51. Parenting Through Infidelity with Ben Pugh

When betrayal strikes a relationship, the emotional fallout doesn’t stop with the couple. It often ripples into your children’s lives too. You may feel torn between your own healing and the responsibility to protect, guide, or explain what’s happening to your kids. It’s one of the toughest balancing acts a betrayed partner can face.

In this deeply insightful episode, I sit down with Ben Pugh (parenting & teen life coach) to explore how infidelity affects parenting, how to manage your own emotional reactions, and how to show up for your children in transformative ways. If you’re navigating betrayal with young or teenage children, this conversation gives you both permission and practical tools to parent with intention.

Key Takeaways:

• How redefining your identity as a parent can anchor you through the turmoil

• Why moderating your emotional reactions matters more than you think

• Ways to break cycles of shame, blame, or generational trauma

• Practical strategies for helping teens process change and loss

• Why focusing on what you can control is a powerful parenting tool

💬 Reflection questions:

How has infidelity affected your relationship with your children? What would it look like to show up more intentionally for them, even in your own healing process?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go! Hello and welcome to episode number 51 of the After The Affair podcast with myself Luke Shillings. Today we're shifting our focus a little from the dynamics between the unfaithful and betrayed partners to the impact on parenting and the children involved. Joining me today is Ben Pugh.

He shares his background and his insights on how parents can better support their children during their teenage years amidst the challenges caused by significant events such as infidelity. We'll explore how modifying our own behaviours can create a positive experience for ourselves and also to influence that of our children. In our conversation we delve into the concept of identity, cherishing positive experiences and not allowing the negative ones to define us.

We'll also discuss the of managing emotions as parents, reflecting on our own childhood experiences and breaking the cycle of negative behaviour. As someone who works in education and coaching Ben shares his observations on the flaws in the education system and the missing links in preparing young adults for real-life situations. Together we'll explore the challenges faced by parents when betrayal occurs in relationships especially when children are involved.

So let's get started on this insightful journey of self-reflection, growth and the pursuit of positive parenting. Okay Ben, welcome to the After The Affair podcast. Thank you for joining us today.

A bit of a different take on things this week. Normally I'm speaking predominantly about the betrayal, the infidelity, the specific dynamic between the unfaithful and the betrayed partners in the relationships and today I want to twist our focus a little bit and look a bit more from the parenting perspective and how our children are influenced and affected and also how we can as parents better show up and support our children particularly as they're going through their teen years to overcome these changes in their lives and ultimately just to be the best dad or the best mum that you can be. So Ben if you could introduce yourself and let Melissa know a little bit about you and your background and then we'll just take it from there.

Yeah so my name is Ben Pugh. I am a parenting and teen life coach and it's interesting like a lot of parents feel like they've been betrayed by their teens. So I think there's some similar dynamics going on here and what I like to do, I like to help parents be the parent that they've always wanted to be and parent with purpose, with intention and really tap into your parenting power by leaning into your strengths and parenting style and what's most important to you and right now so here in the U.S. we're kind of getting back into the school year.

There's a lot of school sports going on and primarily when I coach teenagers, I guess maybe not primarily, probably about 75% of my teen clients are actually high school athletes that want to improve their game, play at a higher rate and I just I feel like I'm unique in the coaching space. There are a lot of parents that I'm working with where I'm also working with their teen and I always tell parents the same thing like if you want to change something about your teenager, ask yourself how can I be the change that I want to see. That's the most empowering thing that you can do and I coach a lot of partnerships, a lot of husbands and wives where there's a dynamic where they're unhappy with their spouse and they wish that they could change their partner and that same question is always applicable.

How can you be the change that you want to see and really come into that relationship with more power, with more intentionality rather than simply reacting and feeling like the other person's constantly pulling your strings and making you be a bad parent or something like that. It's a really interesting point that because if we think about the dynamic of a romantic relationship, it's easy to have these expectations of our partners and want them to show up in a certain way and if they don't it's like well it's all their fault and even though people don't want their relationships to come to an end, it is an option. People can separate and part and walk away but of course when our children don't behave in the way that we want them to then for most people I hope at least and certainly for me, no matter how annoying they are at times, I would never ever turn my back on my children and I would imagine that the same for most people.

