I need to know if all kids who live through a divorce as children are doomed to end up as really messed up teens. I have yet to find an exception, and I was hoping the SDers might help to prove me wrong. It seems that teens who experience a divorce may be better adjusted…or, at least their odds might be better.
I’d really like to hear other’s opinions on this. I find it quite upsetting and cheated - from dating one product of divorce. She’s really damaged goods, sadly. - Jinx
Well, I was already sixteen when my parents got separated, and eighteen when they got divorced.
I was FINE through high school, but spent my middle two years of college in virtual lockdown due to repressed repercussions.
Not Without Rage, I am sorry it still had such a negative impact on you. Perhaps, there is no good age for the kids, huh?
First of all, I would like to register my extreme distaste for the term “damaged goods”. I know it’s just an expression, but it bugs me. Your ex is a person, not a dented can of soup on a grocery store shelf. However, it is the expression that bugs me, not the OP, just to make that clear.
Moving along to my actual point: I think it’d be tough to make generalizations about whether teens from divorced families are more likely to be depressed/messed up/what have you, simply because teenagers in general are more likely to be messed up than the general population. High school is a turbulent time of life with a lot of changes, and some people just don’t or can’t deal with it very well.
For what it’s worth, my mom was divorced twice before I was a teenager, and while I had my rebellious moments, I like to think I turned out fairly well-adjusted in spite of everything.
It’s all individual. Some teens end up in a better frame of mind BECAUSE they’re parents got divorced. It all depends.
My parents divorced when I was eight, about 30 years ago. You couldn’t really say that I was a messed up teen but it sure as hell fucked up my life in many ways. The repercussions still occasionally come up.
Haj
My parents divorced when I was eight, about 30 years ago. You couldn’t really say that I was a messed up teen but it sure as hell fucked up my life in many ways. The repercussions still occasionally come up.
Haj
I’m not a child of divorce, but I wish I had been. My mother once actually got up the backbone to kick my dad out, for a time. It was the nicest, most peaceful six months of my childhood.
I was a messed-up teen for other reasons, but I think things would have been different, for the better, if I had seen my mother keep the jerk out for good.
My parents divorced when I was pretty young. As a child, I could not see what the big deal was about divorce. It seemed like a pretty good deal to me- mom and dad stopped fighting, dad stopped eating all the food in the house, and things just got a whole lot better.
My dad just wasn’t much of a dad. He never played softball with me or anything dad-like, he just ate, drank, watched TV and made my mom upset. He really wasn’t much of a loss.
I have a pretty close family and I never felt like I missed out on anything by my dad not being around. In fact, I’d call my family ideal. I was somewhat messed up in my teens (more messed up now) but all of that is despite my family situation, not because of it.
My parents divorced when I was pretty young. As a child, I could not see what the big deal was about divorce. It seemed like a pretty good deal to me- mom and dad stopped fighting, dad stopped eating all the food in the house, and things just got a whole lot better.
My dad just wasn’t much of a dad. He never played softball with me or anything dad-like, he just ate, drank, watched TV and made my mom upset. He really wasn’t much of a loss.
I have a pretty close family and I never felt like I missed out on anything by my dad not being around. In fact, I’d call my family ideal. I was somewhat messed up in my teens (more messed up now) but all of that is despite my family situation, not because of it.
Mine got divorced last year when I was 15. Now I am 16, and its been almost a year later, and I haven’t really noticed any changes in me or my sister (who is 14) and my brother (who is 12).
Mom of kids of divorce here… the kids were 11 and 13 at the time, and doing well in school, friends, activities. Then the divorce, and everything just sort of started to crumble. Even tho they were glad their dad was out of the house, they were still terribly hurt by the rejection. They never once asked for us to get back together…that classic scenario never happened, tho the “Divorce Class” I had to attend said it would.
By high school, they were in a sort of free-fall…drugs, smoking, weird friends, odd hair colors, running away for a few days, sex, skipping school, flunking, dropping out during senior year, flunking senior year… they’ve run the gamut. The girlchild is finally becoming a human being again at 20, the boychild has just turned 18 and has a ways to go. Through it all the three of us have maintained our deep devotion to each other, but it hasn’t been enough to keep them from doing truly stupid things, or from fighting with each other. I think eventually they will be okay, but they will never be mainstream again, and they will probably never be the high achievers their cousins are.
