D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

I just watched a show on TV that dealt with adult children of divorce, and I have to say that I got a little impatient with all the whining they did.

Let me first say that divorce absolutely sucks. No two ways...it sucks for everyone concerned. I mean, who gets married and says to themselves, "I only expect this to last for a little while, but we'll have kids anyway and torture them with our problems and breakup."? Divorce hurts everyone; especially the children....any fool knows that.
BUT...

These adult children were on this show expressing their continuing "anger" and "hurt" and resentment with their parents for having "broken up the home."
I say: You are adults....get over it. One woman was giving her mother a hard time for "not being there" after the divorce....the mother, by the way, was horribly hurt by the divorce and did not want it. She had to give away her dog, move out of the family home, go back to school, and get a full-time job; she had to support three kids..(because God knows it's the woman's financial circumstances which change when there's a divorce and it's rarely for the better.

Put that on top of the fact that women get paid less than men for doing the exact same job and you have a woman who has to work more than one job just to survive.....yeah, she's "not going to be there" as much. This mother had a lot of anger herself....her husband was the only man she ever had been with; married at 16, and had thought it was going to be for life. Suddenly she finds her whole world turned upside down....who can blame her for being angry?

Her daughter, this "adult" child was also whining because she said her mother didn't give her enough praise and depended on her too much to help out at home while the mom was working. Gee.......TOUGH! The person this girl should be mad at is the father who skipped out on his family to follow his own selfish desires. (He is, of course, remarried to a much younger woman.)

Sometimes, a person has no choice but to get out of a terrible marriage for reasons of physical or emotional abuse. What would the children in this type of situation have their mother do? Would it be better to stay in such a ridiculous and dangerous marriage "just for the kids' sake"? Does any kid in their right mind want to be in that kind of home?

The mistake I think that too many divorced women make is in turning their kids into a sounding board, trying to make "friends" out of them and trying to get them on your side by badmouthing the other parent. Big, big mistakes!! All those will come back to bite you...hard! Talk to your friends....not your kids....and discuss your frustrations with your friends out of your kids' hearing. As a parent, you need to be a rock, not a marshmallow. You cannot fall apart; you don't have that luxury.

Kids always need you to be a parent, not a friend...but, most especially when there's been a divorce. And please, don't burden them with what went wrong with the marriage. First of all, they don't want to hear that. Secondly, they won't understand it anyway; not having the life experience to relate to any of it. And, third, if you badmouth the other parent, the kid will automatically think: "Well, if he/she is so bad, and I'm one-half of them, then I must be bad, too."

Believe me, I know from experience how hard it is to keep your mouth shut when you hear your kids cry for their father, and blame you for "taking him away from us" and act like he was Mr. Wonderful even though he was not a good father at all because of his addictions and selfishness. Many, many times I wanted to scream with frustration...and, at night I did...into my pillow!

My children, when I left their father, were a boy, age 14, a girl, age 8 and a girl, age 4. My son was old enough to understand. My 4 year old was really too young to know much of what was going on, although she did ask for her daddy quite often. It was my 8 year old daughter who was most devastated by the divorce, and who was most angry with me for years. She was "Daddy's Girl." Because I did not talk against her father, she didn't understand why we left him. It was so very tempting to let it all out just so I wouldn't have to feel her anger and hurt directed at me....but I knew that wasn't the right thing to do.

Eventually, when she and her younger sister grew up, they saw for themselves why I left and took them away, not only from their father, but to another state where I knew they'd have a more stable environment and a better life. He showed his true colors, as I knew he would, and I didn't have to say a word.

I know the divorce affected my children; how could it not? I know they resented having to help so much around the house and I know it was hard because I had to be both mother and father and I had to be tough on them...(read my other posts and you will see what I mean.) but, too bad. We were a family and I expected things from them. Now that they're all grown, we've talked more about the whys and the wherefores of the past and the reasons for everything, because now they can understand more. Their father died two years ago and all of us, including me, were at his bedside and we all made our peace with him and forgave him...because that's what you do when you want to move on.

As adults, I do not believe that my children are hanging on to the past and still mad about the divorce....one of the reasons why is because they have lives of their own and realize that whatever happened in childhood is the past and you cannot live in the past or you lose the present, and won't have much of a future.

Everyone has things in the past that they wish didn't happen, whether it's childhood or later on...but, here's the thing: You are an adult now. Only you have the ability to make your present and future what you want it to be. You have the choice to either continue to whine about your childhood and whatever you perceive to be injustices done to you by your parents or whomever else, or, you can learn from past experiences and go on to make your own life what you want it to be. It's just that simple. Quit making it hard.

Like I have said many times: "If you don't like the way your bed is made, get out of it and re-make it!"