Are you a child of divorce?

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Are your parents divorced? How old were you when it happened? How did they explain it to you? And the big question: how could they have handled the situation better?

Thanks,

MJ

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2000

Answers

oh, my... Yes I am a product of divorce - my mother was married 3 times. Once to my father and then she married/divorced/married/divorced my step dad. My parents separated for the last time when I was in first grade.

When they did separate last, my father drove me to school and told me in the car. Not the best decision on his part, but knowing what I know today about my mother (she's evil incarnate), I don't blame him. I am told that custody laws & southern customs (we lived in Texas at the time of the divorce) being what they were in the late 1970's/early 80's, my father would have never gotten custody of us, which is very sad.

I only saw my father sporatically growing up, which I regret most. When they divorced, I thought my father was the most amazing person in the whole wide world. I adored him and he adored me. My mother villified him... if I was bad, the punishment was going to live with my father because she was sick of me. She spoke poorly of him... She, in fact, told us he was gay, which he's not. She drug him through the mud. When she was angry (which was OFTEN), she would tell us that he didn't love us and the proof was that she'd stayed to raise us and he'd left us.

My point: she took the divorce away from being about two adults who couldn't be married to something that was our fault, his fault, anyone's fault but hers and she became the martyr. Somewhere in there no one loved us - at least no one that was around. As an oldest child, I took ownership of the divorce - it was my fault, I thought. And my mother was more than happy to give me that ownership.

If anything, when you divorce, BOTH parents MUST stay involved in the children's lives - no matter the cost. Some very terrible things happened to me and my sisters because no one was there to balance my mother's power... She had a blank slate with no accountability, which was, I imagine, quite a load for her, but which she didn't handle as an adult would. She had mental problems and we suffered severely as a result of that.

I once (actually twice) went out with a guy who was divorced within like 3 years of his son being born. To this day he's an active part of his son's life - coaches his football team, 'team' parents with his ex-wife, jointly attends the son's events with the ex, everything. There is no doubt in my mind that this boy knows he's loved by both parents despite their divorce.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2000


No,but I wish I was.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2000

Ditto.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2000

My parents are in the second year of their divorce, which could possibly go on for years. As of this moment nothing major has been resolved and when they were just of the verge of getting somewhere my father's lawyers put a petition in to be released as his council. [And they were released.] So now he has a new set of lawyers, who ironically enough are in the same building as my mother's lawyers, which by the way I assure you is no accident. Even in divorce my father is a lying cheating conniving psycho control freak and no I feel no love lost between he and myself. Not speaking to him and carving myself out of his life was the best decision I've ever made in my life.

When my mother started the divorce there really wasn't anything to be explained, my only thought was "what took you so long?" I am thankful though that they did not get divorced when I was a child, I'm thirty now and I can see that I would not have come through that ordeal and I doubt that any child/teen could survive such event without years of therapy. Just thinking about it now makes me shutter in horror of how they would have behaved and how I would have been a tennis ball pawn in their financial greediness. While growing up even though they were not getting divorced they would always try and get me to play favorites between them, bad mouthing the other or trying to out do each other in gift giving. If I favored my mother, my father would either ignore me or speak to me in an insulting and derogatory way and if I favored my father, I would simply get a beating. The beatings where easier to tolerate because it was physical and the pain was only temporary, having a parent strip you of your self-worth was far more damaging.

I don't know how long their divorce will take, years perhaps, but I do think that they are dealing with it the best that they can, well that is, in their own minds. My mother is playing the helpless sobbing victim and my father is playing his favorite role as the manipulating controlling militant. Not much has changed really, except for the fact that the people who so my father as a brilliant man with an extraordinary bedside manner just see him as the hateful controlling greedy man he had always been.

For the record, I don't favor either parent, even though it may seem here that I favor my mother - but I don't. In my own mind I've either come to terms with or forgiven their behavior but it's the lack of feeling or compassion I have for them that can be shocking to people who don't know me well enough.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2000


Yes -- my parents divorced when I was 19. It was devastating, because I was old enough to really understand what was happening, and because, well, by the time you get to be that age, I think the idea of your parents splitting up just seems too unreal. I don't have contact with my father at all right now -- they divorced because he was cheating on my mother, and planning to kill her. We were never close to begin with, and even though I really tried to stay in contact with him, he never reciprocated. And surprise surprise, I married someone just like him...

