I'm a Product of Divorce

By Anonymous

I was eight going on nine when we left my dad. There was no real good-bye. My mom and I packed our bags and flew three thousand miles away to California on a Tuesday, while he was at work. My fourth-grade classmates were learning about the divisions of the government, while my family was being torn apart.

I didn’t have contact with my father again until I was fifteen years old and I wouldn’t say that it was a pleasant experience. By then, it was too late. The damage had already been done.

My mom told me she left in this manner because she was afraid he would kidnap me. In actuality, she was the one who had done the kidnapping.

It’s this awful feeling we children of divorce have. No matter how acrimonious or friendly a divorce is, we always feel it is our fault. Maybe if we had put our toys away, they wouldn’t have fought about that. Maybe if we had done better in school, they wouldn’t have battled over that, too. Just maybe…maybe…we could’ve been the ones to keep them together. To keep the family together.

From the outside, I looked like a well-adjusted kid. I had a wonderful and supportive extended family on my mom’s side. I had a close relationship with my mom (well…not counting some of those teenage-angst filled years). I had an active social life and did well in school.

But like most children of divorce, I had scars. Deep scars.

I had trouble with relationships, the first being that I never wanted to show my true self to people, for fear they would reject me. I was afraid to get close to people, because it meant they could leave me and then I’d be alone. Just like my dad’s silence for all those years had felt like he’d left me.

Most of us children of divorce have trouble with relationships. Some people are like me and afraid to get close to people, so they just don’t get close to anyone. Some people never want to get married, and some people never have children, for fear they would mess up their children just like their parents messed them up. Some of us feel unworthy and unloved, so we have even more self-destructive behaviors. Alcohol, drugs, promiscuity.

Today, people talk about co-parenting and living in harmony. Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin even coined it “conscious uncoupling.” I think it’s great that divorced parents go on trips together with their children and even sometimes their new significant others. I think it’s wonderful when children can see their mom and dad as friends even if they are no longer married.

But it’s still divorce.

There’s still that breakdown in the family unit. Those children still feel it.

Children are smart. Even if you aren’t fighting in front of them, they can still sense when there is discourse, when something isn’t right. You may not know it, but they are trying to fix it. When you tell them mom and dad don’t love each other anymore in that way but that they still love them very much and it was nothing they did, they still feel it is their fault, even if you call it “conscious uncoupling.” Those children still develop scars. Maybe the scars aren’t as deep, but they’re still there.

I know some of you out there are shaking your head at what I’m saying, vehemently denying this is true. Maybe I’m wrong. I really hope I’m wrong. I have my doubts, though, being a child of divorce.