind of related to number one. Just make it your goal to enjoy your life, whatever form that takes for you. Right? And not have your divorceness be the center of your identity.

There's a guy that I spoke with for a long time throughout his divorce and later that's what became the podcast that I do. That was kind of season one, his journey, like the first year and a half through the divorce. And one of the first things that he did, I had suggested doing something like that and he really took it and ran with it. And I said, what's a thing that you wish your kid did if he was facing?

this kind of hardship as an adult. How would you want to take care of your kid or what do you wish your kid did for himself during this time? And so next time we spoke, he told me he booked this like very serious overseas trip to a place that he's been wanting to go to for a very long time, like fairly exotic. And he went there and he came back and he loved it. And it really was a qualitative shift in his journey. First, because he realized he can do this for himself.

Robert (27:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eran Magen, PhD (27:56)
he can really do these amazing things for himself now, partly because he doesn't have his kids around all the time, which is a very tough thing, right, for newly divorced dads to realize that it's okay to enjoy time without the kids, like, there's such guilt with it. Yeah, that word came out simultaneously from our mouths, but that's exactly it, And once you learn that it's okay to enjoy yourself without your kids, it's...

Robert (28:06)
Right, right. There is that guilt. Right, right. Yeah.

Have we been there before?

Eran Magen, PhD (28:23)
it's liberating and suddenly you realize, I'm kind of living the dream of many married dads, right? I just get time to myself and time with my kids. It's kind of amazing. Anyway, one of the big, yeah.

Robert (28:33)
And let me stop you from it. And I don't know about in your case, but in my case,

better quality time with your kids as well. Yeah.

Eran Magen, PhD (28:40)
for sure, hyper-focused, right? Being able to set aside everything else and just focus on our kids. Amazing, such quality time that often doesn't exist because, know, when you, this usually happens kind of in a work context or in a study context. I remember when I was at the counseling center and I would work with students who were trying to study and having a hard time concentrating and they were like, do I have ADD? And I don't know what to do. And I just asked them,

some questions about their work schedule, their study schedule, and they said, well, I just study all the time until I fall asleep, just morning to evening. And that's not a study schedule, right? That's a schedule for doing nothing. So I'm a firm believer that if you're doing something all the time, you're doing it never, really. Like you need the off times and you need the start times. And I think in...

Robert (29:20)
Right. Right.

Eran Magen, PhD (29:31)
for parents who have their kids all the time, with whom I would often happily trade places. It also comes with a cost of having to really struggle to find the quality time, because it's there all the time. You could at any time have quality time. And so you almost never do. Whereas, right, when you only see your kids some of the time, it becomes this hyper-focused time. Some parents, some divorced dads that I speak with still struggle with this. They're still trying to multitask. They're still trying to figure out, you know,

How do I occupy my child while doing this really important thing, often having to do with the divorce and with them I work on focusing on their kids and just realizing that this is such a gift, the time that you have with them and the ability to focus on it, just set everything off the side, just enjoy being a parent instead of saying, now I have to figure out what to do with them for two hours, which is the thing people say while fighting desperately to have more time with the kids, instead to say, hey, we have two hours together, how fun.

Robert (30:19)
Right.

All right.

Eran Magen, PhD (30:27)
I like my kid, like this is gonna be a great time. We're gonna figure it out.

loop back to what I was saying before. So after that guy took that trip and came back, one of the things that made a big difference for him is he realized that during the trip, when away from home and the home environment, he wasn't thinking himself as somebody going through a divorce. That was not his main identity. He was a guy traveling and this shift in self-concept really opened him up to enjoy life and he was able to bring that back as well.

But there's really a danger of, of sinking into this as the main part of our, of our self. going through this like difficult, ugly divorce and that defines my life. And I'm stressed all the time and I'm angry and I'm victimized and I'm, you know, missing my kids and sad all the time. this doesn't have to be your life. You can compartmentalize that, right? You can deal with it when you're dealing with it the rest of the time, just enjoy your life.

and invest in growing a life that you like. I'm saying it now, like it's a thing somebody can just decide to do. It took me a good three years to get to that point, right? Starting from the point of separation. was a very difficult three years. But the goal, the striving was to build a life that I enjoy.

Robert (31:42)
you do feel like, or I did feel like after my divorce for a while, that I had a big scarlet D on my forehead and that that was my identity. He's divorced, he's tarnished, he's whatever, failed at marriage, and that's tough. That's tough to move on from, it is. And think it takes time.

takes a lot of work as well and couldn't agree more. You know, I haven't thought about that. till you brought it up.

