Beth Behrendt is a freelance writer and divorced mother of three. She’s written articles about nesting for the New York Times and Psychology Today, and is a regular contributor to Divorce Magazine.
404: Nesting After Divorce
Beth Behrendt
When a couple separates, it’s usually the kid’s lives that are disturbed the most—being shuttled from house to house. What if, instead of that, the kids stayed in their family home and the parents moved back and forth? This is called nesting, and it’s exactly what my guest, Beth Behrendt did when she divorced.
Nesting After Divorce - Beth Behrendt [404]
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*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Beth Behrendt: I say this about nesting that I feel it actually made us get along better as opposed to if we'd done a traditional approach of just dropping the kids off in the driveway or something.
[00:00:18] Hunter: You are listening to the Mindful Mama Podcast, episode number 404. Today we're talking about nesting after divorce with Beth Behrendt.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, hunter Clark Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children.
I've been practicing mindfulness for over 20 years. I'm the creator of Mindful Parenting, and I'm the author of the best selling book, raising Good Humans, A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting, and Raising Kind confident Kids.
Welcome back to the Mindful Mama podcast friend. I am so glad you're here as always. And listen, if you haven't done so yet, please. Subscribe so you don't miss any, and this is so important. If you get some value from the podcast please go over to Apple Podcast. Do me a favor, leave us a rating and review.
It just helps the podcast grow more and it takes, like 30 seconds. I hugely appreciate it. Beth Behrendt is a freelance writer and divorce mother of three. She's written articles about nesting for the New York Times in Psychology Today, and she's a regular contributor to Divorce Magazine and she talks, her book is Nesting, and this is such a cool idea.
I really wanted to showcase it on the podcast because when a couple separates, right? It's usually the kids whose lives are disturbed the most, right? They're being shuttled from house to house. They have to go to separate houses. So what if. Instead of that, the kids stayed in their family home and the parents moved back and forth.
So this is called nesting, and it's exactly what I am going to talk about with Beth and how she did this when she was divorced in her book. So this is an awesome episode for you. If you're separating or separated or if you know some friends who are separating or separated, please share it with them.
This fascinating way to do it. It's really so interesting. So anyway, I know you'll get a lot out of it, so please join me at the table as I talk to Beth Behrendt.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama Podcast Bath. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you. Glad to be here. All right, I love the concept of what you're doing, and we're gonna dive into it, but I'd just love to hear this came from your own experience, right? The con the book, nesting After Divorce, this came from your own experience, didn't it?
And I was wondering if you could just take us right in to your story and what happened
[00:03:11] Beth Behrendt: with you. Sure. My ex and I decided to divorce, oh, after, we've been married about 18 years, and we had three children who were 12, nine and four at the time. And so we worked on our marriage quite a lot, but it wasn't getting better and it.
It's really just clear that we needed to break because it was affecting our Parenting. I felt, and so we of course, were very worried about what divorce would do to the kids, and there's not a lot of, positive information about there, out there about. Divorce being a good thing for kids.
[00:03:54] Hunter: And so Yeah.
It's like one of the ACEs, right? Ex
[00:03:57] Beth Behrendt: Exactly. Yes, exactly. Which I just recently learned. And that really surprised me that still after all these years, Because I think there has been some change in our society to be more positive about
[00:04:07] Hunter: divorce. I know, I think that too, we're for the listener, just so you know.
And I just realized I said that without defining it. I'm sure a bunch of you know what it is, but like it's adverse childhood experiences is are the ACEs and so divorce is defined
[00:04:21] Beth Behrendt: as one of those. So yeah, so like traumatic things that happen in childhood that can affect people the rest of their lives.
And I was. Doing a little bit of research on was a librarian before I started doing freelance writing. And so I researched everything and was trying to find anything about divorce and how to help kids. And I ran across the mention of nesting in a book called, it doesn't have to be that Way, that Laura Wasser wrote about divorce, and I had never even heard of it.
I had no familiarity with the concept at all, but as soon as I read the idea of the kids staying in the family home and the parents being the ones who move in and out to parent them, it just felt so right, was just a ray of hope of we don't have to completely blow up their lives. And fortunately, as soon as I brought it up to Bill, my husband at the time, now my ex he thought it was a good idea too, and, really felt that.