So if the child isn't going to necessarily change to match your expectations, it's like well how can you modify your behaviour to not only change your own experience but to also influence the kids as well. So what brought you to this? How have you got to this point? What's your journey look like? Yeah so it starts way back when I was 13 years old. It actually started earlier than that.

I was kind of a troublemaker as what we refer to as a knucklehead. I was just always doing dumb things and when I was 13, I accidentally lit my school bus on fire with rubber cement and anytime I share that, people are like, yeah right, accidentally. Well for me it was accidentally.

One of my friends stole the rubber cement and he asked me to hold it in my backpack all day and I thought well yeah that seems innocent enough. Later on the bus ride home, he's like bro you got my rubber cement and as I'm fishing it out of my backpack, one of my other friends is like hey I've got a lighter, let's see what happens. And for me it kind of felt like this unintentional path, this unintentional journey where I had multiple exits where I could have left this journey, this pathway but I chose not to and accidentally wound up in this situation where we had lit this rubber cement on fire.

I tried to throw it out of the school window or the bus window and missed and sent flaming rubber cement all over the back of the bus and I remember like I went to one of my friend's houses a few weeks afterwards and like we had played for years and his mom met me at the door and she's like sorry you can't play with my son anymore, we don't want you to burn our house down. I remember at a church meeting like the preacher is up in front of everyone talking about this incident, never mentioned any names but we all knew who he's talking about and that's when I felt like I had ruined my life and that my life was beyond saving and I went through this, I don't know, this long phase where I just felt like I wasn't good enough, college wasn't really on my radar, I just felt like this one experience had ruined my life and I got into coaching high school football because, I don't know, you guys might call football soccer or soccer, I know what you mean. I love American football, I still coach to this day.

Anyways, I happened to be coaching football in a town where I built this high school principal's house and he's like dude, you're awesome with kids, I'd love to have you here at the school and my wife and I have been foster parents for 10 years because I just love helping teenagers and helping them not go through something that would ruin their life and one time, so I got into education, I actually became the high school principal at that high school where my principal friend got me to work and I had to suspend a kid and the kid's dad was just super mad like I thought, oh no, I'm gonna have to fight this grown man to protect his child and I said hey, time out, let me tell you about the first time that I was suspended and I shared this story with him about how I accidentally lit the school bus on fire and look, I turned out to be a high school principal, so everything's okay and the dad went from being just livid and angry to chuckling and elbowing his son and being like hey, maybe you'll grow up to be a high school principal someday and I realised I wish my parents back when I was 13 and accidentally lit my school bus on fire, I wish they'd have had a little bit more hope, I wish they'd have had more perspective like hey, maybe he'll turn this into some awesome event that is great for his life and that is when I realised, you know what, I want to do more than just be a high school principal, I want to be a life coach, I want to help teens, I want to help their parents and what I do is I help parents stop blaming their teenagers for how they've parented and how they're showing up in life and I help the parent be the parent that they've always wanted to be which then builds a better relationship between parent and teen which as a byproduct, your teenager becomes more successful, they have more confidence all because you changed how you wanted to parent, so that's kind of how I got started, kind of a long roundabout way to answer that but there you go. Yeah, I love it, it's a great inspirational journey that you've been on, like you said, to start from that what seemed like a path that was going to lead in a certain direction and then to have been, I suppose, dealt with in some respects by your peers and the people around you in a particular way, I mean what do you remember that that felt like for you at the time when you've done this thing, this thing had happened, whether it be an intentional or not, not really the point, but the way it was being perceived by others, how did that leave you feeling? A tonne of shame and guilt, like I remember, so I was suspended and I wasn't suspended as long as the older kids that were involved, like they were gone for a full calendar year. For me, I was suspended and then I had to come back to school and deal with all my friends and I remember like in all of my classes, I got put up on the very front row which is right under the teacher's nose and that lasted for years, like I'd go to school and typically the first week they'd let you sit wherever and then they'd figure out who talks too much will move them, well not for me, like they'd call roll and read my name and be like, you need to sit in the front row and I remember reading the scarlet letter in high school and thinking, oh my goodness, that's me, I have this stupid badge of shame that, oh that's the kid that lit the school bus on fire and I'll tell you, one of the most liberating moments, so I don't know why, like I was an above average high school principal and we had taken graduation rate at my school from 55% to 88% and we had dropped suspensions from over 200 a year to less than 20 a year and when you start doing a really good job, people start noticing and I remember at one meeting, they just called out of the audience and they're like, hey Ben, you guys are doing amazing things at your school, come up, come tell us what you're doing, I outlined a few things and after that meeting, this man that I vaguely recognised, he's like, hey, are you this kid, like are you the one, is your mom so-and-so, are you, you're not the one that lit the school bus on fire and I was like, yeah, that's me and he's like, how on earth did you become a principal and for me, like I believe that we all have trials, we all have struggles and the problem is most people unintentionally let that define them based upon what their superiors, their parents, whatever, whoever the authority is in the moment, they let their perception of that event define them and my goal is now, how can I help you define your weakest, your worst moments, your biggest struggles and trials, how can I help you view that in a way that improves your own self-definition, like I can tell you, I have never lit a school bus on fire since, like I learned a lesson, I was not that same kid but people continue viewing me that way, including myself, like I still, there's inner work, like how I perceive myself, how I feel about myself that I'm still doing because I catch myself in that old habit, believing that man, I'm not good enough, I did this bad thing once upon a time, like I will never be good enough and I have to remind myself, no, like that's part of the journey that made me who I am and I can't go back in time and change the past, so I might as well embrace it and tell a story about it in a way that serves me rather than in a way that holds me back.