And of our circle of family friends, we are the only divorced family, and I am the only one who knows the location of Juvenile Court and has business cards from police officers in five, count 'em, five Cleveland suburbs. All the others kids are into sports, music, art, drama, college-bound and attending school. Mine are just into trouble.
Never underestimate the power of a good father.
I should also say that I was into slightly wreckless behavior before my parents got divorced. I never asked them to get back together either. And I live with my father.
My parents seperated when I was just turning 13. My middle school years where HELL because of my parent’s constant bickering over the terms of the divorce. I skipped school, went days without bathing, listened to goth music… it was awfull.
But when I started High School, I got my act together for the most part. So not all products of divorce are going to be screwed up forever.
My parents split up when I was 14, and I went to live with my mom. I still remember how I found out: we were coming back from the mall; Dad was driving, and Mom turned to me and said, “Do you think that people should have to live toether if they’re no longer in love with each other?”, and I said, “No, people should live where they want to” or something, and then she told me. Dad was not a bad guy, but remote and unemotional, and I’m sure this had something to do with it.
It took another few months for the living arrangements to finalise, and then Mom and I moved into a third-floor walk-up apartment in Port Whitby. They sold the wonderful old house we lived in, and Dad took me to the west coast during the holidays, and I had a different and longer route to walk to school.
The effects of the divorce were IMHO later than high school, and much more subtle, and interacted badly with other problems of mine. From childhood I was younger than most kids in my classes, was weak and uncoordinated even for my age group, had no social skills, and therefore zero self-confidence. Even today I struggle with the effects of that.
I don’t think that the divorce messed me up a lot more than I would have been otherwise as a high-school teen; I really blew apart later, after hitting university. However, I am convinced that not having a father around during the years when I was first interested in girls resulted in my missing some form of male learning that would have helped me socially.
Mom remarried a few years later. By that time I’d been at university, survived the crisis there, gone on to a different school, lived on my own, and was headed for my first real job. The window for male teaching, if such it was, had passed.
Dad was hard to reach; I remember Mom telling me that I’d try to go to see him, and time after time he’d demur. The times I did see him I remember as being good though.
For a long time I said that I’d never be like Dad. I actually went through a period of blackly hating him.
The scary thing now is that I now see so much of Dad in me: the tendencies to withdraw from social life, the desire to become a hermit. I tend to approach social life with a deathly fear of conflict and disapproval, and thus take an appeasing path. I have a gut feeling that Dad had/has the same feelings, and this was a big part of the reason for the breakup.
Social skills that others acquired easily, I will only aquire, if ever, after long and deliberate struggle: I have no idea how to schmooze, for instance. Just being at something like a Dopefest is a triumph for me. Actually being socially at ease would be gravy.
I’ll be dealing with this the rest of my life as well.
I don’t know much about Dad’s immediate ancestors, how he might have become how he is; his father died before I was born, and his mother died when I was a kid.
Fortunately, I can see so much of my mom and her family in me as well: the art and cosmopolitan interests, the love of music, the rock-solid socialist belief that we can arrange things to be better for all. I am happy to feel my mom and her parents by my side.
But in recent years, my relationship with Dad, though distant, has improved. He’s a retired pensioner with home care now, and I go and visit him, and he’s happy to see me.
My parents split up when I was 14, and I went to live with my mom. I still remember how I found out: we were coming back from the mall; Dad was driving, and Mom turned to me and said, “Do you think that people should have to live toether if they’re no longer in love with each other?”, and I said, “No, people should live where they want to” or something, and then she told me. Dad was not a bad guy, but remote and unemotional, and I’m sure this had something to do with it.
It took another few months for the living arrangements to finalise, and then Mom and I moved into a third-floor walk-up apartment in Port Whitby. They sold the wonderful old house we lived in, and Dad took me to the west coast during the holidays, and I had a different and longer route to walk to school.