But it does, it takes a lot of, it takes some effort to get through that, to get over that and to not let the divorce define who you are as a person or your identity.

Eran Magen, PhD (32:27)
And you said it really nicely too about this kind of shame about having gone through a divorce, failed at marriage, right? And that's a big reason why a lot of men don't seek out support is because of that sense of shame. I like, I must have done something very wrong. Or at the very least, I was not an attractive enough partner. And...

not wanting to talk about it. And it starts even earlier, of course, because divorces rarely happen out of the blue. And so if you're a person who has a good support network and people are comfortable talking with and sharing with vulnerably, which is more women than men, then as things are going sideways and then decidedly south and then clearly off the rails, the whole time you're having

Robert (32:55)
Right.

Eran Magen, PhD (33:19)
people close to you who love you and support you and are informed and are participating and encouraging and so men are just sitting there right inside that out of control train car slowly careening into the cliff hoping it's going to be fine arguing against the laws of gravity at some point and then once they're crashed on the bottom there's nobody like looking down seeing if they're okay because nobody knows this is happening they're going to work pretending everything's fine

Robert (33:44)
Right. Right.

Eran Magen, PhD (33:47)
So then they need to like start shouting up the mountain and hoping somebody hears them. It's hard. So there's never a bad time. It's always a good idea to have people close to you and to share with them about all the embarrassing things. And if you don't have people like that in your life, whether it's, you know, close friends or family or a priest, maybe a therapist, maybe a support group, like have somebody who's like actually informed about what's going on. And if there's nobody that was informed and something horrible happened, reach out anyway to somebody that

you think you might be able to trust, because most people feel very honored and are happy to help. earlier is better than later, although later is much better than never.

Robert (34:24)
No, totally agree. Totally agree. You know, I want to step back to something you said earlier. You were talking about, that maybe you've been told certain things about yourself and that kind of made me think about false allegations, you know, trash talking about your ex, you know, things that are just completely BS, but either you're led to believe these things or,

your group of friends, you know, that maybe you had shared with your ex, they're led to believe these things. How do you help somebody with that? How do you instruct them to deal with?

Eran Magen, PhD (35:02)
So you're saying like a situation when my ex maybe said bad things about me to mutual friends?

Robert (35:09)
Mutual friends and everything else, but you know, let's say you live in a neighborhood your exes Gone around the neighborhood and said you are completely worthless you're you know a horrible a Horrible dad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's all and it's all completely BS. Like how do you instruct men with that?

Eran Magen, PhD (35:20)
You did bad things, you were physically abusive, you stole money.

Robert (35:30)
Or what do you advise men to do?

Eran Magen, PhD (35:32)
few things one is many people outside of their relationship end up in a camp right they're going to be in your ex's camp or in your camp

And sometimes it doesn't matter what people think, which is very hard for those of us who are keenly justice, fairness and truth oriented. But sometimes you are better off just cutting your losses and not spending time trying to convince a lot of people who are very peripheral in your life about actual reality. I think it's okay to assert ourselves. think it's okay. Certainly if it comes up kind of full frontal before us and somebody says something that they heard,

respond to that i'll talk in a minute about how to respond to that but otherwise i don't think that we need to necessarily try to convince everybody that we're right right it takes takes a very little bit more than 50 percent of people in the country to make you a president right you don't need to convince 100 of them so that's okay so that's that's a very tough point to swallow for people again who are very

Robert (36:27)
Right, right.

Yeah.

Eran Magen, PhD (36:37)
prone to be justice, truth, and fairness oriented. But sometimes some people just don't matter. Let them think. The ex's family is often something that people are really worked up about. know, what do her parents think about me now? you know, now his sister is calling me and saying that this and that. Doesn't matter. It's their job to be on the other person's side. It's okay. Let it go. In terms of

Robert (36:54)
sure it is.

Eran Magen, PhD (37:00)
Accusations or characterizations that are leveled at us and make us doubt ourselves Self-doubt is healthy, even though it's very painful And probably a good sign right like the truly crazy people think they're perfectly sane if you have any doubts, you're probably fine and The true narcissists never ask themselves if they're narcissists so

Robert (37:12)
Right.

Right.