My dad, obviously, could ave handled a lot of his decisions differently. My mom has always handled it well -- she kept a lot of it from me until she knew I had to know, because she feared that if she told me, I would have dropped out of school and moved home (which I would have.) She has never badmouthed my father to either my brother or me, and when she's had to have contact with him, she has been the epitome of dignity and maturity.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2000



Almost. My father got the seven-year-itch when I was eight, and moved out to his swinging bachelor pad (bwah-hah-hah: he's a portly English teacher). After a few months, he came to his senses and moved back.

A few years later, you know how they always say you're supposed to tell the kids it's not their fault that the parents break up? Our dad came and told us our mom was moving out because we were driving her up the wall. She moved back after a few months.

A few more years down the road, my father had a midlife crisis and moved out again. This time he made sure to point out to us that he and our mother had good reasons each of the times they had moved out; it wasn't just something they did from time to time. Too little too late. He realized that being a bachelor again at 45 sucked and moved back after a while. They've been together ever since.

My father is my mother's second husband, and I have two half-brothers from her first marriage. To give you an idea of the level of communication in our family, I didn't learn this little tidbit of information until I was 14. Go figure.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2000


Mine aren't, but I always thought they would, growing up. They fight like cats and dogs, having screaming matches several times a day. According to my parents now, this has no correlation to anything whatsoever regarding their relationship...what???

The worst case of divorce crap I know of is my ex's parents, who got divorced when he was four. They neglected to tell him this information until he was twelve. That's right, they lived together, slept in the same room, and acted married for eight years. No wonder my ex has issues...

Anyone had any screwy problems with judges/lawyers regarding custody of children? I've just been hearing hair-curling stories today...very depressing.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2000


Yes -- my parents divorced when I was 19. It was devastating, because I was old enough to really understand what was happening, and because, well, by the time you get to be that age, I think the idea of your parents splitting up just seems too unreal.

My experience was the same. I'd actually wished they'd get divorced for a very long time, not because they fought (they were disgustingly in love), but because my mother and I did not get along. When shit went down and they actually split, it was devastating, for a number of reasons. They expected me to not care because I was going off to college, but them invalidating my feelings only made it worse.

Five years later, I can say with no hesitation that it was for the best.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2000


My parents separated when I was 12 and finally divorced when I was 16. They didn't explain it to me. My best friend was sleeping over one night and we were up talking when we overhead them fighting. They used to fight late a night when they thought (I guess) that my brother and I were sleeping. It came out in the course of the argument. No one said anything to me or my brother and I never mentioned it. I came home from school one day, a few weeks later, and my father was packing his car. He told me that he was moving out and that was basically all I was ever told by either one. All things considered I think they handled it pretty well. They didn't speak badly of each other to us. We spied and overhead things between them but that was our own fault. I know I'm glossing over this because it was so long ago but all divorces are painful and can be ugly. There was some ugliness to theirs but it was minimal and they tried to keep us out of it. Thank god.

-- Anonymous, July 06, 2000

Twice.

My mom and dad split when I was two or three. I don't remember him from this time at all. This is a good thing, because he was an alcoholic and addict by the time I was born. We moved across the country, and I didn't see him again until he had gotten on methadone and I was in my teens. We're close today. My mom didn't badmouth my dad, or keep me from seeing him.

My mom remarried when I was six, and they split when I was 14. They fought all the time, and I thought then that it was for the best. I was hating my mom at that age, so I stayed with my stepfather and stepbrother. I bounced back and forth between them a couple of times in high school. I'm still close to my stepfather, too. He has never referred to me as his stepdaughter, only as his daughter. (I call him a stepfather here for clarity -- it gets really confusing otherwise.) They handled their divorce very well too.

Mom remarried again when I was 25, and this guy is the one -- they love each other very much, and he treats her really well. This stepfather has been extremely good to me and to my mom's family in general. My faith in marriage has been restored, and my standards have been set pretty high, too.

I don't know when *my* emotional problems began -- with birth, with the first divorce, with the crazy mom, or with the constant fighting throughout my childhood. I don't hold them responsible for my actions, anyway.

-- Anonymous, July 06, 2000



Yes. I was 6. My father told me that my mom was leaving for a while because they couldn't get along anymore. That was definately the sugar coating of it and I am glad that he did it that way. Years and years later I found out that my mother was cheating on him (and had been for years apparently). My father got custody of us (kinda unusual in the early seventies) and he kept both of us for a while then we went to live with my mom for a while and then my dad got married and took my brother to live with him. That made me mad. I wanted to be with my father not my mom. My father and I still have a close relationship, I dont get along well with my mother at all. He regrets not taking the both of us when he got remarried.