The divorce was not the kid's fault, and whatever we could do to mitigate negative effects on them would be great. And so we decided to give it a shot. And as I said, at the time, there was really no information about how to do nesting. And so we really just figured it out. And I kept thinking, boy, I wish there was some information about how to do this.
I don't know if I'm doing it right, or am I making it too hard? And what am I forgetting? And so as we rolled along, I started writing some articles and blog posts about my experience. And then fortunately it was given the opportunity to write a book and hopefully help other parents figure out if it's something that would work for their families as well.
[00:06:02] Hunter: Yeah. So Beth, you had as, as much information about when nesting is as like me and the listener have n right now. Basically you're like, oh, okay, so the kids stay in the house. The parents leave. That, it sounds really cool because, that's a big problem for kids in a divorce, right? Is I see, I see like kids in my bus stop, remember to take your jacket cuz you're, you don't need it now, but you're gonna need a dad's house, right?
Like they're bringing stuff back and forth. You have to imagine there's a lot of, like a bunch of logistical challenges. So you talked about it. With your husband and or ex-husband? What, how long did you guys
[00:06:41] Beth Behrendt: nest? We are still nesting, and so it's been eight years. We have, we're still in the, wow.
I'm in the family home right now. And he's upstairs working on, because we just, oh wow. I'm a crazy schedule right now. So we used to have a very set schedule where we weren't in the house at the same time, but over the years, and particularly with Covid kind of affecting our. Jobs and entire life.
We've ended up spending a lot more time in our separate spaces in the home. But we have the three children and the oldest is now a senior in college. The middle is a senior in high school, so he'll be going off to college in next year, and then the youngest is in eighth grade. So barring unforeseen circumstances, we intend to nest, through his high school years.
That was not our intention when we first started this. I think we thought it was just something we do for, maybe a year or two, ease the kids into this new lifestyle. But it just was so great for them and difficult for us. Yes, as you said, logistical challenges, but frankly, I'd rather deal with just my own challenges than try and manage three kids and their stuff going back between two households and.
Plus the stress of, their lives just being uprooted one time a week or twice a week or whatever it might be. And we just found it so beneficial that we've kept going with
[00:08:09] Hunter: it. That's amazing. I had expected just a couple years too, okay. So let's talk about the normal, traditional divorce and how that affects children.
So what are some of the things that happen typically when the kids are moving from house to house and how
[00:08:24] Beth Behrendt: does it affect them? I think that it's just a stress to keep track of their stuff between two places, as you mentioned, jackets and instruments and sporting equipment, to have to remember which needs to be at which place.
And of the divorced parents by now who looked on the traditional model, it's also very stressful for the parents because they're getting calls from school, I forgot my tennis racket, and you have to drive together parents and you're annoyed with the other parent that they didn't have it prepared.
And there's just a lot of kind of, I think underlying stress, this kind of constant, where are things And then I think that the kids too, at least I saw with my kids that it was so great that. Their friends knew they were here all the time. Their friends didn't have to keep track of, oh, are you at your dad's or your mom's, where should we pick you up to go to the play date or whatever.
We're like, they were just here and it didn't really matter whether it was my night or Bill's night, they could just have their plans with their friends. And and then I guess besides just the stress and the hassle, I think there's just a psychological comfort to being, when you're, especially when you're a kid and.
Middle school's hard and divorce is head and yeah, you're just in your same room, your same stuff. There's no, oh, I left my favorite toy at the other house, or I don't have my favorite outfit that I wanted to wear today to the thing at school. And it may all sound little, but I think it really, from my, what I saw, I think it really added up to just a steadiness in their lives that even though things were changing between their dad and me in terms of being married, Their day-to-day lives and the Parenting they were receiving was very consistent.
[00:10:12] Hunter: That's so cool. I can't believe you did for so long. That's so neat. And then now your kids are they're older, right? They're, out of the house. We're jumping to the punchline, but I think it was really fair to say like they've probably talked to you about this as adult, young adult people.
What have they said about how their experience?
[00:10:32] Beth Behrendt: Yeah, I think As all parents know, it's not like they're gonna come and say, thanks, mom and dad. What? That was great
[00:10:40] Hunter: mother. Thank you. I am so grounded and fulfilled because of everything you did.
[00:10:47] Beth Behrendt: So it's more just the I guess in a way, like I look for the not complaints, the not stress.
