Parenting Marriage Unpacked with Susan Gadoua

Episode Description - Parenting Marriage, The New Divorce Alternative

What happens when a marriage is no longer working, but the couple wants to stay together for the kids? Is there a way that they can continue to co-parent together, pursue romantic relationships outside of their marriage, but also avoid getting a divorce until their kids are grown?

According to therapist and author Susan Pease Gadoua the answer is “Yes.”

Through her work with couples, Susan developed the revolutionary concept of a "parenting marriage" - a compassionate alternative that allows parents to prioritize their children's well-being while redefining their relationship. This innovative type of relationship enables couples to live separately under one roof and maintain their family’s stability while also pursuing their own individual happiness.

While a parenting marriage is not appropriate for every couple, it provides a workable alternative to the traditional "stay together or divorce" dilemma. A parenting marriage can also provide a "soft landing" into divorce or a long-term solution for couples committed to raising their children together. 

This podcast episode challenges the conventional notions of marriage and family. Susan’s insights invite us to reconsider what family can look like in the modern world, and how we can truly put children's needs at the forefront of relationship decisions.

Show Notes

About  Susan
Susan Pease Gadoua is a therapist in the SF Bay Area and the founder of the Parenting Marriage concept. She works with couples "on the brink" and runs several women's divorce support groups. 

As a child of divorced parents, Susan knows first-hand how disruptive an unhappy marriage and subsequent marital dissolution can be.  Susan's personal experience, combined with years of working with couples in distress – both in striving to save their marriage or transition out of it – led her to become passionate about offering support to people at perhaps one of the most crucial junctures in their lives. 

Susan founded The Changing Marriage Institute and coined the term, “Parenting Marriage” which is now a concept that is known throughout the world.

Connect with Susan
You can connect with Susan on LinkedIn at Susan Pease Gadoua and on Facebook at Parenting Marriage and follow Susan on Instagram at Changing Marriage.  For more information about Susan’s work visit Parenting Marriage.  The best way to get in touch with Susan is through email at [email protected].

Key Takeaways From This Episode with Susan

• Susan Pease Gadoua introduced the concept of "Parenting Marriage" for couples with children who want to stay together but without the romantic aspect of their relationship.  Allowing couples to co-parent while having separate social lives, changing the rules and agreements of their marriage.
• Key aspects of a Parenting Marriage:
  • Prioritizes children's needs over romantic relationship
  • Requires basic trust and ability to co-parent effectively
  • Can involve separate bedrooms or living spaces within the same house
  • May include scheduled individual parenting time
  • Financial arrangements can vary, but often involve separate and joint accounts
  • Not legally recognized, but can be formalized through a postnuptial agreement
• Benefits of Parenting Marriage:
  • Allows parents to stay together for kids without feeling stuck
  • Can serve as a "soft landing" into divorce if the arrangement doesn't work out
  • Gives time to financially prepare for a potential future divorce
• Challenges and considerations:
  • How to handle dating other people
  • How to explain the arrangement to children and others
  • Importance of both partners being on board and able to cooperate
• Professional support:
  • Therapists trained in Parenting Marriage can help guide couples through the process
  • Legal advice may be needed for postnuptial agreements
• Not suitable for all couples, especially those with active addictions, untreated mental illness, or domestic violence issues
• Resources available include Susan's websites (parentingmarriage.com and changingmarriage.com) and her column on psychologytoday.com

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Transcript

Parenting Marriages Unpacked with Susan Gadoua

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

 parenting marriage, co-parenting, collaborative parenting

SPEAKERS

Karen Covy,  Susan Gadoua

Karen Covy Host

00:10

Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making so we can discover what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur. And now, without further ado, let's get on with the show.

