When my parents split up, my world was rocked. First, I completely blamed myself. I could have behaved differently, then my parents would have stayed together. Then I blamed my mom, because she was the one who left the marriage. I tried to please each of my parents, so I listened when they told me their side. But I was stuck in the middle, often trying to be the mediator between them. I regressed, acted out towards my mom, in particular. Had tantrums, apocalyptic dreams, the whole thing. I was 37.
At that point, I had been a divorce attorney for nearly 10 years. I was well-aware of the impacts of an acrimonious divorce on children. My parents were not even that acrimonious, just hurt and hurtful.
It threw me for a loop when I began experiencing the same responses to my parents’ separation as a 10-year-old might, especially since I had just given birth to my first child and really needed my adult self to step up. What made it a little more of a challenge is that I had the credentials and experience to know how their estate should be divided up — and they were doing it differently.
I will give my parents credit for their approach – to keep lawyers out of it and do their own thing. It worked for them; they did not have much property to fight about. But for the nearly 16 years after my parents split until my dad died at age 83, I carried resentment and tiptoed around discussions involving the other parent. I endured one parent’s little digging comments about the other and attempts to align me. I grieved the loss of my idealized early motherhood in which I envisioned my parents sitting together in our back yard looking over their granddaughter together — building a well-bonded extended family for our children.
In my profession, I have grown used to and even supported people’s decisions to split from their partners in order to have a better shot at a happier (sometimes safer) and more fulfilling life. We have one life. So, what would have made a difference for me in my own parents’ split, even as an adult knowing what I know about divorce? My parents’ confidence that this was the right decision for them, even if one was in acquiescence. My parents’ ability to recognize the impact on their only child, regardless of the fact that she was old enough to understand and reflect. My parents’ keeping me out of their relationship challenges in a way that they could each say to me, “We will figure this out and don’t want you to worry. We both love you and want you to have a strong and healthy relationship with each of us.” My parents’ ability to speak well of the other, genuinely, in my presence, so I did not question the years we seemed to be a happy family. My parents’ ability to be in the same room together with respect.
The list is longer, of course, but I think you get the gist. When partners wait until their kids are grown before splitting up, their kids are still kids and need many of the same considerations we think about for younger children. After divorce, there is great opportunity for each parent to build on the relationship they had with their grown children when the marriage was intact. When the focus is on how everyone in the family can feel loved and supported, everyone in the family has a better opportunity to adapt well to the change.
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