Sure, yeah. I mean, how's the relationship because you obviously said that you'd experienced shame and guilt having, you know, been shown to have been this thug, this meathead as you described, who just, you know, carelessly setting fire to school buses but also that your parents and the people around you were portraying that as well, they were projecting that onto you as well. I mean, when you see it from their perspective, how has your relationship with your parents changed over the years, how do they see that now, how do they see, is that a conversation that's been had? Yeah, it's funny, I got to speak at a high school graduation a few years ago and it was kind of my first big speaking thing and I invited my mom, hey come listen, and she had no idea that I was going to share that story, like that's the one thing that I always talk about and I looked down in the audience, she is bright red, like just still embarrassed and mortified and the thing is like that day was a traumatic experience not only for me but also for my mom and me and my mom, we have a really good relationship now but there was some work that had to be done, like I remember my mom specifically told me all the that I know who ever got suspended are either dead or they're in jail, like in her mind that was like my future.

Wow. My mom has apologised like a thousand times, she's like Ben, you're the oldest, we had no idea what we're doing, we're so sorry for how we raised you, I am grateful for what I went through, like I'm grateful, like there was a time where I seriously felt like I didn't belong anywhere, like I remembered in a church meeting one of my leaders, like I wanted to go serve a two-year mission for my church, he's like yeah we don't send arsonists out to represent the church, like I seriously felt like I no longer belonged and I wouldn't trade any of that because that gives me purpose, that gives me direction, like when I start working with parents I'm like all right, first thing you're focussing on everything that your teen is or is not doing, that is outside of your control, let go of that, bring your focus into you, like it drives who I am and what I do and so I look at the past and kind of that event with a little bit of gratitude and reverence and I'm like I've had, it sounds weird, like I don't know, your clients probably get it, but like I've had conversations with that past version of myself where I tell them hey, thank you for going through that for me, thank you for being strong enough to, like yes it was a dumb decision, but thank you for making the best of it, thank you for learning all of these lessons that give me this huge advantage in my life and it really, like I remember just feeling ashamed, feeling, I don't know, like I didn't belong, well guess what, I'm a life coach, like people in my life and in my family don't think that's a real job, I still don't belong guys, I just got used to it back when I was 13 and now when people are like dude, go get a real job, a life coach isn't a real thing, I don't need your acceptance, I learned how to accept myself. So, so true and something I can completely relate to as well, like I had, it's interesting, there's been a few, as you've been talking, a few sort of like comparisons and like to my own life, one is obviously I am familiar with the term football, I actually used to play American football in the UK when I was younger, sort of senior level, I used to play quarterback for a few years, also when I was at school I didn't set anything on fire, but I was expelled from school, excluded from school and suspended on three occasions throughout my school life, so I didn't have like the crystal clear portfolio if you like and interestingly when I got excluded from the first school I was only 13, no, no, I was younger, 12 maybe and there was a lot of shame for me at that moment in time and my mum was my, that was the thing I was afraid of, like over and above everything else, like facing my mum was the thing I was most concerned about and in some respects maybe I got away with it a little bit because by being removed from that school and then being put into another school it was almost like I got a clean slate and I'm not saying I didn't then make some errors, more errors going along or alternative questionable judgments might we say, I mean like you say that they have made me who I am, they've exposed me to things that I otherwise wouldn't have done and yeah and all kinds of things and I think that is ultimately the power within taking responsibility for yourself and even though I didn't realise that's what I was doing at the time, I didn't realise that by dealing with these tough situations was actually you know shaping me into the future version of myself, now when I do reflect back and I look back and have that conversation with my past self I can do it with compassion and understanding and respect and care and intrigue and all of these things and to, I see so many people, I see it with my clients and I see it with people that I know who have got to a certain point in their life and they have left themselves, they're beating themselves up because they're ashamed of the things that they have done, you know mistakes they have made whether that be in relationships or work or who knows what it is and I think that's just such a waste, it's such a shame, you know it's a bit like when somebody comes to the end of a relationship for whatever reason and then they say something, oh well I've just wasted the last 10 years of my life, it's like really, really that's what you've taken from that, it's like no, no you've had 10 years of experience and okay maybe it didn't end the way you'd originally hoped but you don't then just wipe that slate clean, that's part of you, it's part of who you are, embrace it, take it, use it as fuel to make your future you know whatever you want it to be, amazing.