With me today, I am thrilled to have Susan Pease Gadoua. Susan is a therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area and the founder of the Parenting Marriage Concept. She works with couples on the brink and runs several women's divorce support groups. She's also the author of Contemplating Divorce, a step-by-step guide to deciding whether to stay or go, and the Parenting Marriage Workbook. As a child of divorced parents, Susan knows firsthand how disruptive an unhappy marriage and subsequent marital dissolution can be. When her parents split on their 28th wedding anniversary, marriage counseling was unheard of and emotional divorce support virtually non-existent. Susan's personal experience, combined with years of working with couples in distress, both in striving to save their marriage or transition out of it, led her to become passionate about offering support to people at perhaps one of the most crucial junctures in their lives. Susan, welcome to the show.

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

01:38

Hi Karen, Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.

Karen Covy Host

01:42

I am so excited. My biggest challenge in this conversation is going to be keeping it into a reasonable amount of time, because I have so many questions for you and I want to start for people who aren't familiar with the concept of parenting marriage. What is it?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

01:59

Well, it is a concept where a couple who has kids but the romantic portion of the relationship is no longer so. You know, according to our social mandates, if that's the case, you're supposed to get divorced, parent will. So everything else works except for the physical intimacy and romance. Then this is a way for parents to stay together by changing their agreements and the sort of rules, if you will, of their marriage so they can stay and co-parent but they can also have their own separate social life.

Karen Covy Host

02:43

So interesting. So I want to get into what that can look like for different people. But before we do that, how did you come up with this?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

02:52

Well, like my best ideas, I didn't create it. I just sort of followed what was needed, and this happened during the Great Recession in the mid 2000s, where people's portfolios were down, their houses were upside down, their savings accounts were drained. They didn't have the same options that people do when the economy is doing well. So there was a couple who came in my first couple that I did this with. One week they'd say they wanted to get a divorce. The next week they'd say we want to stay, and they just kept going back and forth and so I didn't know how to help them.

03:30

And finally one day it just occurred to me to say can you actually do both? Can you build something out in your house? They were both doctors, so they did have some resources not enough to split, but they had the resources to build a little, you know, addition onto the house with a bedroom and a bathroom, and so they were able to somewhat physically separate, but they also both got to see the kids every single day and they got to still do family vacations together. But there was an understanding that there would be no romance and they were both fine with it. It does get tricky, and I'm sure you'll ask me about it later when it's like, okay, how do you date and do this when you're living with your spouse? But I consider that advanced, so I do try to say that for later on.

Karen Covy Host

04:22

Yeah, which is a good question, but all right. So in a parenting marriage, I guess the first question I have is how long does this last? I mean, is this a forever thing or is it a temporary thing?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

04:37

Well, there are couples who begin to do a parenting marriage and they may realize pretty quickly I don't think we can do this. I've had one couple that said, if we're going to work this hard, we're going to work on our marriage. So they ended up staying in their traditional marriage. I've had other couples who say it's just too difficult. But I always think it's worth giving it a shot because you have absolutely nothing to lose by trying this, except maybe a couple of months in the timeline. But basically, for most people, when they start a parenting marriage, their intention is to do it until the last kid has been launched and is off to college. But I have also had people who continue to live this way even though their kids are grown. So there, you can do it for a year, you can do it for five years, 10 years, it really doesn't matter. It's up to the couple and what works for them.

Karen Covy Host

05:37

Well, what would you suggest? So let's say a couple comes into you and says, okay, we want to give this a try. Would you suggest that they talk like that they make a temporary arrangement for, say, six months. Let's try this for six months, then come back and see how it's working, do a check-in. Or would you say to them we should set a definite timeline, like it's going to end at this point, or leave it open-ended and just sort of go with the flow?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

06:03

I love that question. It's not one that I can just say one or the other, and part of the reason is because every couple is different. Their needs are different, their abilities are different. I actually rule people out of the parenting marriage because I don't want people to think this is just so easy and anyone can do it. If there is a lack of trust, if there's an active addiction, if there's an untreated mental illness, if there's domestic violence, those are some scenarios where I would not have that couple do a parenting marriage. That's much more complicated.