When our oldest comes home from college, he just expects that we're gonna have a family dinner together. What night are we doing steak night? And there's, that's just what he expects is that we're all gonna be together as a family, the dad, and I'll share responsibilities for, whatever he's trying to take care of.
But a funny story again, along the lines of the kids not really probably appreciating what parents view for them is that my middle son applying to colleges. I was writing his essays for colleges and and he's to of course totally fine to do that on his own, but because I'm a writer, a librarian, I feel like I need to, make some comments about what I think he should be doing.
And I said, I was thinking cuz you're so into history and creativity and taking the unusual path to get to things. And I thought it was really like our nesting arrangement has been, for your growing up in this environment. And he just looked at me and he said, mom, I don't think you realize how little your divorce has affected me.
[00:12:01] Hunter: Not at all.
And you were like, yes, that's the best
[00:12:06] Beth Behrendt: thing you could have said to me. Yeah, first I was like hey, I thought had a good idea. But but I guess what you've said is actually pretty rewarding to me as well. So
[00:12:19] Hunter: that's a huge compliment. You turned it from an adverse childhood thing to like something that has so little effect that you just don't even realize.
[00:12:31] Beth Behrendt: I can't even, yeah. Be bothered to think about it. So I
[00:12:44] Hunter: stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
Let's dive into how you do this so we know why the kids get more grounded. They can be. Just really, stable, et cetera. So how do we do it? If we have a listener who is approaching divorce or, whatever, what is step one for making this situation happen if they're sounding like it's sounds
[00:13:16] Beth Behrendt: really good.
Yeah. I'll just I will put in a little plug for my book because one of the things I enjoyed about Naly telling my own story is that I interviewed five other families from different parts of the country who. Are nesting as well. Insomnia are just a couple years into it and some are much further along.
And and so I hope that if people can look at the book, they'll see that there are a variety of ways to approach it. But I think a really common place to start. It's just if you and your ex can agree, you want to work together to make this happen. Because even though you're getting divorced You still, are gonna need to work on things together.
And which really is the case for anybody getting divorced. And Parenting, it doesn't have to be nesting. That's just part of being a parent. But you need to be able to agree with each other. You know that you're both going to give it a shot to figure out if you can do it. And then the second thing you need to think about is, what your arrangements might be outside of the nest.
And a lot of nesters. This surprised me a little bit, although it definitely was a factor for us. A lot of people are drawn to it because it's actually cheaper than setting up two separate homes with all the stuff you need to support Yeah. Multiple children every day. And so what most nesters tend to do is, keep the family home and then a lot of people will rent a separate apartment, but they share, they're not actually in it at the same time they move in and out of the space.
When they are not in the house Parenting, but also they do things like live with family members or, perhaps somebody is in a new relationship, they'll live with a new person when they're not Parenting. And it's, the focus is just to keep the kids, as stable as possible. So those are the two big things you needed to figure out right away before you get into more of the minutiae of how are you gonna make it work.
[00:15:17] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can we do this? And then where will we live when we're not? And imagine that has, its a lot of its own challenges. If you're sharing an apartment with your ex, it's if it's one bedroom apartment, are you like sleeping in the same bed on off nights, and that kind of thing.
[00:15:39] Beth Behrendt: And some people
do that. Yeah. And we did, we actually did that for a little while. Especially when we weren't sure if we were going to stick with nesting. But over time then we switched to two separate places for each of ourselves. And Bill is actually recently remarried, so he. Goes to his wife's song when he's mad and the nest.
[00:16:00] Hunter: I was gonna say, I guess this could also be a way for people to live in further places. I guess you're gonna stay somewhat in a, within a reasonable traveling distance it, to stay near your kids if you're getting divorced, but, if, depending on what your means are, it could be a short flight away, even if one person can, wants to have an apartment, that kind of things.
Guess it, it's, yeah.
[00:16:27] Beth Behrendt: Yeah, that's true. I have heard of that. And, then your next part of figuring out the situation is figuring a schedule. And so certainly, if you're not switching out every two days or something, you could have a further distance from the home.
And people do all sorts of different schedules. We did a week on, week off for a number of years. We got much more flexible as time went by, but some people, especially with younger kids, seem to do even like a day off, a day in, just so they're not away very long from the kids. And then obviously you'd be living quite close to do something like that.