Eran Magen, PhD (37:20)
If somebody tells us things about ourselves that are very painful and very terrifying, it's okay to sit with them. It's okay to be terrified. It's okay to think about them and start reality testing. Check with those people and check just like you said, right? Maybe not just with the yes-ayers and the cheerleaders. Check with people who can give you some honest feedback. And if they're shocked and horrified at the characterizations made of you, then you're probably okay. But it's gonna take some time. But it's great to have our self-concept.

challenged like that. It's a huge growth opportunity one way or the other. Either we'll get stronger or we'll realize that we were not awesome and we need to work on something. But lean on other people to put other mirrors in front of you. Ultimately it's you who decide what you think about you. But just get more mirrors in front of you, not just the mirror from the one person who's most upset with you.

Robert (38:07)
That's it.

Eran Magen, PhD (38:12)
In terms of false information getting passed around to neighbors, to family members, to whatever it is, it's perfectly fine to address it head on. The trick is to not get angry and belligerent while doing it, to not go on an extreme counteroffense, in my opinion. It's just not helpful to attack the other person. In general, I'm a big believer in

Robert (38:31)
Right.

Eran Magen, PhD (38:42)
deescalating as much as possible. Again, to fight is to lose. It just doesn't help. To not go into extreme detail and try to prove everything and consider other people to be a courtroom and to make your case and just to speak from the heart and to say, know, it really upsets me to hear these things. It's...

Robert (38:54)
Pick your battles.

Eran Magen, PhD (39:08)
so different than how I'm seeing what happened. You I'm really afraid of losing you as a friend as a result of this. You know, I'd love to talk about what happened, but I also realize like a lot of details you may not want, but I just want to say as clearly as I can, you know, I did none of those things. I don't know where this is coming from. You and I have known each other for a long time. These are little speeches that can...

take some practice, it's okay to practice those things right in front of the mirror, literally, because there's an art to not exhausting the other person with pleading your case, but at the same time communicating really honestly and again, vulnerably about your fears and dismay about what's happening there. There are two other cases that I think are worth talking about regarding this particular thing. One is what happens when our ex says bad things about us to our kids, because that's terrifying. And the other is what happens

Robert (39:58)
Yeah, yeah.

Eran Magen, PhD (40:01)
with completely new people, right? Our kids are now starting a new school and there's like a group of new parents for the classroom or the school and we're worried that the other, you know, the ex is like sowing negative seeds around us or stuff like that. So I'll go maybe from the easier to the harder. In terms of entering new communities, especially through the kids, I think it's really important to be proactive. Not in the sense of,

Uh-uh, trash talking first. I don't think trash talking is a good idea ever. Ever. But, yes, make personal connections with people. Because first impressions count and last. Right? Be that guy. Arrange play dates with new parents. Arrange, you know, whatever, an activity. Maybe you want to join the PTO. Maybe something, right? But connect with other parents. Make sure that they have a first-hand impression of you.

before anything might happen. And nothing might happen either, but you know what? You might make a couple of friends along the way. How wonderful. And so make that sort of a strategic point of interacting with people in the environment that you don't want, that you're worried might be turned against you. Chances are they're not gonna be turned against you. Chances are your ex is not conducting a wide ranging campaign against you. But it...

Robert (40:57)
Right, true.

Eran Magen, PhD (41:16)
might happen, I just because we're paranoid doesn't mean we're wrong, right? And I do know some people whose exes conducted very significant negative terrifying campaigns against them. And so you sow positive seeds by just interacting with people in a positive way and just making a good first impression and again making friends where you can. So that's one. Go ahead.

Robert (41:35)
And don't you think over time they're going to figure that out too. Just be who you are. Be yourself. You don't have to go out there and prove that you're absolutely not who you're ex said.

I just feel if you're yourself and you're genuine over time, people are going to see who you are and accept you for who you are.

Eran Magen, PhD (41:56)
Yeah, 100%. I completely agree. And I think in reaching out to people, the goal is not to present some kind of a false front or pretend anything or just be your usual, mostly awesome human self. And people don't need to see you as the Messiah in order to then have a hard time believing that you're the Antichrist. You just need to be a nice person. And you said it really well.

Robert (42:18)
Right. Yep.

Eran Magen, PhD (42:25)
I would say exactly what you said with respect to the kids, especially. So if you're learning through the kids that your ex has been saying negative things about you, mostly it doesn't matter because they see you so much more deeply than anything they could be told about anyone.

you just need to keep being great with them. And if they say, well, know, mommy says that when we're gone, used a lawnmower to, you know, attack squirrels in the yard and then laugh maniacally as they die in front of you. I think, assuming you don't do that, I think the appropriate reaction is, huh, yeah, no, I never do that. Anyway.