06:40

So this concept is really for people who can come from their higher, more mature selves. They set aside their own needs temporarily in service of what's best for the kids. They can get along. They do get along. They share good enough parenting similarities so that they can do this. And then I mean, ironically, when a couple's going to get divorced, they're sort of doing this by default anyway if they're staying in the same house. And then there are also many couples who have been doing this for years by what I call default rather than by design, and so some couples can just slip right into it. Some really need to be guided through it. And you know, I just take it from there and I will make recommendations and the couple can do what they want with it.

Karen Covy Host

07:41

Yeah, I, you know. To me, what the beauty of this concept is  that it's making it. It's bringing out into the open things that people are doing anyway. They're doing it to your point, unconsciously or they're not. Nobody's talking about it, but the spouses haven't been sleeping together for who knows how long, and they both want to do their own thing, but they don't want to get divorced because of the kids, and so they're actually kind of in a parenting marriage by default. But from my perspective it just seems to make so much more sense to do it with intention.

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

08:24

Well, what happens when people do it by default is they feel stuck, they feel like they're doing something wrong, they feel hopeless and like arrangements interminable. And so I've had people say, oh my God, you mean I can do this, I have permission, this is OK And what it's done for people by just naming it, because again I didn't come up with stay together for the kids. People have been doing that, but they've been suffering. And so this basically says here's the framework, here's the language and yes, you can do this on purpose and with intention.

Karen Covy Host

09:04

This is brilliant. I just I think it's brilliant. So how do they do? What framework if somebody comes to you and says, okay, our relationship as a romantic relationship isn't working. We want to do this parenting marriage thing? How do we do it? What are the kinds of things they have to think about and talk about and agree on in order to make this work?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

09:27

I think the first thing that they need to agree on is that they can put the needs of their children first. Another scenario that I've had is that parents think they can stay together but they continue fighting. And there's a lot of research out there that shows that it's actually not divorce that harms kids, it's parents fighting that harms kids. So if parents are going to continue to fight and when I say fight I mean that there's palpable tension all the time Kids just don't have the defenses to deal with that, so it really impacts them negatively. So every couple is going to have a squabble or a disagreement.

10:10

That's not what I'm referring to. It's really when there's a great deal of tension and some fighting as well. You're not going to do your kids any favors if that's the atmosphere, that the kids are going to get along and that they can co-parent well enough. You know we call it the good enough parenting so that the kids feel safe and comfortable and like their parents are in charge and they, you know the kids don't need parents to love each other and they sure don't want to know if their parents are sleeping together, but they do want to know that they are loved and cared for, and so when parents get along and are being good parents and attentive to the kids, then kids feel secure and that's really the biggest aspect of the parenting marriage.

Karen Covy Host

11:07

But that brings up an interesting question.  So the parents let's say they're trying it. Do they tell the kids? And if they do, what do they say?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

11:22

You know, here's the timeline, you know work backward from when you tell the kids, so you want to have the last summer vacation, get the kids back at school, all this stuff, and sort of like parents knowing that it's going to happen and then tell the kids we're going to be living a little differently now. But I have changed my mind about that.

11:54

I think what works best is when parents actually start doing the parenting marriage, so they're not spending as much time together. They each may have their own separate time with the kids. They don't sleep in the same room anymore. And so after they have implemented those changes for a couple months, then say to the kids have you noticed that things are different and that mom and dad are getting along better? And the kids usually notice because they're so perceptive and so they can say well, we've just decided that we're going to live a little bit more separately and we'll still be here for you guys, but we are not spending as much time together.

12:32

They don't ever have to tell the kids, but I do like for parents to say something so that kids understand that there is a difference and it's named and it's okay versus what's going on, what's happening with my parents. So you know, you can tell your kids it's a parenting marriage. You can just say we're doing something different, we're not spending as much time together, and I will say because this may be another question you have you can do the same for friends and family. You can just say we're not spending as much time together. We get along better when we don't see each other as much. So whatever you want to say when now, when people say we're doing a parenting marriage, their friends and family will say what, what are you doing? Because it's not mainstream quite yet, it's right getting there.

13:21

But you can tell people or not. People who don't know again that you haven't been sleeping with your spouse for years,  don't need to know. You don't have to tell everyone. I don't want people to think that they must disclose this, so it's the difference between privacy and secrecy.