The thing is, I think just to not fall into the automatic. Response. The divorce means, yeah, we have to do things a certain way. It doesn't, you can be creative and there are plenty mediators and attorneys who want to be conciliatory and helpful and help you get to a place that's best for your kids.
And so this old model of just hating each other, another, definitely separating everything. Two separate houses, not interacting. It doesn't have to be like that necessarily. Hopefully
[00:17:42] Hunter: not. I know. I think the, I think it is very hopeful these days. I'm not divorced, but I have friends who are, and in some ways like.
Seems pretty nice in a lot of ways. Like she, when she's with her, my friend is with her kids like for four days, and then by the time they're driving her crazy, they go to dad's and then she gets time to herself and then she misses them after three or, like four days and then they're back.
And but the, our conversations have been like, she feels really present with them when they're there because she has all this. Other time to fill her cup, to be herself, to do the things she wants to do and live her life. And then also really be present with her kids, in a way that sometimes when we're with our kids all the time, it can be so overwhelming, especially when they're little it, depending on how old they are, right?
And
[00:18:35] Beth Behrendt: Especially, if you are at the point of considering divorce, I was finding that the problems of our marriage were taking so much of my energy that. Once that was not what I had to give daily attention to. I could be such a more present mom and I enjoyed my time with the kids so much more because there just wasn't the underlying tension, it was just me and them and And I think that it also really helped their dad connect with them as well, and it gave him the opportunity to step in on daily stuff that I used to always take care of and become much more engaged that way.
And neither of us had the distraction of the problems in our marriage. We just were, we were with them focused on Parenting them. That's cool.
[00:19:25] Hunter: Okay. So how did you tell your kids about it? How w what's a good way to talk to your kids about these things? I imagine they're feeling some of the problems anyway.
How does that go down?
[00:19:35] Beth Behrendt: Yeah, we there were my agreed beforehand that we would tell them together and. They knew I had been staying sometimes at my parents as we were figuring out nesting and so they were a little familiar with, they knew that I was going away a couple nights a week and, that we were just, they knew we were working on some stuff, but really the oldest was 12.
He's probably really the only one who understood that there were problems. But we sat all three of them down together. And told them, that we had, as they knew, we'd been working on some, issues as married people, but that we still, of course loved being their parents and that we decided we were going to end the marriage part, but get divorced.
And and immediately when they heard that word, the oldest particularly started to cry. Then the other two, I think because their older brother was crying, they were crying and and then but I was able to say right away but you know what? You are staying here in the house. There's nothing really is changing for you.
And just the look on his face of what, because what they knew was divorce meant, you're out of your house, you're going back and forth. And because they had friends who lived that life and so they immediately pulled themselves together. What do you mean? And so it's gonna be just like, When dad has traveled for work in the past and mom, parents without him, and then sometimes mom goes to see friends or has been staying at Grammy and Papa's and dad, parents fine, without her, you guys will just stay here and we'll take turns coming in and out.
And that was how that first conversation went until we could give them, more specifics about the schedule and things like that. So I think in my book I talk about advice I got from different therapists about how to talk about divorce to different ages. I don't exactly regret the way we did it, but I think what I learned, over the years, and then from talking to people for this book, is that I perhaps should have had separate conversations with each of them because of their different ages.
I think it was good to tell them all together so they were all on the same page and knew that each other knew. The youngest was five and so he wasn't understanding the same way the 12 year old was and. And he did over time, but I think I should have had more frequent conversations with him on a different level.
So that's my advice to people now is to have more conversations than you probably think. Yeah.
[00:22:13] Hunter: Talk it out. Remind them. Yeah. I think that's probably everyone's biggest fear is they're kids, right? Like you, you may be ready to end this relationship, but you want to keep it helpful for the
[00:22:28] Beth Behrendt: kids.
[00:22:34] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
All right, so you tell the kids. You figure it out in your book, which is so helpful. If you are considering this dear listener, I really recommend Beth's book, nesting After Divorce. It's really like clear, very unintimidating, really helpful. You talk about you wanna establish some ground rules. What are some ground rules that people are gonna even think about or want
[00:23:03] Beth Behrendt: or need?