So I just, when I was young, my parents they separated when I was four years old and so my relationship, I had a good relationship with both my mum and my dad growing up, however because my father moved away he would then come back and visit and then go and then come back and visit and then go and over the years he gradually moved a little bit further away from where I lived and those distances, the time spans between those visits would become slightly larger and to the point where you know and I've said this to him before as well so even if I know he's listening to this episode it won't come as a shock but there was a time where I I actually wished that he died because I'd have only had to say goodbye to him once, there was that experience particularly during my teen years which is confusing you know for many people we've got all these hormonal changes as you're trying to fit into this identity and even more so in modern times and we're talking 25-30 years ago for me and it's it was you know a time where there was this confusion and I didn't know really what it is I wanted, it was confusing and and of course I would imagine that it would be difficult from a parent's perspective so I mean how could you help, it'd be interesting to hear your perspective on both how you could help a teenager in that situation but also how you could help the parent like the equivalent of my father let's say in a similar situation. Yeah so I would actually start with your father there like if I if we could go back in time and like enrol him in my programme and coach him up the first thing that I'd invite him to do is hey take some time and define your identity, who is it that you want to be as a dad like you have this child that you're going to have a relationship with probably not the relationship that you were expecting by the way from the very beginning and I would invite him hey take some time and define who is it that you want to be as a dad and one of the problems is as parents we do a lot of our parenting by trying to manage what our children think, feel or how they behave and the problem is that positions you as the victim you're focused on somebody else's model how they think, how they feel, how they act rather than focussing on your own so like first thing define your identity really get clear on who you want to be and that's important there was a study done years ago don't even remember I'm not a scientist guys like go find it for yourself if you want to find it but what they determined was like human beings suck at walking in a straight line like we have no sense of direction unless we have like landmarks and so they take people out into a big open desert and they'd walk in circles and they'd zigzag but when they had a beacon out in the distance they were able to walk in a pretty straight line they're able to walk towards the beacon the same was true in a jungle if they just dropped them off in the jungle they're going in circles you're going backwards but if they give them a little compass a reference point now all of a sudden they can do a pretty good job walking in a straight line when you have your identity as a parent and you know this is who I want to be that's the beacon in the distance and it's the compass in your hand right now to keep you on track and so when life's choices come your way and you're wondering like what do I do do I move away do I do this you have this guide to help you decide and there's no right or wrong answers like the best answer is for you to tone it or tune in with who you want to be and make decisions aligned with your values because that will make parenting easier now the thing about helping the teenager in that circumstance like number one you got to be honest and be like dude this can suck like it can be hard but who do you want to be in the face of this how do you want to handle this one of the best exercises that I do for both parents and teenagers is we draw out this t-chart and I call it the t-chart of control and it's similar to like when you do pros and cons but in this case on the left hand side you say hey these are the things that I can control and on the right hand side these are all the things that I cannot control and so if you and your dad were to do this like your dad would be like I can't control how Luke feels how Maddie gets like throw all of that out you're then left with only what you can control and it's really liberating I've had teenagers tell me man I used to worry so much about my parents about school about whatever it might be but when I do that t-chart of control I can let go of all the other stuff and all I have to do is master me and that probably would have been my invitation it's interesting that like there are lots of kids that have been through divorce and it's hard but for whatever reason this has been like a defining moment in your life and as a teenager I'm guessing you never took the time to define yourself to define that moment and as a teen by the way it's really hard to do that like I could coach you through that but it is far more powerful for you to like go back and have some conversations with that teenager and now be like you know what what did that moment mean to my life how has that impacted me in a negative way sure but how has it also impacted me positively and I feel like there's a lot of trauma and there's a lot of wounds that we get when we're younger