Children of divorce

In My Humble Opinion
21

My parents divorced when I was eighteen, but they had drifted apart ever since I was six. My dad left his secure job to start his own idealistic no-budget, no profit career, and he slept in his various workplaces more and more nights of the week. He didn’t earn much.

My mom grew bitter at my dad’s lack of involvement and help. She also left the house and the family as much as she could, so she could at least meet new people and have a social life. She went on courses and classes, job related or creative, whenever she could.

My brother also did his share of leaving as soon as he could; he spent as much time as he could in his best friends’ family home, he even lived there the last six months of my parents divorce.

The only one home most of the time were me and the cats. :frowning: I didn’t have a good relationship with any of my family members and was neglected most of the time.

This living apart semi-apart continued untill my mom demanded that my dad would enter couples therapy with her. The only possible outcome of that was divorce. Then my mom really became bitter and angry. By then I was still home, and I reacted by tuning out most of my moms grief and anger. I angrily cared for her when she was drunk, and I angrily tolerated her sitting on the couch sadly playing Van Morrisson records for the eighteenth time that evening.

I can’t imagine how I would have been if I had grown up in a better marriage. Like WhyNot said, I don’t think it would have been better if they had divorced eaerlier; my dad is too caught up in his work to spend time with his kids or to have a relationship, and my mom is too difficult a person to attract an healthy partner.
The best realistic thing I could have hoped for is to have additional surrogate homes and parents. I had sweet stable neighbours.

My first serious partner, was 9 years older then me, and we stayed together 15 years. I still reagard him as more of my family (mom/dad) then my actual parents. When I am stressed out, when I need help, I call my ex, not my husband or my blood family.

I guess I do expect too little of marriage. In my role model, it is a place where the least committed person wins.

22

my parents divorced when I was 19 and at University. I’m not sure if it would have been better if they had divorced earlier but it was clear they just weren’t that compatible and stayed together for the children and the social appearance.

While I like my step-parents, and maybe it was a dynamic of all the kids more or less grown, I did get to experience benign neglect. The last time I spent with either parent at Christmas was 3 decades ago when I got some after thought present from my father and my step-siblings got tons of stuff. I was dirt poor working my way through University and bought all my step siblings a decent gift on a reasonable budget (that I couldn’t really afford), and the 3 of them all chipped in and bought a 6 pack of Michelob for me. we all get on fine these days but I did decide I wasn’t ever going to be joining them again for Christmas and I haven’t.

23

My parents divorced when I was about 4yrs old, so not much recollection of their married life. I lived with my Mom and two older sisters throughout most of my childhood, with the exception of a few years with my dad, his new wife and her two sons from a previous marriage.
I think the most profound effect my parents divorce had on me was a sense of isolation. In a house with three women, I never felt comfortable confiding about certain feelings with my mom. I also lacked a male role model, as well as the discipline that my mother did not have in her to administer.
There is no doubt in my mind that we are all better off for them having divorced, as they are totally incompatible. I can only surmise that the physical attraction must have been overwhelming because there really is no other reason for them to be in the same room together, much less a marriage. I do wonder however, if I would have had the same feelings of abandonment, insecurity and lack of self discipline if my father had been around during my formative years. As for how I feel about my parents, I do love them, but I think I learned a long time ago not to get too attached, because eventually one or the other would be out of my life for an extended period, and I got tired it breaking my heart.

24

My parents separated when I was 6, and it definitely had and, to some extent, still has a negative effect on my life. For a number of years that followed, my parents spent a lot of money on lawyers that could have gone toward other things. And while I have always believed that they definitely loved us, they weren’t really against using us against the other parent by telling us certain things with the idea of getting us to distrust the other parent or get on their nerves. And they also each had subsequent failed relationships, at least some of which were even worse (eg, my mom’s husband after my dad was verbally and physically abusive).

To be honest, I’m not sure if them having stayed together would have been better or worse, they really are different enough people I’m surprised they stayed together as long as they did. But I imagine if they did, the issues I’d have to deal would would, at best, be different. Through all of that, it took me a lot of work to really deep down understand the dynamics of relationships, trust, and all that sort of stuff. But, it probably wasn’t as much the divorce itself that caused a lot of that as their subsequent behavior and relationships.

25

My sweetie has two children from a previous marriage; the kids are going through their third ‘divorce’, and it’s affecting them. It’s odd to think that now my sweetie and I <getting married this week, actually> are currently the most stable things in their lives. Their mom is fine, they are loved, taken care of, financially secure. But I swear if she brings one more long-term adult male into the situation, married or not, that it’d better be fairly permanent. Grrr.

My folks didn’t divorce…stayed together for the kids, all 4 of them…and though we wished they would get divorced so they’d each be happier, we finally recognized as adults that they couldn’t have been happier apart; it would have killed them inside anyway. I try to let them know that we appreciate that as often as I can.

The result of that on the kids? 3 of the four got married by the time they were 18 <one at 16>, looking for security and independance.

I figured I’d never get married, and made it to 44 before giving in.

26

My parents divorced when I was four. They had been married for 20 years, I was an accident, and it turns out that for 10 of those years, he had been having an affair. He was also an alcoholic and drug user. I never talked to him again, but he only moved to the next street over and lived with his new family. I have two half-sisters, one only a year younger than me, one about six years younger.

My paternal grandfather was furious at my dad and hated his new wife, and my grandpa was still an active presence in my life until his death. I finally saw my dad again at my grandfather’s funeral when I was around 21, but we only stared at each other. I thought about going over to him, but I couldn’t really think of anything worth saying that would be appropriate given the event. A mostly indifferent numbness at that point.