Yeah, I think when I hear people or when people ask me a lot was one about when the other person starts dating and So a lot of the ground rules have more to do with each ex-spouse as opposed to, rules for the kids cuz the household stays the same, the rules for the kids at the household.
But But then we had to talk about, we are dating and, especially early on, weren't comfortable with kids being introduced to other adults until it was a serious relationship. And so a lot of nesters put in rules like that. Like you can date when you're not in the nest, but in the nest, in the house.
No other, no romantic partners come into that space, especially early on. I've heard some people saying you're like, okay, for the first year, no romantic partners come in and then we'll talk about it after that. And that was what Bill and I did. Probably close to two years after our divorce.
I felt that the person I was seeing was important enough to me that I wanted him to meet the kids. I wanted the kids to meet him as well. I didn't want him to come live in the house or anything, but I just wanted him to be able to, have dinner with them or. Go see a movie together or something.
And so Bill and I had a conversation about that. And then we decided also to speak to the therapist that I was continuing to see, to get her input about how to talk to the kids about that. So we did a lot of thinking and talking before bringing new people and or new arrangements into into the kids' lives.
And I think that kind of slow approach is Really for the best for everyone, I'm happy that we did it
[00:24:46] Hunter: that way. I imagine it's this way with traditional divorce too, but there's a lot of dialogue that has to happen here, right? When were you and your ex like hashing all this out, did you have a regular time where you met and did you have family meetings?
Like what did you do to bridge these communication, gaps that would be there cuz you're not in the same place
[00:25:10] Beth Behrendt: at the same time, right? Yeah. And that's kind of part of the ground rules too, that I suggest people set up is establishing a regular. Time for communicating preferably, when the kids aren't there.
Bill and I found it helpful at first, especially when we were still hashing out divorce stuff, which can get, stressful and contentious that we actually wouldn't even meet in the home. We'd go to a coffee shop, like a neutral place, while the kids were at school and have our meetings there.
We didn't have to do that, forever, but we did it for a few months to just Take a break from all the things, just focus on, what we needed to talk about related to the kids and the nesting situation and the financial aspects of that. And and so we had a weekly meeting set up.
We had this is goofy, but we had the, set place on the kitchen counter where we would leave a note for each other because early on we really didn't hang out in the house together. I would, he'd walk in and I'd say, bye kid. Hugs and kids and walk out. And so we weren't.
Sang together and talking. Over time it became, he would show up and then we'd just talk about what was going on. But it took us a while to get there, cuz divorce is hard. But we had, a place where you wrote down and we had, an agenda of what, what homework stuff's coming up.
I don't know what groceries might need to be bought soon. The dog has a vet appointment, whatever kind of household stuff we each needed to know about. And
[00:26:36] Hunter: I guess that's a whole thing too your financial things, like who is buying the groceries? Who, who is taking care of the duck?
It's interesting because traditionally, A lot of logistical stuff falls on women's shoulders. Like women just moms take it on just by assumption. And men don't question that assumption either, and but in this situation I imagine, you're examining everything.
And so did that shift your roles or how did that go? It
[00:27:12] Beth Behrendt: definitely did, especially at. First because we were really trying to keep very strict boundaries on, if it was Bill's Parenting time, I wasn't coming in and helping the kids with homework. He was, it was all on him. And then when it was my turn, if the.
Sink blocked up. I had to call the plumber and deal with it because he was, focused on work. It was his time out of the house and we were pretty, we were very, not mean about it, but we were pretty strict. It's your time there, you need to figure it out. Over time we mellowed a lot on that.
Started, going back to the things that I like to do, what he likes to do or he's better at, or I'm better at, which in our case tend to be the more tradition I like to. I actually like to do laundry and grocery shop, and because I was a freelance writer, I have a much more flexible schedule than he does.
So I could do a parent-teacher meeting in the middle of the day if he had, me, get out of so even if it was his day with the kids, we became much more flexible and just helping each other out. Whatever is helpful to the kids. But I do think that period of time where we were pretty strict about each needing to know how to do everything It was good for both of us to gain some appreciation of, what the other person does.
And bill realized like with three kids, laundry is a big part of your life. And I don't think he knew that before.
[00:28:41] Hunter: It must have been some ways like very satisfying to be like, that's your job now. Have fun
[00:28:46] Beth Behrendt: honey. But but eventually we mellowed on that stuff and But I think it was a good experience for
[00:28:52] Hunter: both of us, for sure.