What were we gonna do now? Like that's it, that's all it takes. Don't get defensive, don't get upset, don't make that the focus. Just, you know, it's outlandish, like, huh, that's strange, and then move on.

Robert (43:13)
Right, right, right.

Man, and kids figure that out too. They might not figure it out right away, but over time they do. I mean, they are at least, let's say the majority of the ones who haven't had an extreme form of parent alienation, haven't been subjected to an extreme form of parent alienation. They do figure it out. It might be years down the road, but they do. And they realize, hey,

Dad wasn't this way. know, dad wasn't somebody that was abusive or that yelled or didn't want to spend time with me. mean, they, they'll figure it out. Just be yourself, show, here's what I think. Be yourself, show love, focus on them, spend quality time with them. Be present when you're around them, not on your phone and just be the person you are. don't, I think this goes back to what you said about pick your battles too.

Cause I think it's very easy to get caught up in, you know, this war going back and forth of she called me what she said I did what, you know, no, I didn't, you know, let me tell you about her and, you don't want to go there and you don't want to go there for yourself. It's, it's, it's, nothing good's going to happen from that. And you also don't want to put your kids in the middle.

Eran Magen, PhD (44:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely not for the kids. The kids have only one job, right? Just to be the kids. And we need to be very careful not to give them other jobs like messengers or spies or judges. A lot of parents treat their kids as judges and want the kids to judge them positively relative to the other parent. It's like, that's not the kids' jobs. Leave them alone. Just have a good time with them.

Robert (44:43)
Yeah, that's it.

Right, right.

Yeah, no, no. Or being your therapist.

Eran Magen, PhD (45:00)
Right, leaning on them for support. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, they have only one job, to be kids, which means we have only one job, which is to be the parent. We are the one who set the emotional tone. We are the one who make sure that everybody's behaving appropriately and safely. We are the ones who offer help. We can model vulnerability and sharing and processing and all of that, but we don't lean.

on the kids. We're the parent and as long as we're the parent and they're the kids, it's probably going to be okay with them.

Robert (45:34)
That's great. And I tell you, I know I keep going back to it, but it's picking your battles. I mean, it really is. It's I think there are times when you need to go to war. If you want to say that.

Eran Magen, PhD (45:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Robert (45:48)
But it is picking your battles through all this. is this really, is this worth the fight it's gonna be and what might happen from there? Sometimes just knowing, okay, yeah, I know I was right about that. But you don't have to prove yourself.

Eran Magen, PhD (46:06)
Yeah, it's funny how one of the most important functions of a war council can be to say when to not engage. The role of the war council is not to just tell you how to fight everything. It's just thinking about what to fight. I think, again, for this function, friends are just so helpful, people that we can connect with and can tell us, just take a breath, you know, let's think about this before we roll out the artillery.

Robert (46:12)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I think that's great. What other I know we're kind of wrapping up here, but what other tips do you have for dads, maybe even during the holiday season if they're not with their kids, or just in general?

Eran Magen, PhD (46:44)
Tip number one is the short number that I hope everybody knows 988. 988 is the national crisis and suicide prevention line. They're available 24-7. It's free, it's confidential. You don't have to be suicidal to call them. You can just be very upset or kind of at your wit's end. Certainly if you're thinking about killing yourself, it's a good number to call. They're always there. They're excellent.

and it's free and it's there and you're paying for it with your taxes anyway so may as well so 9 8 8 it's always there always there if you're having a tough moment call them you don't have to be in anything extreme it's just a bunch of nice well-trained people who genuinely want to listen and help so if you're kind of an extremist that's the number to remember so that's the first thing i hope people remember 9 8 8 the second maybe starting with

Robert (47:17)
I didn't realize that.

Eran Magen, PhD (47:43)
what I, maybe finishing with what I started. Schedule, fun.

schedule fun ideally with people that make you feel good. This can happen over the phone, over Zoom, in person, outdoors, indoors, whatever works. Predictable, controllable, predetermined fun. Especially during times you expect to feel low. Be proactive about it. So I think that's very good for the holidays. If you're expecting to be feeling low for some reason, can also arrange fun.