Karen Covy Host

13:43

Yeah, I understand completely and I you know, when I'm coaching my clients as they're going through the process, I often tell them that they should, if they can, sit down together and craft what I call their press release, right? It's like the actors and the big shots and the famous people do they'll put out a press release and it goes something like this we have decided, after much consideration, to go our separate ways. We still respect each other and care for each other. Please respect our privacy during this difficult time. Right? Something that shuts down the busy bodies from asking questions that are not their business. So I would think that something like that in the parenting marriage context, where they could sit down and have a set stated narrative that goes out and as long as everybody sticks to the narrative, it potentially could work.

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

14:41

I love that. That's a great idea, yeah, but again, I don't think everyone needs to know that it has a name. You can just be informal about it and say it's just. You know, we're just not going to spend as much time together. We're doing some different things to get along better.

Karen Covy Host

14:57

Yeah, well, what about what happens when the kids I mean kids are inquisitive? What happens when they do notice and you haven't said anything yet because you're trying to implement and they're like mom, why aren't you sleeping in the same room as dad or dad, how come you're gone so much, or whatever. The question is how do parents respond to that?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

15:18

Well, if they're doing the parenting marriage by design, I think they should tell the kids what's going on. And again you can say it's a parenting marriage or we're just trying something different. But I think if a kid is noticing and bringing it, it's actually why I like when parents tell the kids first, so they don't have to wonder and figure out what's going on. Just telling the kids ahead of time is great. And when I say ahead of time after they ask you, not in advance of doing the parenting marriage, let me also say why I want people to do it first and then tell the kids, versus the other way around. If you say, okay, kids, let's sit down, we're going to have a family talk and we're going to do a parenting marriage, and this is what it's going to look like.

16:07

In my experience, kids can get anxious If they're being told there's going to be a change. They will get anxious versus putting the change into action and then telling them just by the way, this is what we've been doing. They don't have that. So they get to see that nothing's going to change in their world, which is their primary concern, and that it's all okay, right and everybody's in favor of it.

Karen Covy Host

16:36

And does it matter how old the kids are? Like, do you say different? I would think you have to say different things to different kids at different times.

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

16:44

Absolutely. For older kids, obviously, when parents aren't being sexual and intimate with each other. Again, kids don't really want to know. But you can just say yeah, we're not sleeping in the same room anymore, we're okay with that. For younger kids, you might want to say something like we're not kissing friends anymore, which would be some language that they would understand. And if they have questions, you just speak on the level that you think that they will be, they would understand, and if they have questions, you just speak on the level that you think that they will be able to understand.

Karen Covy Host

17:16

That makes so much sense. So all right. So let's say a couple does this and it doesn't work. Is there any value to having tried the parenting marriage?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

17:35

Yes, what it can do is what one couple called a soft landing into divorce. A couple I had in Colorado did this arrangement, and the reason it didn't work is because of the dating thing. The woman got a boyfriend, but the guy no one would believe that this was above board and you know so he couldn't get into a new relationship. So they decided after 18 months to stop doing the parenting marriage and go ahead and get a divorce. Well, what they had already put into place was a custody agreement, a financial agreement, and so it was not very much of a leap into the divorce realm for them. So it definitely can make divorce easier and softer, if you will, and it also prepares the kids so that when there are two separate homes, it's not that big of a difference for the kids.

Karen Covy Host

18:31

That makes so much sense and it sounds similar to some of the work that I do in helping clients create trial separations, where what they're really doing is they're dealing with all of the issues that they're going to have to deal with if they get a divorce and it doesn't mean that they're going to get a divorce or they're 100% going to go down that road. But while they're trying it out, they're also trying on different scenarios, different ways of living, different lifestyles that then they can take with them into the divorce. And, like you said, it's not that big of a leap, that it's not like you're going from everything is wonderful to we're getting a divorce tomorrow.

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

19:11

Right, exactly, and the kids had no idea what was going on.