that we don't actually have the capacity to heal as a child or as a teenager but you can learn these skills and I don't know how old you are I'm four I'm turning 42 this year I am and there's oh awesome hey I'm levelling up this year I'm gonna catch up to you briefly but like we can do the work now to heal those pains in the past and I think with teenagers if we can just stop catastrophising and being like oh no this is the most terrible thing ever and being like yeah it's tough let me help you through it you'll be able to make sense of it as you grow as you mature yeah so it's interesting that when I reflect I know that I want to delve too much into my personal just for the sake of not being off topic but it's it's interesting when I think back that I spent the first 25 years of my adult life let's say or thereabouts my my adolescent up to into adult life not knowing what on earth it was I wanted to do in my life like there's that uncertainty I was like that was probably the overwhelming sort of feeling that that I had like I didn't know what it was that I wanted to do I enjoyed lots of things I had lots of interests but I always felt like there would be something or there could be something better or different to do and therefore became a bit of a jack-of-all-trades and you know some could say master of none but I'm not prepared to to wear that label but certainly definitely very multi multivariate in my interests and and skill set and and it's only really been interestingly enough through my own direct personal experience of infidelity that has and it kind of kind of linked these two separate parts of my life together in some way which now makes sense again and I feel like I can use that to to help and support people who are going through a similar thing with with that unique perspective looking at it from both sides you know both as from a child looking at my parents but also looking at as a husband and a father in my own personal experience this it's funny you mentioned um funny is probably the wrong word but you mentioned trauma it's almost as though we spend the first sort of 15 18 years of our lives building up these little chinks in our armour that are trauma and then we spend the 50 or 60 of them trying to iron them back out again yeah trying to take them back down yeah it's so so true yeah two things that I would add if if we have time yeah number one like trauma it isn't the same for everyone like you can see two kids go through roughly the same exact thing and one of them is like fine never even bats an eye like they do great and another it's like a really big life-altering deal I found there's the people who experience trauma they tend to make it mean something about themselves that I'm broken there's something wrong with me I'm not good enough the ones who go through the experience and don't experience trauma they already have really strong image of themselves and they don't let that incident change their identity or change how they perceive themselves and the second thing the reason I bring this all up like you talked about how you spent like the first 25 years of adulthood like wondering what do I want to do where do I want to go I'm going to do this I'm going to do this I'm going to do this I think the world that we live in is too focused on what we do and getting us to do the right things or specific things and we see it in education right now like oh you gotta do all this stuff and you gotta do the right path to be a doctor I think if we could take it back a step and shift our focus rather than focussing on what we do focus on who do you want to be and that changes less like you look at kids like they know who they want to be I want to be kind I want to be a movie star I want to be a football player I want to be whatever what they want to be changes less over the years as what they want to do and the reason so many kids are distracted and lost right now is because we're so focused on doing the right stuff and if we could shift that focus to take some time and no identify who is it that you want to be because what you do will be driven by who you want to be like I like my wife she'll I don't know she probably won't listen to this podcast but she'll be like man is my husband being unfaithful why is he on this podcast like that's something that is outside of my identity and like smoking and like there's just a handful of things that are not part of my identity so I'm not going to go down that path and do those things and if we could take the time like when you were going through this circumstance where you're processing your dad not being as close and like if we could have helped you shift your focus inward being like yeah this is tough what type of person do you want to be who do you want to be in the face of this if we could just go back and like harness this terrible event that you had to go through to really define your identity my guess is you still do a bunch of different things between for the past 25 years but they're all in line with who you want to be and they're all in line to getting you one step closer to know this is who I am today but in the big picture this is who I am and this is where I'm going so I just wanted to throw that out there and your identity by the way it shines through like it doesn't matter all the things that you've done or haven't done or all the different directions like where