You know, if you have a couple of friends and you think it'll be better to be with them than to be alone. You know, if you have a family of friends and you're close enough to say, can I join you for, you know, whatever activity, More than likely, they'll be like, sure, of course. Sorry, we didn't think about suggesting it ourselves, right? Like, be humble. If you're going through a hard time, it's okay to ask for support.

Actual support like this is a tough time. Could I join you for this? Great.

Again, scheduling time to talk with friends, wonderful. If you're stuck alone and your two kids who you love dearly are not with you, even though you want it, even though by rights they should be, it's unfair and it's not okay and you're very, but you know that it's gonna happen, have a plan.

The plan might be, I'm gonna get ice cream and watch this movie I've been wanting to watch for a while. Also fine. It's a funny mental trick to say, okay, if I were a full-time dad and my kids finally went away for a day, how would I use that time? What do I actually wanna do? Because most of the time we're not doing all that stuff.

Robert (49:23)
Right, right.

Eran Magen, PhD (49:24)
We're just futzing around doing nothing, scrolling something, you know, doing something that, you're like, yeah, I've been wanting to, you know, go buy an inflatable kayak. You know, I want to go to that sports store and like buy the thing, or I want to go see the thing, or I want to go whatever, like do that thing that you would have done if you were a full-time parent, just waiting for the day that you finally have a day off.

And again, maybe it's a low-key thing. Maybe, you know, buy a bunch of ice cream and see a movie you've been wanting to see or listen to a new album that came out that you've been excited about or whatever it is. Maybe you have a home project that just needs doing and you've been putting it off forever. Maybe you can just do that during that one day and it's kind of sucking to do it, but like you created meaning for yourself during this time. And then worst comes to worst.

You have nothing to do. You forgot to buy ice cream. Supermarket is closed because the one day of the year that it's actually closed. You're sitting there. The internet is out. No Netflix. You know, you just don't know what to do with yourself and all your friends are busy having fun with their happy families. Have a bad day. It's okay. You know, having a bad day or bad night is not going to break you and it's not going to kill you. It's just a bad day. You're going to feel better pretty soon.

You don't have to work on it right now. You don't have to in the middle of your agony, crawl, you know, lift the trembling hand to your schedule and start sketching out when you're going to do a fun thing. You're just having a bad time right now. Fine. Wallow in it. Have a terrible day. It's okay to have it. Sometimes it's not going to break you. And then you'll wake up tomorrow and you'll feel just a little bit better and you'll start climbing back up. So worst comes to worst. Just, just have a bad day. It's okay.

Robert (51:10)
I think that's great. It may be even setting that, okay, but tomorrow, you know, I'm gonna approach the day different. I'm gonna, the sun's gonna be out tomorrow and I'm gonna approach it completely different or, you know, I'm gonna allow myself to have this pity party right now. But tomorrow morning I'm going for a walk and, know, I was thinking a couple of things you said. One of the things I've done in the past was,

when literally there was, I think it was Thanksgiving, I'm not sure. And there was nobody around, like nobody around. My kids were at my ex's and I went and delivered meals. I literally went and, know, for meals on wheels and took meals everywhere. And I was apprehensive, not knowing how that was going to be. And I'm going to be sad.

I literally had the best time, like long conversations and I to say you feel good about yourself, but I did. And got to see a lot of different people. I think if you can stay.

Try to be busy, try to be active, try to be busy, whatever it may be and be okay with getting uncomfortable with that. But again, if everything shut down and you're snowed in, yeah, I think it's okay to just have that downtime. It's okay to do that.

Eran Magen, PhD (52:47)
Yeah, that's the other kind of downtime. Yeah, the pity party. I agree. And I think this mindset of...

Robert (52:49)
Yeah.

Eran Magen, PhD (52:53)
If my kid were in my position right now, how would I feel toward my kid? What would I be doing for my kid? Very often, these are things we can do for ourselves and things we can feel toward ourselves as well. But we can sort of rev the compassion engine by focusing on people that we just love so much. And then turning that beam to us. It's often hard to start with feeling that way toward us.

Robert (53:05)
Yeah.

Eran Magen, PhD (53:17)
But we can get started by saying, let's pretend that my kid is stuck at home, snowed in, away from everybody that he loves, feeling hurt by the system, you know, and I'm not there. I can't just hug him. What would I wish he did? What would I give him? What would I do? And it's all the little things, right? Maybe it's about like comfort food or maybe it's about, you know, engaging in something very frivolous or whatever it is. But like, let's give ourselves that. We're all little kids with grown-up problems, really.