It sounds like you guys are co-parenting pretty well and getting along pretty well up until this day, so it sounds like he's a
[00:29:02] Beth Behrendt: friend now to you. Yes, for sure. And I say this about nesting, but I feel it actually made us get along better than if we had. As opposed if we'd done a traditional approach of just dropping the kids off in the driveway or something that we really had to, we were forced to interact more with each other.
And it was challenging at times at first especially, but over time, I think it really brought us to a place of just being better friends and, getting back to the things that we like about each other without any of the romantic marriage stuff. Getting in the way. And I really think that it's set a great example for our kids, whether they appreciate it or not, but but sometimes, you really can't repair a relationship with somebody or you can change a situation to make it better for yourself and help the other person.
And I think they've seen that with us, whether they recognize it or not. That's so cool.
[00:30:10] Hunter: That's so cool. Okay, so what did, I'm just curious, what did your friends and your family think about all this? Were, did you have any objectors who were like, what are you doing? Don't do.
[00:30:22] Beth Behrendt: It was more confusion, I think, that you don't know what he was particularly like mean about it, but there were definitely, especially with people who didn't know us very well more like acquaintance of you're doing what I thought you were getting divorced.
And then certainly, older family members who were particularly entrenched in the old idea of divorce of, that person being out of your life you're still gonna do a birthday party with him. You're still going to have Thanksgiving together, but you're divorced. Why would you do that?
And we would just keep saying it's. It's for the kids. We're not doing this to try and get back together. You had to clarify that to people that you're certainly not doing it because you wanna get it back together, you're doing it for the kids. But I'd say overall people were really very supportive and complimentary.
Like it, I'd say overall I got very good supportive, caring comments from people about it that made us feel like, okay, this is. Other people think this is a good idea too, so that's really nice to hear. That's so
[00:31:28] Hunter: cool. I just think the whole thing seems so nice and it could be something that you do as long as eight years and maybe it's something you just, you try for, a little while and see if the, that works for you.
Is there something, are there people, do you think for him this is like not a good option? Nesting?
[00:31:47] Beth Behrendt: Certainly, if if you can't trust the other person, At all, or if there's issues of, drug abuse or other types of abuse, then you shouldn't be considering it.
You do need to know that the other person can parent fine on their own. They may not parent, exactly to your standards. That's something you have to let go of a bit. But if you feel that your children are safe and feel loved with them, if there's not any danger, then that's, then it's worth pursuing.
But certainly if there are Really dark issues like that. I also suggest in my book that if you're thinking of doing it because you wanna use it to get back with your, with your ex, that I don't think that's fair to the kids. Or to either you or your ex. You need to really be certain you're doing it for the kids not to try and get something for yourself out of it romantically or whatever.
So those are the red flag things that I think. Would say you should avoid it. But I think a lot of people think, oh, just cuz they're mad at their ex, oh, we're very contentious. They can't imagine it working. But I've talked to a number of people who really set it up as we did in the beginning where it's very clear cut, you weren't, we didn't interact with each other much.
And the way we communicated was very, defined so that we weren't, constantly calling each other texting like it was. We had to put some boundaries on that at first. And so I think even if you are really mad at your ex, if you still could pursue nesting if you think it's gonna be good for your kids.
And if you just really think about what sort of boundaries you each need to have in your interactions with each other. Yeah,
[00:33:32] Hunter: I guess you could be mad at that person, but if you can trust that person to not leave the house trashed or your kids like completely, whatever, if they're, you can trust that person to be a responsible person in general, then maybe it might
[00:33:47] Beth Behrendt: be pers worth pursuing
[00:33:49] Hunter: anyway. I imagine if kids were gonna vote in the whole thing, that's what they'd want. That's what I mean. I imagine if they could just stay in their house and have mom and dad moving out, I think that would probably be what
[00:34:01] Beth Behrendt: they might want.
Yeah, that's really struck me talking to people, my age or other adults who had a traditional divorce. They're really kind of emotional reactions to when they hear about this, that, oh gosh. I wish my parents would've tried that, or they still, they may be 40 years old, but they still remember the day they had to move out of their family home, when they were age and how traumatic that was.