Karen Covy Host

19:14

So yeah, so, but what about the you mentioned finances? Does a parenting marriage have different financial arrangements, or can it, or does it, or does it have to? How does that work?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

19:27

Okay, well, that is completely up to the couple. Even when I'm dealing with couples who, you know just, are dealing with minor marital issues, communication or things like that, there's what I suggest.

19:55

What I consider a healthy way for couples to have their finances is that there's one joint account that, if both are working, they can both contribute to on a pro rata basis. If only one's working, then that person can contribute and they figure something else out, but that each person has their own separate account, that they're not accountable to the other parent, to other spouse, so that it's their fun money. They can do with it what they want. So I think that that's a great way for those who are in a parenting marriage to go so that they begin their separation, if they haven't already been doing that.

20:25

And the other thing that I like about the parenting marriage and this has to do with the finances is people so often I'm sure you see this all the time they do what I call a knee-jerk divorce, where they say, okay, we haven't slept together in a year, I can't do this anymore, I'm out of here, I'm filing, but what they don't do is map it out, plan it out, and they surely don't save money for it. So what parents can be doing during this time is they can be putting money aside for divorce expenses because, as we know, it's incredibly expensive so that you can map it out do a two-year plan, if you can to put aside enough money so that you're not going to be stressing out about having to use the kid's college fund for something that it's not intended for.

Karen Covy Host

21:20

Right, that makes so much sense. And another concept that I often talk to people about and they look at me like I'm crazy. But it's like making a divorce budget. Right, you sit down ahead of the game and you figure out okay, I'm going to need this and this and this and this and this. And as long as you've got two reasonable people which doesn't always happen I get that. But you've got two reasonable people who say we want to do this within this monetary amount, how can we do it? And you actually, as a couple, can work together to solve the problem of how do we divorce for a certain amount of money or within a certain amount of time, or in a certain way.

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

22:01

I call it an well, an IDA, an individualized divorce account. I love that.

Karen Covy Host

22:08

I love that, kind of, not like an IRA, an IDA, exactly, although that was my grandmother's name, I don't know if I could do that, but that's neither here nor there.

22:20

So, ok, so we've talked about a lot, a lot of what goes on between the spouses and the and the children. What about and I know this is more my area than yours, but I'm going to ask you anyway about the legal aspects. Are there things that you recommend that a couple who wants to do a parenting marriage that they do legally, to cement the deal, so to speak?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

22:47

Yeah, Sure, and unfortunately a parenting marriage is not recognized by the law. So I've had clients go to an attorney and they say you can't do that. And so because parenting marriage is an informal agreement with couples, most therapists and most attorneys haven't really heard of it, and so they might tell the person, maybe even shame the couple, that you shouldn't be doing, that that's not a marriage. But what couples can do is I often recommend doing a postnuptial agreement, and postnups are best done when you're getting along well.

23:29

So before you begin the divorce process, if you've already gotten everything laid out, as it's going to be split up, you're going to have survival and safety modes right, and so they get scared and they get more grabby. So that can happen, which is another reason why if you do the work to split your assets while you're on good terms and while you're feeling comfortable, you can always revisit it later if something does feel really out of whack. But doing it when you're both more I'll just use the word sane, meaning just, you know, grounded right, and so they can make their agreements, get it, you know, signed off by an attorney. Each person needs their own attorney You can, I suppose, and maybe you can speak to this get a document notarized. So that would be one step above just your own informal agreement. So what do you think ?

Karen Covy Host

24:48

Well, yeah, you can. It depends on the state. Some states recognize postnuptial agreements, others do not, and if you're in a state that does not, it's just like, well, you got to deal with what you've got Right. But postnuptial agreements, to your point, should always be written under, because people have different memories of what they agreed to, or they think they agreed because they're. Each one is agreeing in their head to what they think is being said, but it's not what this being said.

25:17

So, putting it in writing forces both people to read it and say, yes, this is what I agreed to, or no, this isn't it. Let's keep talking Right. And so it should be in writing and contain whatever that state's laws requirements are to be enforceable. If they require a notary, you need a notary. If it's just two signatures, then fine, but you definitely need two attorneys.