We can give ourselves the same things.

Robert (53:49)
Yeah. And I think there's certain times in your life when it's okay to be a little selfish. And I think one of those times is then it's, it's, it's okay to be selfish and to think about yourself. Just think about your own happiness during that. you know, I'm not going to have my, my sons on the back end of the holidays. And, you know, I've already been, I've already planned what I'm doing. It's all set in motion and I'm actually looking forward to it. You know, do I wish they were going to be with me? Absolutely. Of course.

But it also beats the alternative of sitting in my house and missing them or getting to a down place. And so I'm going to do something that I really enjoy and that which will be, which I think will be a lot of fun, something I've been looking forward to.

you know, but I do think at times it's good to be selfish, or it's okay to be selfish.

Eran Magen, PhD (54:35)
Amen. Yeah.

Robert (54:39)
So let me ask you this. How can people find you? Because I know people are going to be listening and they're going to wonder, you know, I need one. I would like for you to repeat the number again, but then also how can people reach out to you?

Eran Magen, PhD (54:52)
I think people are going to be listening and saying, why is this guy talking so much instead of Robert?

Robert (54:57)
That's why that's why you're on I just have people on so that's so they can talk

Eran Magen, PhD (55:04)
The number that I mentioned is not mine, it's in fact everybody's. It's 988. It's like 911, but different. So 988 is the National Crisis and Suicide Prevention Line. Great, great, great, great service. Just call if you're feeling like you're going down the wrong direction in your mind.

In terms of finding me, the easiest place is divorcingdads.org and then from there it'll just kind of direct you everywhere. There's some material there, there's videos and some written stuff. There's a support group that I'm organizing for dads to just sit with other dads and talk productively ideally about whatever is happening. There's a podcast that I do that I mentioned before where I'm

talking with men going through divorce and just showing the arc of the story, basically to give hope. I remember thinking that that would have been a nice thing for me to have at the start of the process, just to see that it gets better, because it feels like it's not gonna right at the beginning. And so the podcast is also called Divorcing Dads. That's pretty easy. But yeah, the main place is just the website, divorcingdads.org.

Robert (56:18)
And do you have an Instagram as well?

Eran Magen, PhD (56:21)
You know, probably, but I'm not very active. That's something, yeah, that's something I need to get better about.

Robert (56:23)
But you're not sure what it is. I'll try to find that as well and tag you in that. But, yeah, and I'll put when I release this, I'll put the links of how to find.

Eran Magen, PhD (56:32)
Thank you.

Robert (56:32)
people beyond. Look, I so much appreciate you being on I really do appreciate you taking time out of your schedule. And I so much appreciate all that you're doing for men and, know, that are struggling. You know, struggling through divorce, struggling through life. And I appreciate you being a source of help there. I definitely do.

Eran Magen, PhD (56:55)
You know, right back at you. There are so few resources for men going through this and it was so...

know what the word is, so gratifying, so satisfying, so happy making when we connected. And to know that you're doing this and I think very much in a similar vein, right? Just realizing there's a lot of hurt and pain and confusion out there. And it's very clear that you are working with great intention to support people through this. so kudos to you for the work and intentionality that you

put into it, it's very inspiring and your goodwill shines very visibly.

Robert (57:34)
Well, I appreciate that. You know, I feel like you go through things in life and your duty then is to help others, to serve others, to make, make that walk a little bit easier, to guide them through it. And, know, and it's not just of going through a divorce, but look, I, I want to be the best dad I can. And I screw up all the time. but hopefully to help other dads become better dads. mean, that's, that's it. I think that's a,

It's an extremely important job and it is a, I think the lack of actively involved fathers, part of the reason why society is what it is today in some ways. And anything we can do to change that, even if it's, you know, once, hey, that's great. I deem it a success, so.

Eran Magen, PhD (58:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Robert (58:28)
But look, hey, I appreciate you coming on and you know, I look forward to future conversations with you as well. Okay. Hey, and thank you all for listening to the dad, dad's podcast. You can find us on Spotify or, Apple podcasts as well as on YouTube and Instagram. Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button and feel free to, leave comments. read every comment and,

Eran Magen, PhD (58:35)
Likewise. Thank you so much.

Robert (58:54)
Yeah, I love getting the feedback as well as the criticism and also the ideas for future episodes. And thank you all again. Hope you guys have a wonderful holiday and we'll see you all next time.