Following is a post from my personal blog. I thought it might be helpful to post here as well since this is what this new blog is all about…
I just read this article, “No good divorce: The children’s perspective”. It’s an interview with Elizabeth Marquardt, the author of “Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce” and I’m ready to go out and read the book.
This is a subject that is very close to my heart. In some way I have always felt that my parents’ divorce didn’t affect me all that much. When I read “Generation Ex” by Jen Abbas, I realized that wasn’t true. In the process of reading that book, my feelings of confusion and loss were validated and I was able to find a lot of healing.
Since then I have thought a great deal about the lack of support for children of divorce. Do a google search for divorce counseling for children and you’ll find a slew of websites, but all of them are written for the parents. We need some child advocates here. Parents can do a lot to help support their children through a divorce, but very often its not enough. One reason is simply because the parents are going through a heart-wrenching time. Divorce ain’t easy. A second reason is because these kids need someone to talk to about what they are going through, and they don’t always feel comfortable talking to Mom and Dad because it hits too close to home. How do you be completely honest about your pain and anger with the people who are causing it? I was 6 when my parents divorced, and it hurt like hell. I was mad at them both, but I never told them because they were already hurting so much and I didn’t want to add to their pain and guilt. Add to that the pressure from society. When I was a child I felt like I just needed to act normal. Everyone seemed to turn the other way, pretend it didn’t really happen or that it wasn’t a big deal. I was so afraid of expressing my feelings because I didn’t want people to think I was overreacting. Yet even with that restraint I still cried a lot. (One of the best things my mom taught me is that it’s okay to cry.)
It’s so different the way children are treated if a loved one dies. Their pain is acknowledged for what it is, they are embraced. Children of divorce are grieving just as well, but because divorce has become so common I think we underestimate what they are going through. They experience pain, anger, confusion, denial, frustration, sadness, and they need to know that it’s okay to feel the way they feel. In essence they are grieving the loss of their family. We need to let them grieve.
I want to start an advocacy center for children of divorce. I know it’s needed. Convincing people it’s needed may be a challenge. Funding it will definitely be a challenge. I need to network, I need to make a plan. This blog is the first step.
July 19, 2006 at 2:40 pm
[...] I just found it. Apparently it’s new — take a look and help get a discussion started. [...]
July 19, 2006 at 3:57 pm
When I realized how crazy, destructive and peculiar I was by age 40, I had to take a look at all this history. I recognized a lot of the same BS in young divorced & hookup families now. But I do try to not dwell on it.
The main bad things that come to mind are:
1. Slowly becoming estranged from my father, to where I didn’t really like visitation with him any more.
2. Anarchy at home–sex abuse, criminal mischief by brothers while mom was at work. Parents don’t know what goes on when they’re gone.
3. New boyfriend, relationship ups and downs and all that, leaving even less time for mom to look after us. Plus crying, shrink-prescribed meds, mood swings, risky dating behavior.
4. Parental apathy setting in due to overwork and depression. Not that interested in kids’ schooling etc. So the kids often don’t reach their true potential.
July 19, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Cassandra: Funny how a lot of that childhood stuff doesn’t really catch up to us until we are older. It sounds like your divorce experience was especially traumatic. I hope you are finding peace now all these years later.
You make a great point about the parental apathy. After divorce, parents have to work so much harder. On top of that they often lose much of their support system as a result of the divorce. Mutual friends of the couple are forced to choose and many friendships are strained or lost due to the stigma of divorce and judgmental attitudes.
July 19, 2006 at 4:48 pm
Greetings and congratulations on a wonderful blog idea!
I was 15 when my parents split up, and I found Marquardt’s book very helpful. I scheduled vacation time to do it: I wasn’t sure what I would learn and feel and I wanted clear time to process whatever happened.
The main thing I learned is that, outside of divorce, it isn’t ordinary for kids to focus on protecting their parents from pain. That sense of parents being vulnerable and that sense of taking care of them is a stand-out trait of children of divorce. I remember that weight arriving on my shoulders, and your sharing above shows that you remember that weight as well. (Though I’m much more comfortable remembering 15-year-old me trying to be helpful than I am imagining 6-year-old you doing it: I was almost old enough to handle the lifting.)