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

25:42

Well, and what's funny about what you're saying? You're reminding me people say I don't want to get a postnup, and basically I read this in an article once that everybody has a postnup and it's called state law. So the way things are split up is going to be either up to you or up to the state, but you have a postnup, so you might as well have one on your terms.

Karen Covy Host

26:09

Yeah, I love that. That's a great saying. I think I'm going to steal that one But that reminds me all. Right, so you can see, in the post-nup situation you need lawyers, because this is technical, it's tricky and if the post-nup isn't done correctly it's useless. Right? So I can see the value of having professionals in that scenario. What about the value of having a professional in the parenting marriage? Like, when people do this, do they also agree to stay on with a therapist and do check-ins? How does that work?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

26:45

Well, a lot of the clients that I've had have stayed with me for the first few months until they feel like they really have it down and they've worked out some of the kinks. If there's a therapist who is parenting marriage friendly and I'm teaching more and more therapists across the world and so I've got this great referral network now but if they know about parenting marriage, they can walk a couple through. If they don't know about it, my concern is that they may either shame the couple or not fully help them to get it down. So I just encourage if there are any therapists listening to this podcast that you get familiar with what the parenting marriage concept is and either download the workbook or take one of my classes or somehow.

27:38

I've written a bunch of articles on psychology today, so there are lots of ways to get the information. But I just think that the more therapists know about whether it's a parenting marriage or even whether it's about divorce, the better they're going to be able to guide a couple. I joke with my therapist students that I say how many of you have ever had a class on divorce? Undergraduate no hands go up Graduate. Almost no hands ever go up, so we don't get the education we need for one of the most destabilizing and common events that will ever come through our doors. So I really feel like therapists need to get better educated in order to walk, especially couples therapists, in order to walk their clients through any of these processes.

Karen Covy Host

28:31

Well, that makes so much sense because there have I mean, in the time that I've been practicing law and working in the divorce space, which is, we'll just say, a few decades there've been tremendous changes. I mean, when I first started, you kind of you just went to court like both sides lawyered up. You went to court and you hoped for the best. I was one of the first lawyers in Chicago to actually get certified as a mediator and to try to work in mediation. That was new back then. Now mediation is old hat and it's like anything. As you see, all these changes happen. You realize that the quality of the service that a professional can provide depends on the training they've gotten. And you may think you're able to do this, but you don't really know what you're doing unless you get properly trained.

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

29:21

In my opinion, and I didn't know. I kind of had to learn on the job. So that's how we either learn on the job or therapists use their own life experience, which can be fine, but it can also be messy, right, if you're projecting onto your clients what your experience was. So it is good to just get as educated as possible.

Karen Covy Host

29:44

So what if let's direct the conversation to the consumer? Do you think it's like a fair question for a client to come into a therapist and say, hey, have you been trained in this?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

29:56

Oh, absolutely, you know, for any professional that you're working with, and that's one of the things that I don't want to divert too much. But when clients are telling me that they want to get an attorney, I tell I you know. Guide them to say, ask them what they specialize in. You've got this particular issue. Ask them what they know about it, because every professional is different, both what their knowledge base is, what their personality is, how experienced they are. So those are really important questions.

Karen Covy Host

30:29

Yeah, and I think it's really important for clients to know that whoever they're going to for help has the right training to help them in the way they want to be helped, because I've seen that with people walking into lawyers' offices they think they're you know a lot of lawyers. When collaborative divorce came out, a lot of lawyers would say, oh yeah, I'm collaborative.

30:52

And they were about as collaborative as an alligator, but and they'd never been trained and they wouldn't sign any of the agreements and they didn't know the process and the client didn't know. They just said, oh, they're collaborative, okay, and then you've got a mess on your hands.

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

31:06

Exactly.