Side note: he has been married to this wonderful woman for 20 years...my mom is on her 3rd marriage.

-- Anonymous, July 06, 2000


Two divorces, one when I was twelve, the second when I seventeen. My six year old brother was the one that told me about the first, but we had been waiting for it to happen. There was no real explanation. Actually, I think we three older kids had each been privately praying for it to happen. I know damn well my sister was. We had been sick of my step-father (my father died when I was two) for years when my mother finally decided to get rid of him. For about six months before he left they would go upstairs and fight for hours. These fights consisted mainly of my mother yelling at him. She's very good at yelling at people. We'd sit downstairs and listen to it. After he left there was another six months of hell (complete with a shotgun and a knife) before we left the area. He found us there. We left again. Almost simultaneouly with evil-step-father-number-one leaving, evil-step-father-number-two moved in. Why waste time? And he moved into my room, which *really* pissed me off. They didn't get married until a couple of years later, and divorced about two years after that. There was no explanation here, either. He just packed and left one day. I helped him. :) I was glad to see both of them go. They were both alcoholic, as is my mother, and verbally abusive, as is my mother(number one was abusive in every way imaginable). How could they have handled it better? My mother could have done what she always threatened to do when I was young: give me away. That's the only thing I can think of that would have made any of it easier. (I know, more than you wanted to know. Sorry.)

-- Anonymous, July 06, 2000

Oh, yeahhh... My mom's been married 3 times. First, was my father when she was 17 (the same age she had me). They divorced when I was a baby and I don't even know him. She then married my brother's father when I was five and then divorced when I was 8. Then comes who I call Dad. She married him when I was 10 and has been with him ever since (nine years). I don't really remember her ever really telling me that she was getting a divorce, it just kinda happened, so I don't know how she could have handled it better because I don't have anything to compare it to.

-- Anonymous, July 06, 2000

My parents divorced when I was 2. My Mother caught my Father with her best friend, who later became his second wife. (One of many!) My Mother remarried a year later, and my step-father adopted me. Huge issues of abandonment...my birth Father disappeared then decided when I was 19 to "get to know me." Too late! He was a huge dissapointment. I haven't had any contact with him in 18 years. He doesn't even know that he has 2 grandchildren. Divorce fucks you up, no matter what age you were when it happened!

-- Anonymous, July 07, 2000

Yes and no.

My parents are not divorced, but my grandparents are and my father's older brother went through a rather nasty divorce that spilled all over our lives even after my uncle died.

Sabs' parents are also on the brink of divorce, due to marital infidelity on his father's part. They have been separated for over 2 years now, but are not yet legally divorced.

I was 8 when my grandparents split, in junior high when my uncle's divorce began (it wasn't finalized until I finished high school) and in my early twenties when Sabs' dad left.

My parents never really explained what divorce was to me when my grandparents split. They were in their 60s and all of their children were grown up. To boot we were living in Europe at the time so it wasn't a very concrete thing for me.

The whole thing didn't crystallize until we moved back to the States and then I realized that we couldn't go to "Gramma and Grampa's" anymore, because there wasn't a "Gramma and Grampa's" anymore.

We had to be careful to keep all visits to either grandparent equal -- i.e. if we went up for a visit we'd have to have lunch with one and dinner with the other etc.

With my uncle's divorce things were rather more nasty: monetary disputes were involved and after my uncle died, my father and my other uncle were the trustees of my uncle's estate.

We got letters and nasty phone calls from my ex-aunt. I even had to sign for a court summons delivered by the sheriff once, which was very disturbing.

I don't think that there was anything my parents could have done to explain things better in the case of my aunt and uncle. There was too much anger and vituperative and that's something that no matter how they tried, my parents couldn't really shield us from.

With my grandparents, I wish that they had said more than just "Gramma and Grampa don't live together anymore" because as a kid, that just didn't mean much that made sense. It wasn't until we actually had to face the reality of the situation that it became clear. I think that my parents could have done a better job of telling us how my grandparents' divorce would affect us, as well as my mother, because it did affect us too.

As concerns Sabs' parents, it would have been nice if we'd had a little bit more warning. They lived a sham for 3 years while Sabs' dad was being unfaithful to his wife, but they hid it so well that Sabs had no idea what was going on. The first inkling we had of it was the night his father called to tell him what was going on and that he'd moved out.