To be honest, I don’t remember life with my father much at all, so growing up with just my mom didn’t seem weird. Most of my friends were also children of divorce. She didn’t date much and never remarried, but her brothers were active in my life so I had good male role models. My best friend’s dad was also extremely kind to me and spent a lot of his time doing “dad” things with us (I didn’t realize until later just how amazing he was; I hope he knows how much I appreciated it). Plus my mom had an extremely high paying job, so I was still comfortably middle class. We were lucky that way.

This is probably one of the main ways I am affected. I do want to get married, but I have no expectation of it lasting. I don’t want kids, but if I do have them, I would have every expectation of eventually raising them by myself. Literally every person in my (admittedly small) family is divorced, as are all my close friends and their parents, so it is the norm for me.

27

By whole I mean my family broke apart…separate Christmas’s, etc. By secure, I mean just that. If my parents could just split up, how could anything be permanent? I still struggle with not believing it’s all just going to go “poof”.

28

My parents separated when I was 8, we were living interstate at the time and I have a vague memory of the “It’s not your fault, mummy and daddy love you they just can’t be together any more” speech at the time. I don’t remember much before that, except isolated random memories and very few of them involve focussing on their relationship with each other at all. It was mum who left dad.

But mum packed us kids and one of the dogs up and we came back “home” to Adelaide and stayed with my maternal grandparents for a while. Then mum got a place of her own.

Dad followed us back to ADL so that he could share custody with mum, but it was very much “every other weekend” and not much beyond that. He left the Air Force and was out of work, or working low-paying jobs (pizza delivery driver anyone?) for a few years.

Dad was always careful to stress that we should listen to mum, and that she worked hard to look after us. He never had anything bad to say about her.

By contrast mum was constantly denigrating and running dad down. He was useless at this, he was selfish at that. Even though she’d left him, and chosen to take us, she was very bitter about suddenly being a woman in her late 20s/early 30s with two young children and later on with a challenging teenager. She did date occasionally, and there was one or two guys we got to know as possibles, but nothing ever came of it. But still - even now, 18 years after they separated, with both her kids in their mid-late 20s (I’m 27, my brother turns 23 this year), she’s barely got a civil word to say about him. She’s remarried now, and will still make snide comments about him if she comes across him at an event (my brother acts in University theater) or if I mention having been to see him.

Anyway, towards the end of my high school years, dad got a job with a private aerospace company in the UAE. So he went overseas and we went from being with him every other weekend to seeing him a couple of times a year when he was home on furlough. About that time he got involved with K, who’s now my stepmum. Things were a bit fraught to start with because he’d stay with her when he was home, and we’d have to stay with the both of them in her house, and she wasn’t prepared to have two pubescent step-children suddenly lumping up on random occasions.

But they got married in 2002, after I’d moved to Sydney, had a daughter who’s my half sister, and now we get on well. I’d been bitter for a fair while in my teen years, seeing dad’s leaving the country as abandonment, more than I saw the breakup and consequent custody arrangements. But I grew up and got over it. Now I see my dad and stepmum and sister at least once a month, often more, and we all get on really well.

My maternal grandparents really picked up the slack after the breakdown of my parents’ marriage. They spent a lot of time looking after us in school holidays, helping me move back to ADL from SYD in 2004, helping me pack up to move into the house I bought. Grandma was always there for me to talk to when mum’s issues overwhelmed me. I may not be a fully stable person, but the functioning adult I’ve become is a lot to do with the support of my grandparents during those years. And that makes a difference, I think. If the core family unit breaks down, a lot can be done to mitigate that damage by having a supportive extended family unit.

29

I was 8 when my parents divorced. It was the best thing they could have ever done for me. My father could be fun or mean, angry or kind, quiet or screaming. Never knowing what would happen next gave me ulcers by the time I was 6 yrs old. I remember the first night away from him. To an 8 yr old it felt like magic. I know now it was peace.

30

Same here. I still have some trust issues (which weren’t helped by more than one of my own relationships).

31

I separated last summer from my husband of 16 years. Our kids are doing OK mainly due to the fact that for the most part things are remaining in amicable terms between us. The start was rocky but our communication and things in general are getting better all the time. I was raised by 3 different women, all very different from each other. On most days I think I turned out somewhat sane.

32

Unfortunately, my parents’ divorce marked the end of happiness in my childhood. It was like everything was great, and then my dad came in to tuck us in bed and say goodbye, and he started bawling (one of the most vivid memories of my life- still affects me to this day), and that was the beginning of childhood not being fun. We kids got dragged into the middle of all the fights and complaints (mostly my mom’s doing). My mom would try to screw my dad at all costs. She wasn’t really interested in being a single parent, so she pretty much gave up after the divorce. My dad started drinking heavily, so that wasn’t fun either.

It probably is the biggest reason I’ve never married or had kids. I just would never want to put my kids through that kind of shit. I don’t think I’d let it play out the way my mom did- I think I’m better than that, but I can’t help but feel that my experience/feelings/resulting relationship issues would be my kids’ experience if I got divorced, and I just couldn’t live with doing that to another person. Kinda sad. But that’s how it played out for me.

My sister, as a contrast, has put her all into being the best mom she can be- and the best wife she can be, and her husband’s a great guy, and their kids are some of the awesomest kids I know (I’m pretty biased, obviously!). And I’m working at being the greatest aunt to those kids that I can possibly be. We were veritable strangers to our extended family as kids, it was painful and awkward going to our aunts’/uncles’ houses and not really being warmly received by them or our cousins, especially “after the divorce” , so I’m focusing on what I can “undo” as far as what I had versus what can be for those kids now. So I feel like even though I don’t have kids, I’m doing my part to make it better for the next generation in my own way.

33

I felt much better after my parents divorced. No more yelling, no more arguing. It helped that neither tried to pull the “poison the kids against the other parent to use them as weapons” routine. Before or after the divorce.