are you now like you're freaking luke shillings you're helping people you have an amazing podcast who you want to be will always shine through and that's why it's so important if you can take the time to define that yeah well I love that and I've spoken about identity a couple of times on the podcast before and you're right it's that it's so easy I mean and thank you for the kind words as well it makes me feel quite good but it's so easy to look to our past to try and draw up this current identity that we have and okay we can we can cherry pick bits from that but let's do that let's intentionally cherry pick not not allow all of the negative experiences to form what we think our current identity identity is our identity really is who we are you and me sat here in front of each other today talking to each other that's who we are right now I can't be anything else can't be anything else you know and and what comes before and even other people's judgments well again that's that's on them not us there's nothing I can do to truly change or control the thoughts and behaviours of anybody else whether that be somebody listening whether it be my own children whether it be my my father whether I get a call after after he's heard this podcast episode you know whatever it is I can't control those things but but then that's kind of the point you know I'm not trying to you know I've released that need to do so and I encourage anybody who's listening to this to be able to do the same for themselves too so there's a couple of things one quick question before I move on to the next bit is given your role in education and we don't have to go too far down this but and also your role in coaching it's interesting to me that I've I've seen that this there's some big holes in our education system and I'd just like maybe you to talk to what you see in that even what you have learned since becoming and sort of taking your journey as a coach yeah um let me try and talk on this without going too much into this yeah I recognise that and yeah um I will be honest with I am not a big fan of education um me and my family's struggled maybe wrestled with going back to school is it worth it is it not there's some things that I believe about what I do that are really really powerful in addition to being a life coach I coach high school football I know my role as a high school football coach I am programming young adults like these teenage boys I'm programming their mind so that in certain circumstances they react without even thinking the best possible way and they make plays on the football field everything we do in life contributes to the programming of our subconscious mind what I believe I do is I teach people to identify the old programming and identify what is not useful what is not beneficial and replace that old programming with new programming this is how I was taught to act this is how I was taught to think and feel I'm no longer upset except that I'm going to update my own programming um people are resistant to this idea and like especially like with education politics religion people are really resistant to updating your programming but no one is resistant when it comes to our iPhone like the iPhone is like hey you gotta update your phone like we've made some improvements we're doing it differently I've had to update my iPhone twice in two weeks before where they're like oh turns out it doesn't work my problem with school is that it is programming our children to think that there's one answer and it's got to be the right answer teach them to think in like black and white like it's this or that um recently in the coaching policy that we're both the members in like someone asked like hey I'm thinking about doing this with my podcast and I'm like those aren't the only two options like you have thousands of options take some time identify all the options and then just make a choice and so I currently the only involvement I have with school right now um I will go speak at a school if you're willing to hear what I have to say and I coach high school football other than that like if my children weren't in athletics and this is the bad thing about the U.S. like if we could disconnect education from here in the U.S. we try and do everything with education like yeah they teach our kids they clothe our kids they manage the sports like all no just do the education part let's separate all the others but that is an interesting difference actually um compared to here at least in the UK it's not you know America is very much about the scholarships it's about everything's about choosing that thing through the education system yeah very closely linked to sports in many many ways and of course like anything there's pros and cons of everything of course you wouldn't be doing what you were doing if if that wasn't the case I suppose but yeah yeah very interesting well thank you for touching on that because it's I recognise is what is is we could have we could easily do a whole series of episodes probably um just on on that topic and because there definitely are some there are some missing links in the chain when it comes to preparing young adults for real life in terms of relationships in terms of money in terms of a variety of things just taking responsibility for themselves and being able to show up for who they are and then they ultimately become the best versions of