This came as quite a shock to Sabs, even as an adult.

I also deeply wish that his parents had stuck more closely to their promise not to put him in the middle. Both of them have done this to a certain extent, leaving him torn in his loyalties and hurting, trying to be a mediator and communications conduit between them.

It's just ridiculous and makes me so angry.

-- Anonymous, July 07, 2000



A tip on how to handle it better? Don't use holidays to drop the bomb.

On my parents' 22nd wedding anniversary, they called me downstairs becuase they wanted to talk (I thought it was about which restaurant we were going to go celebrate at that night). That's when they told me they were getting a divorce. It wasn't much of a surprise, in the sense that they fought all the time, but it was surprising that they were finally going to move from fighting all the time to actually being apart. I was 15. We moved out of our house, and into separate apartments, a few months later - on my 16th birthday. The divorce was final 7 months later (and my parents went to court to finalize it) on the day of my high school graduation. People, don't pick significant dates - my birthday was for years tied in my mind to the moving out. When I think of graduation, I remember that my parents spent the morning filing papers.

As for how they handled it: okay, I guess. Selfishly, I wish they could have waited another year until I was moved out, but that's not fair, I know. My mother and I didn't get along very well (still don't), but it was assumed I would live with her. The couple of times I said that I wanted to live with Dad (before we moved out) went in one ear and out the other, like she couldn't possibly believe that I wouldn't want to live with her. I lived with her for 8 months (she was the one still in the school district, so I didn't push it), during which she often used the threat that she'd make me go live with my father when I did something she didn't like. (Was that punishment?) I finally got sick of her bullshit and moved out of her house into his. I lived with him off and on (when not living in the dorms or my own place) for three years, and we never had a single fight. Should have started off there.

They never really explained it to me; I was already way old enough to know what divorce meant, etc., and I was mostly raised already, but I don't for instance know who asked for the divorce, or if there was a specific triggering incident, like cheating or anything. They had fought a lot ever since I could remember, and it did get progressively worse, I guess, but the nuts and bolts are really none of my business. My dad's happily remarried, my mom uses my old computer to pick up men on the Internet, so I guess we've all moved on with our lives, hmmm?

-- Anonymous, July 07, 2000


Twice. Once the right way, once the wrong way.

DIVORCE 1:

My mom and dad split up when I was three years-old, and they did it really well. My dad is a very hard worker (workaholic, some might say) and was often away on business trips. I remember my mother trying to explain "moving out"--a concept I just didn't get--by telling me it was like a really long business trip, but he wouldn't be coming back, but that it was better because I'd see him on weekends. I remember the day he left, mom and I stood on the front steps and waved goodbye as he packed his stuff into a cab. I couldn't figure out why he needed to take a rug with him on a business trip.

Mom says now that they make far better friends than spouses, and split up just because it wasn't working. No screaming and yelling. No fights, just quiet discontent. They're still friends.

They never badmouthed each other, and despite my father's generally scatterbrained incapacity to keep to a visitation schedule, my mother worked hard to make sure he never let me down. She would tell me when my father was in the car en-route to pick me up that I would be spending the weekend with him. Never before, so I didn't feel abandoned if he cancelled.

DIVORCE 2:

Then two-years later, she hooked up with the Jerk. Alcoholic, verbally abusive to me, physically abusive to his other kids (who were all grown by then), and I don't know what to her. I hated him. It was a constant power struggle, with him jealously trying to monopolise all of mom's time, and me retaliating likewise. I felt like no one really cared about me, that I was simply her appendage. Tolerated by him (and his family) because I came with her. Tolerated by her out of duty, because I had nowhere else to go.

Mom still tells me that one of the reasons she brought the Jerk into our lives was so that we would be financially secure, and she could spend more time with me. Right: blame me for bringing that hell into our lives.

They stayed together for 17 years, splitting up only recently. The break-up was one of those "what took you so long" scenarios--as abusive break-ups generally are. And it was a nightmare, replete with petty grabs for stuff that was "his" and "hers", failure to show up for court dates, failure to pay court-appointed support.

The worst part about this one was that his side of what had been my family for most of my life completely abandoned me. I haven't heard a word from any of his kids: all of whom are old enough to know better.

I have tried to speak to my mom about it, but she always brings it back to her pain... refusing to acknowledge that it has been rough for me to have all of my childhood insecurities validated in this process.

CONCLUSION:

There's a right way and a wrong way to do this thing. I guess it all depends on the maturity of both parties involved.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000


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