Watching Your Kids Go Through Their Own Divorces

Dear Rita,

I will make this comment brief as I do intend to write a book of my own on this topic one day.

What I would like to share with you and your readers is that adult children of divorce suffer, and they suffer in a way that has yet to have been accurately documented and discussed in this country. My parents divorced when I was 22, afte 30 years of marriage.

Most people don't take into account what a transitional time this is in a young adult's life. As a new college graduate I craved and needed the foundation of my parents, and our family home to come back to as I was all set to head into the world and follow my dream. Instead I moved home, helped my Mom find a new place to live, and watched as we turned the only house I had ever known back over to my father. We lived in the perfect neighborhood on the perfect block in a world where "things like this" just didn't happen.

Having my parents divorce at such a pivotal time in my life caused me years of anxiety about whether or not I could even maitain a successful relationship. It has only been with both individual and couples therapy that I was finally able to say "yes" to my husband's proposal.

A divorce at this stage in a family's life as you mentioned in your blog posting truly does cause a divorce amongst the entire family. Families pick side and it drives a wedge that is often hard to ever remove.

In 2004 I appeared on a segment of the Today Show discussing the impact that divorce has on adult children. Their are little support groups for those in this situation. Often times friends and family just don't know what to say, or feel that it won't be as difficult to deal with or as hurtful as when a child is younger. I disagree with this tremendously because often times these adult children have dealt with the ramifications of being raised in a family where fighting often occured, already suffering from feelings of instability, anxiety, and emotional imbalance.

As long as TV in this country continues to focus on only the glamerous side of marriage we will continue to see divorce rates raise in this country. And as more boomers divorce their long time partners in hopes of spending their retired years with a new and improved version of their former spouse, we will see adult children of divorce continue to suffer, and in many circumstances, continue this pattern of divorce in their own marriages.

 Sincerely,

Nicole G. Simonds 

PS - I apologize this wasn't so brief after all!

I personally know families where divorce has affected and drastically changed relationships with grandparents.  Can you imagine having a very close and loving relationship with your grandchild, seeing them on a regular basis, and then because of the tragedy of a breakup in a marriage, that the grandchildren are cut out of your life.  A family, whose son ended a very tumultuous marriage, saw their grandchildren on a weekly basis, and after the separation and divorce, now see the grandchildren every few months.  Its very heartbreaking for all, and they have had to adjust to it, whether they like it or not.  The children are always the victims, being denied all the love that they especially need during such an upheaval in their lives.

Baya,

www.heartofjewels.blogspot.com ( http://www.heartofjewels.blogspot.com )