I also recommend all of the Wallerstein studies on divorce, which provide a long-term take on the life cycle for children after the parents split up. The reports have been coming out for years, each time describing in part the feelings of people very close to my current age, and each time helping me articulate feelings I usually don’t discuss or even acknowledge to myself.
I respect and support the right of parents to choose divorce, but it would be good if those parents had better information on how their choices may matter to their children. Some of them would make different choices if they heard less of the “happy-talk” about “the good divorce” and more of the frank talk about kids feeling dislocated, uncertain, and responsible for making adults happy rather than counting on adults to make the kids secure. Your idea could help that happen.
Best wishes for this work, and I’ll check back often!
August 3, 2006 at 4:40 pm
My parents divorced—or I should say, separated—when I was 19, and a sophomore at college. I came home to find that my father was leaving. For a year I thought everything was fine, but then suddenly I got lost in a sea of feelings I had no name for at the time. I felt like I was in another universe from everyone else, completely and utterly alone. At one point I came close to suicide, but made a phone call for help in the nick of time.
This happened in 1967, just at the beginning of the big shift into divorce being more common. But there was nobody to share this experience with me, and nobody to guide me through what was the most devastating experience of my life.
Recently I have come to regard this experience as a trauma of a very deep nature. There is nobody there for the child to say to her or him, “You have lost the life you knew.” It is just like a death of a loved one, but with not one single soul to acknowledge it to you. Just think: your whole life as you know it is destroyed. What an enormous loss!
At age 19 it affected me deeply, and, in effect, derailed me from my own life for many years. It was an enormous struggle to get back to a semblance of inner stability (I managed to achieve the trappings of stability, but they were very fragile). Please let it not be said that older children have an easier time of it. It simply is not true.
I still haven’t figured out relationships. I think I have a deep sense that anything I come to trust or rely on is likely to be pulled out from under me. I have been reluctant to get involved at all: the stakes seem unbearably high.
I seem to be able to manage friendships pretty well for the most part.
Thank goodness for that.
August 5, 2006 at 8:48 am
Thank you so much for sharing!
“It is just like a death of a loved one”
This is so true, only it’s a kind of death with no real finality. It sort of always there, always haunting you.
I am very curious about experiences like yours, and what kinds of feelings you had in the wake of the divorce. I think divorce can be a different experience for every age, because from childhood to adulthood there is so much going on developmentally. Even in early adulthood people are still developing and learning who they are and who they are going to be.
August 27, 2006 at 5:20 pm
My boyfriends parents are splitting up because she was cheating on him with someone that we both worked with. I have found myself crying nearly every night because of it and feel very down at the moment. His father has been calling me asking me things about the affair, he has been trying to get my friends numbers so he can call them and ask them questions about it, his mother has been telling me details i dont need to know and calling me asking me things! I really dont think that i can take it anymore, I dont want to know about any of this, my partner is finding it very difficult and doesnt know the half of what his parents are doing to people around them, especially me. They are both playing me off against each other and it feels like they are trying to get me on side. There are two younger children involved who have been told things that they just cannot deal with mentally and emotionally at their age, why are they trying to hurt the people that are around them, they should be trying to get their support. I just cant take anymore of any of this, should i stay, or should i go. I love my partner a lot, but this whole thing is making me ill, i am having panic attacks and i am feeling very uncomfortable all the time, scared of saying something that may cause more problems, i am tredding on egg shells all the time and i cant do it anymore, wheres the sanity???????
September 9, 2006 at 2:55 am
Cassandra is right. I am now 37 and my parents were divorced when I was 7. The negative effects of it still lingers. Interesting similarity even though I am of Asian descent. To add to her list:
1) Feeling of insecurity
2) Deep hatred for father
3) Deep yearning for someone to share those hidden grief.
This website does wonders when I read others comments
January 11, 2007 at 1:58 am
My husband died in 1990, at that time my friends husband left her for the other woman. I always knew death was not as hard as divorce, for everyone involved. I am not minimizing my pain, or that of my children, but reading this blog really confirms what I believed. I am now counseling women who are facing divorce and the aftermath. Thank you all for being so willing to share your pain, it helps me understand.