Karen Covy Host

31:06

Yep, so it's this, the same kind of thing. So okay, steering us back to the parenting marriage you mentioned in the conversation trust. How important is it that the two spouses can trust each other as parents? I mean whether you're trusting them to have or not have an affair or what they're doing different thing, but how important is trust in this kind of a relationship?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

31:31

Trust basic trust is vital, as you said. I mean, maybe one of the partners has been betrayed and so they don't necessarily trust that their spouse is going to honor the agreement that they now have that they're not going to date until they're more experienced with the parenting marriage. They, you know, if they can just deal with their wound and their trauma, in many cases on their own, with their own therapist, so that they can trust that this person is going to be a good co-parent, that is fine, that's enough.

32:15

And it can obviously get so tricky when there's been betrayal or when there's, it doesn't have to be with another person. It can be financial betrayal, it can be a skeleton that comes out of the closet that was never disclosed. There's so many ways that people can withhold information or feel betrayed. So it's very complicated in terms of the spouse relationship. But to be able to distinguish the parent-child relationship and so therefore, the co-parent relationship, If you trust and I hear this all the time I do think that she is a good mom, I do think he's a good dad. You know, whatever they think about them Otherwise, they do have that confidence and trust that their counterpart is going to take good care of the kids. That's really important.

Karen Covy Host

33:10

That makes a lot of sense. I mean, otherwise I don't think this would work on any level. But when you put this in place, then does each parent get separate time with the children? Are you doing kind of almost like a parenting time schedule that would be done in divorce? Not to that level, because you're all in the same house, so there are times you all see each other but do you say okay, you dad, you get to be with the kids by yourself on these days. Mom gets these days, that kind of thing

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

33:39

Absolutely. That's usually what I recommend because, again, I think it provides that separation for each of the parents and it helps them build better relationships with the kids without the other co-parent there. So I do think that that's a really good way to go.

Karen Covy Host

33:57

And inside of the house. I'm just trying to think like how this might be different than bird nesting you know, where the parents come in and out. But in this, in a parenting marriage, both parents, they may have separate bedrooms, but they're still in the same space, right?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

34:13

Yes, they are. Yeah, and they can create separation in the house. I had one couple in Canada who they put the kids upstairs in this giant it was the master bedroom, but they made it into a giant bedroom, slash, playroom and then each of the parents had their own separate bedroom downstairs from that. So they got separation that way. You know, as I said, if there's an in-law unit or some way that there's some, some houses even have two masters, so there are ways that people can find that separation. I'm just remembering about a couple also who they have their night in the house with the kids, so the other parent has to actually leave and so they have agreements around that. So you get to have time outside the house with the kids but also inside the house, which is really important.

Karen Covy Host

35:09

That's really fascinating. I would not have thought about that, and just well they came up with that. I didn't think of that either, but that makes total sense, because everybody's in their own element then and relaxed, and that's a different experience than let's go to the movies, right, exactly, yep, wow, so interesting. I could talk to you for forever about this, because it's such a fascinating concept and it's you know, I can see it helping so many parents. I mean, to your point, it's not right for everybody. There are certain people that definitely should not go down this road, but for the people for whom this is a good solution, it's a brilliant solution. So, if people are interested in doing this, how can they find you, how can they connect with you? How can they find therapists who you've trained?

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

36:04

Well, people can find me on my parentingmarriage.com website and my bigger umbrella website is called Changing Marriage, so people can find me there as well. They can go on psychologytoday.com and look for my column and find some articles there. And if anybody wants to email me, my email address is Susan@changingmarriagecom.

Karen Covy Host

36:32

Susan I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and I hope that you've at least. You know. My hope with this is that it at least opens people's minds a little bit. Whether you want to do it or you don't want to do it, whether it's right for you or not right for you, at least if people understand that this is an option, it gives them choices. So I really I appreciate it and for those of you who are listening, all of this, links will be linked in the show notes links to Susan's books, to her website, to the parenting marriage website. You'll find it all in there, Susan. Thank you so much.

Susan Pease Gadoua Guest

37:08

Thank you so much, Karen, I appreciate it.

Karen Covy Host

37:12

And for those of you out there listening, if you enjoyed today's episode, if you want to hear more things just like this, then do me a big favor. Like the podcast, like the YouTube videos, subscribe in both places and I look forward to talking with you again next time. Thank you.