themselves for everybody else anyway it's like a win-win situation okay so finally I just wanted to look at so I'm thinking from the perspective of many of my listeners who have experienced betrayal some of them will have chosen to stay or had the opportunity to stay and of course there are others who don't but sometimes they've chosen to leave or sometimes they've had no choice the relationship has been forced away from if you like and where they've got children involved now they can yeah particularly if the children are a bit younger so take my situation again for example just for the sake of an example my children were three and six when when I separated from my wife when we got divorced um so obviously still well beyond the well before the teenage years although my eldest now is getting much closer to that you know children are challenging at the best of times and there's one thing I noticed when my children were very young is that they'll go through certain phases and certain problems and certain challenges that you're trying to fix and you're you're as a parent trying to sort of like chase after and figure out how to solve that thing and by the time you've come to some kind of a conclusion they've moved on like three steps further like a completely different stage and I would imagine that that changes a little bit as the as the children grow older or the problems certainly change anyway and maybe less frequent I don't know maybe I'm maybe I'm just hopefully wishing that to be the case um yeah how how how do you talk to to parents who are in that situation who have maybe got maybe maybe the communication between their um their co-parent isn't mega maybe maybe they're not having the best they've not been able to maintain a really good co-parenting relationship but obviously they still want to be the best mother or father that they can be to their kids irrespective of the the other partner anything that you any sort of words of wisdom that you can sort of offer to those people yeah let's talk about a couple of things number one you are a prime example of generational trauma and perpetuating generational patterns habits um you separated from your wife when your kids were three and six your parents separated when you were four yes I don't know what happened with their parents but somewhere down the line this generational pattern came to be um here in the U.S. like we are battling obesity and what they're finding out is that oh this is a generational pattern um poverty it's a generational pattern like you look at wealthy families they're wealthy for generations the thing that I would invite you and I don't know if this is the answer that you wanted or that you're looking for but you can either heal the generational wounds that have been passed down to you or you can continue handing them down to future generations and it sounds a little bit brutal and blunt but really it's that I don't know if the word is that simple but like is that clear and the thing is you can heal generational wounds in a single generation and it doesn't mean that your kids like are going to be living on easy street like oh yeah life's great no there's going to be things that they're going to have to heal on their own and they can either be healing the generational wounds that are passed down to them or they can be healing what they come across on their own and one of the things that I would say when it comes to like this generational trauma I would make healing your trauma a priority do not overly focus on your kids yes we want to make sure that they know that they're loved that they belong all of that but ultimately and you'll find this out like you're getting to the age where your kids are going to be teenagers this is going to be blatantly obvious pretty soon your kids don't listen to anything that you say yes but they are watching they're watching everything that you do and I want to just use you as an example like is there ever a time like maybe when you're upset at your kids and you snap at them and you realise oh my goodness I sound just like my dad has that ever happened to you I will I've definitely I wouldn't say that specifically but I've definitely questioned myself sometimes when I do snap at my kids you know there's definitely that shame and it's like oh my god how have I let this this build up you know and even more so since I do what I do because I should be able to manage my emotions better you know yeah so and I should have maybe asked are there things that you do that you realise oh I got that from my mom because it sounds like maybe that's who you were close yeah I suppose that I suppose there are patterns there's definitely ways in which I've handled the situation that have been so for example and this is on the positive side at least this is my my twist on it at least so when my mother and father separated from my perspective they did everything they could to maintain a good co-parenting relationship I never saw them I never remember them arguing and ever remember there being conflict I don't I don't recall any of that and I'm sure there must have been some even if it was just out of my out of my sight I don't particularly remember any of that at all and so when I was in the same situation which was scary to be in because I didn't want my children to experience what I'd experienced or at least what I was telling myself I experienced the