My Life Series: Divorce

I grew up, like hundreds of thousands of other kids in a broken home. I don’t remember much of life before the divorce. I don’t remember family vacations, Christmases, birthday parties or any event that a child growing up in a stable home would have memories of. I feel robbed of so much and am still, even as an adult very bitter for what I lost.

I was 13 when my parents split. I knew things were not good but I never remember things being bad save for coming down stairs several years prior and seeing my father’s belongings packed and stacked in a hallway. There was no fighting, but I knew things were not right. My parents did not hug nor kiss. They didn’t exchange “I love you’s” when they left the house or hung up the phone. I was lucky to not have had to witness violence or abuse in my childhood home but it was what I did not witness that has made moving on in my life a difficult thing to do.
I didn’t see love.

I am sure my parents loved each other, but they never showed it. My father is a quiet man. He accepts things as they are and keeps his thoughts and emotions to himself as most men do. I know he loves me, but I cannot recall him ever saying it. My mom….well she had her moments. I am sure with the divorce she was lost, something I can relate to now being a divorcee myself. She drank a lot, or should I say a lot more than she did prior to my father leaving. But I cannot fault her for that. Not the best way to handle things but perhaps her defense mechanism to protect her from the pain of having her world being turned upside down.

At 13, I saw her as a drunk. A self absorbed woman who spent too much time waddling in her own self pity to notice that her three children were suffering her pain too. At 32, I see a woman who felt abandoned, alone and likely scared to death having to raise 3 children who were now from a broken home. She had become a statistic. No one likes to be reduced to a number.

I chose to live with my father. At 14 my dad went to court and was granted custody of me. I always felt, and still do to this day a special bond with my dad. He never said much, yet in his silence he said everything. He worried for me yet never pressured me. He let me screw up and accepted the hell I put him through to allow me to learn from my mistakes…..and I made many from them. But because the sacrifices he made for me, I am who I am today.

Now, I look at my four children and I hurt for them. I know kids are resilient, I know they will learn to adjust and I know that this has become the norm for many children. My anger comes from the fact that it shouldn’t be so. My kids shouldn’t have to learn to adjust. They shouldn’t have to be resilient. They shouldn’t be reduced to a number. I don’t know what my parents went through prior to their divorce but I do know that their marriage was not given up on easily. And I know my marriage is much the same. I tried, Lord knows I tried to keep a happy healthy home for my children. But I had to break that cycle.

I realized just how much my marriage was that of my parents. No hugs, no kisses. No “I love you’s”, no sleeping in the same bed. There may have been love there on some level but to my children it must have seemed loveless. I did not want my three girls to think this is what a marriage was about. I didn’t want them to settle for less but to have belief in the dream.

What I wonder now is if I will ever stop mourning that loss. Will I ever be okay with the fact that my marriage failed? I know I did all I could and I also know that no matter how much I loved him or he loved me it just simply wasn’t enough and that walking away was the best thing I could have done. I don’t regret the decision but will I ever stop wishing it could have been different?