And that stuff really states with kids, forever, I think. And yeah, if we can try and break the cycle of it always being the kids who wives get blown up by divorce whether it's witnessing or just a more gentle approach overall. I think that would be great. I love
[00:34:46] Hunter: that idea. Break the cycle of being the kids', kids' lives who are blown up.
Yeah. Beth, it's been so lovely to talk to you. I think this is such a cool concept. I'm so glad that you wrote this book. It's a step-by-step guide, nesting after Divorce. And I think this is just gonna be so helpful for people cuz I know so many people are wanting to just, you just may not relationship may not be going forward and be what you wished it would be.
And there, it's how to do that in a conscious way that's, less harmful for everybody. Yeah, this is, this seems like a really
[00:35:27] Beth Behrendt: great idea. I'm so glad you shared this all. It's really great. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be able to share the idea with people and Hopefully, promote some more peace in the world one way or another.
[00:35:39] Hunter: Awesome. And where can people find out more about you if they wanna reach out?
[00:35:44] Beth Behrendt: Family nesting.org is my primary website about nesting and it has information about the book and blog posts I've written over the years and articles I've written. Soon as they can find there. There's a video of my ex and me speaking about our experiences.
And the kids as well. So that's a good place to start. I have a Facebook group as well, and then I'm on TikTok and Instagram and so you can look for Beth Barron on those places, but that's all late from the family nesting.org.
[00:36:16] Hunter: Awesome. Thank you so much Beth for coming on the Mindful Mama podcast.
Thank you for sharing your story and I just think it's fabulous.
[00:36:25] Beth Behrendt: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for all the good work you're doing in the world and thanks for this opportunity.
[00:36:38] Hunter: Thank you so much for listening. Isn't messaging such a cool idea? I think it's really neat if that works out for, people and their families. Very cool. So listen, if you enjoyed this podcast, if you enjoy this episode or any of the other over 400 episodes now is bananas, right? Oh my gosh. Please do leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcast.
It doesn't take long. You can do it right in the app where you're listening to this. And I wanna thank She who rides far for your five star review. Thank you so much. They wrote Simply Amazing. Hunter Gets It and Me. She covers so many great topics to keep it fresh and digs into modern questions I can't quite get guidance on from the previous generations.
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Love to say hi to you there. And yeah, and that's it. I hope this episode has been helpful for you. I hope it helps kids and families everywhere and emotion you a great week. I hope you have some fun in your week. I hope you have some compassion for yourself and your family and kids cuz it's hard to be human for all of us.
And I wish you a great week, my friend. Thank you so much for listening. I will be back with you next week.
[00:38:20] Beth Behrendt: I'd say definitely do it. It's really helpful. It will change your relationship with your kids for the better. It will help you communicate better and just, I'd say communicate better as a person, as a wife, as a spouse, it's been really a positive influence in our lives. So definitely do it. I'd say definitely do it.
It's so worth it. The money really is inconsequential when you get so much benefit from being a better parent to your children and feeling like you're connecting more. With them and not feeling like you yelling all the time, or you're like, why isn't things working? I would say definitely into it. It's so worth it.
It'll change you no matter what age someone's child is. It's a great opportunity for personal growth and it's great investment in someone's family. I'm very thankful I have this. You can continue in your old habits that aren't working, or you can learn some new tools and gain some perspective to shift.
Everything in your Parenting,
[00:39:24] Hunter: are you frustrated by Parenting? Do you listen to the experts and try all the tips and strategies, but you're just not seeing the results that you want? Or are you lost as to where to start? Does it all seem so overwhelming with too much to learn? Are you yearning for community people who get it, who also don't want to threaten and punish to create cooperation?
Hi, I'm Hunter Clark Fields, and if you answered yes to any of these questions, I want you to seriously consider the Mindful Parenting membership. You'll be joining hundreds of members who have discovered the path of Mindful Parenting and now have confidence and clarity in their Parenting. This isn't just another Parenting class.
This is an opportunity to really discover your unique lasting relationship, not only with your children, but with yourself. It will translate into lasting connected relationships, not only with your children, but your partner too. Let me change your life. Go to. Mindful Parenting course.com to add your name to the wait list, so you will be the first to be notified when I open the membership for enrollment.
I look forward to seeing you on the inside, Mindful Parenting course.com.
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