motivation to make the co-parenting relationship a priority was high so I know for a fact that that definitely came from my own lived experience and I like to think that that was a real positive thing that I took from it rather than the opposite so let's because had my had my parents been at each other's throats the whole time and that was what I'd witnessed as a child who knows maybe that's what I would have projected when I was going through the same situation and taking it out on my own children but I hope at least I and I certainly try and continue to not make that the case yeah so let's break this down a little bit your mom never sat you down and said okay Luke when you get divorced here's how you do it now you are probably enough now yeah and like when when I do things like the way I speak the way I snap at my kids I'm like oh my goodness it sounds like my dad like my dad never sat me down and said okay Ben when you're upset you gotta have this voice intonation and you gotta also increase the volume I observed that and I from observing my mind is like okay this is what reality is this is what it should look like you observe this reality where even though your parents got a divorce they're still kind they're still respectful your brain is like okay so this is what reality is that's why it's so powerful when I tell parents like hey your kids aren't listening usually parents are like I know they never listen to me but they are watching you so rather than trying to control what your kids think about the divorce how they feel about the divorce how they behave you manage you knowing that they are watching and so most like I teach the self-coaching model circumstances thoughts feelings actions results same thing right yeah yep sure so for anybody listening go back to episode 20 and I cover the model in more detail that Ben's referred to awesome so I teach a more hybrid version of that now I teach the be do have model and your being that's how you think and how you feel if you can manage your own ways of being that will have profound impacts on your children if you're going through a divorce if you are dealing with infidelity whether it doesn't matter which side of the equation you're on if you can bring your energy back and this is where most people really struggle they mismanage their energy they focus so much of their attention and their energy your energy goes where you focus but they waste their energy focussing on what others think what others feel what others do and I'm telling you catch yourself doing that let go of everything outside of your control which by the way is an illusion because you have no control over it anyways and bring that energy back and direct it into being the mom or the dad or the husband or the wife like whatever it is you focus that energy on being who you want to be and your kids who aren't listening to you anyways will see you being that way and whether you like it or not your children are patterning their reality based upon what they see from you well that's yeah I love every every bit of that and I can see it and I can feel it and I see it with my own clients and their relationships with their families and children and how these things play out and it's yeah it's kind of interesting to be put back on the spot myself and to be you know to be thinking live in the moment about it as well which is really really interesting and great reflection thank you ever so much Ben it's been amazing to have you on the podcast today so how can people find you reach out and potentially work with you yeah you can go to benpewcoaching.com that's ben pew is spelled kind of weird as p-u-g-h but benpewcoaching.com I actually have a podcast it's called impact parenting with perspective it's all about helping parents of teenagers really have a better perspective and to start parenting in a way that has a positive impact on your teen and if you're looking to improve your relationship with your team I've actually had clients tell me this helped me with my spouse it helped me with my boss it helped me with my mother-in-law I have a free gift where you can go to benpewcoaching.com slash relationship and I walk you through what you can control in a relationship with someone else so that you can start being the master of you and how you show up in that relationship so that would probably be the easiest and I totally need to have you on my podcast sometime so I'd be more than happy to join you let's make that happen excellent I shall obviously put all of your details in the show notes as always thank you ever so much I really enjoyed my conversation with Ben today and I really want to thank him for opening up and sharing his insights with us it's been an enlightening conversation and to all of you listening remember that life is not a crystal clear portfolio we all have ups and downs we make mistakes and face challenges but it's how we embrace those experiences and use them as fuel to shape the future that truly matters that's all for this episode of after the affair as always if you have any questions or topics you'd like me to cover feel free to reach out visit lifecoachluke.com or contact me direct at luke at lifecoachluke.com stay tuned for more episodes where I'll keep exploring the complexities of relationships and infidelity and how I can help you navigate them with compassion and understanding until next time take care.