The effects of the divorce were IMHO later than high school, and much more subtle, and interacted badly with other problems of mine. From childhood I was younger than most kids in my classes, was weak and uncoordinated even for my age group, had no social skills, and therefore zero self-confidence. Even today I struggle with the effects of that.
I don’t think that the divorce messed me up a lot more than I would have been otherwise as a high-school teen; I really blew apart later, after hitting university. However, I am convinced that not having a father around during the years when I was first interested in girls resulted in my missing some form of male learning that would have helped me socially.
Mom remarried a few years later. By that time I’d been at university, survived the crisis there, gone on to a different school, lived on my own, and was headed for my first real job. The window for male teaching, if such it was, had passed.
Dad was hard to reach; I remember Mom telling me that I’d try to go to see him, and time after time he’d demur. The times I did see him I remember as being good though.
For a long time I said that I’d never be like Dad. I actually went through a period of blackly hating him.
The scary thing now is that I now see so much of Dad in me: the tendencies to withdraw from social life, the desire to become a hermit. I tend to approach social life with a deathly fear of conflict and disapproval, and thus take an appeasing path. I have a gut feeling that Dad had/has the same feelings, and this was a big part of the reason for the breakup.
Social skills that others acquired easily, I will only aquire, if ever, after long and deliberate struggle: I have no idea how to schmooze, for instance. Just being at something like a Dopefest is a triumph for me. Actually being socially at ease would be gravy.
I’ll be dealing with this the rest of my life as well.
I don’t know much about Dad’s immediate ancestors, how he might have become how he is; his father died before I was born, and his mother died when I was a kid.
Fortunately, I can see so much of my mom and her family in me as well: the art and cosmopolitan interests, the love of music, the rock-solid socialist belief that we can arrange things to be better for all. I am happy to feel my mom and her parents by my side.
But in recent years, my relationship with Dad, though distant, has improved. He’s a retired pensioner with home care now, and I go and visit him, and he’s happy to see me.
Dang! Hit Submit instead of Preview, then the hamsters seized up while endatabasing my post and I got no response from the server, and I wanted to add somethign (can’t remeber what), so…
Mods <blush> would you kindly remove one of my double posts? Thanks.
Reflecting on my teen years, I really can’t see much difference between my friends whose parents were divorced and those whose weren’t. We were all screwballs, to put it lightly; divorce didn’t seem to magnify it.
I’ll know more in about 16 months when my son becomes a teenager.
Hm. A teenager. Christ, I’m old.
My parents divorced when I was 5.
Did I do drugs? No. I smoked pot once when I was 18, simply to see what the thrill was. Would I do it again? Hell yes! I can’t wait until I retire so I can again…Until then, I have responsibilities, so I cannot.
Did I get anyone pregnant? No.
Did I have any mental problems? No. However I was on Wellbutrin two years ago after a bad break-up. The girl made me feel so bad about myself I couldn’t have sex. The pills were part of an overall treatment program…Once again, I realize that I am god’s gift to women everywhere. (Sorry superdude, but that’s the way it is) 
My parents split when I was an infant. I’ve never met my dad (however this is my choice – Mom never tried to poison me against him or anything).
As a teen I was a model student, never gave Mom any trouble. Never stayed out late, didn’t have sex at a young age, didn’t do drugs, hung out with a good crowd of kids, involved in church, etc.
As I get older, though, I realize how much not knowing my dad has messed me up. Yes, it has been for the best that I never did meet him … however, take a girl with no relationship with her father and it is BOUND to affect her relationships with other men. It’s hard to know how to relate to a guy when you never had a guy in your life to be an example. I’ll also note that spiritually it affects me as well … I know about the Holy Spirit and Jesus, but I still have trouble comprehending God the Father.
I think, though, had Mom stayed with my father, I would have been a LOT worse off (he was an alcoholic, wouldn’t work … the final straw was when he beat her; she left with me the next day). I’m glad they divorced when they did because I think it would have been much harder on me had she stuck it out and left him when I was oh, 5 … after I’d gotten used to a male figure in my life.