[Razzleberry]

How has divorce effected you?

Were your parents abusive to each other and/or to you?

Was there any alcohol or drugs involved?

Do you wish that your parents could have worked things out? Or are you happier now that they are apart?

Which is worse - dealing with divorce - or watching your parents obviously not love each other anymore?

I'm speaking in general terms, but also trying to decide for myself. Should I sacrifice my own happiness and stay in a loveless marriage so my daughter doesn't have to deal with a divorce? Or would she be better off seeing two happy, but seperated parents? Would I be any happier alone?

[Razzleberry]

Oops I meant to post this in "general" not social. Can I move it?

This may trigger........


I am 43 years old and my parents divorced when I was 18. They stayed together because they didn't want me to come from a 'broken home'. My dad suffered all the affairs my mother had, he must have loved her anawful lot, she had many affairs, the last one who was a pdc abused me from the age of 8-15/16.... she left my dad when i was 3, she should have stayed away and left me with dad. But she went back to him, tried to commit suicide and left me with lots of mental scars.

Living with 2 parents who are continually disagreeing, obviously not in love and blaming the child for a lot of it certainly didn't do me any favours. To me the divorce was a relief apart from the fact my other moved away to be with my abusers best friend and my dad married quickly after and had 2 young kids to look after so i felt totally abandoned. I should have been able to cope being as i was 18 but i had social phobia and turned to alcohol for a while. Sorry i'm going off topic and ranting a bit.

i don'think it's easy for anyone seeing the people who gave birth to them fight and have affairs etc ..... i often wonder what it would have been like just to stay with my dad from 3 onwards and never have to putup with the rest of the crap. We recently broke contact altogether (mother and I)as she is in denial and then told me she very nearly smothered me when i was a baby ..... enough is enough .... she's out of my life for good now and I am healing for the first time i think.

But that was then and i'm a survivor, things are looking up and i'm happier now than i probably have ever been. i have a hubby and 2 fantastic teens, there is light at the end of the tunnel .....

Jinny xxxxx

[thelostone]

I am a child of divorce. i was only 6, and didn't see my father again till i was 8. of course i was in the "first wave" of children in the early 70s. i have strong loving relationships with not only both of my parents, but also a step mother(this took a while to develope) and god rest his soul my stepfather who i adored.

staying in a marriage for the sake of the children is a hard question. i also have 1 child from a previous marriage. i tried to stay in it because i thought marriage should be forever, but he was abusive and i eventually got out. while i did my best to let her form her own feelings and opinions of him, he and his family said horrible things to her about me and worse about my "new"(20 years now) husband. the result was that she now (grown with her own children) calls my husband daddy because in her heart he is, and has no contact with the man she refers to as the sperm donor.

a child will sense that you are not in a happy relationship. but if both parents are committed to the child coming first many children are very happy with parents who share responsibilities and live in seperate homes. while they may want their parents to be together, if you are unhappy they will know, and it will effect them. just remember, the childs safety and happiness comes first, especially when it comes to your personal life. if someone truly loves and accepts you, they will love and accept your child as well.

hope this helps.

lost

[snowflake_48888]

I am 48 and a child of divorce. My parents divorced when I was 11. My parents did a lot of drinking, mostly on weekends. I think in my family it wouldnt have matter if they divorced or not. They fought when they were married, they fought after they divorced...they were not good for each other.

I divorced my first husband after 7 yrs of marriage and 2 children later. Husband was an alcoholic and drug abuser. He was abusive physically and mentally to me. In my situation it was better that we divorced.

Take your time before making your decision especially if you are not in any harmful situation. Really dig deep into the situation. I wish you luck

Snow

[salukigirl]

My parents are divorced and my dad has also been divorced from my step-mom. The first time I was 7 and the second time I was 17 so both times I was at home witnessing it.

I am extremely glad my parents split up but my dad is also a major jerk. He cheated on my step-mom, drinks at least a 12 pack everyday, smoke pot regularly and also does coke. I think it would have been worse if they would have stayed together and I had to watch them go through the motions. I already have a skewed perception of love and am extremely skeptical when it comes to there being any "good guys" still out there.

Plus, being in abusive relationship myself, my mom has helped me see what that does to women (and men). I think if they were still together she wouldnt be so open with me about it.

I don't really think I ever had the "its my fault" complex that people worry about. My biggest thing was that both my parents are catholic. Their marriage was dissolved so my mom could get married in the catholic church again to my step-dad. I think that had a bigger hit on me than anything.

To get that in the church there has to be extreme circumstances. That really showed me what kind of a person my dad really is knowing that he did stuff bad enough to have their marriage be considered void to the church. So it was necessarily the divorce that hurt me, it was seeing that the man Im supposed to look up to is just like every other jerk guy out there.

I think if the love is gone, kids know. Theyre not stupid. And hiding it is, not only lying to your children, but showing them that you don't think theyre smart enough to pick up on things like that. Theyre very intuitive no matter how young.

[beadlady29-old]

hi Razzleberry.
my mom just took off one day. we were about 9 years old. never seen her again. i assume that my partents eventually got D. dad never talked about it. i still have abandonment issues.
yes, there were aldohol/drugs involved
my parents were abusive towards bothe each other and ourself.
for us, watching my parents not love each other and treat each other the way they did was horrible. wasn't as bad after they split up because even though dad continued to hurt us, at least we didn't have to watch them fight no more. that part was a relief. one thing though, ...we never knew if were supposed to be happy or sad that mom was gone.
i can't answer this last question for you, but speaking for ourself, i believe i would much have preferred having seperated and getting along parents to together and not getting along parents.
hope this helps. if you have any other questions or just need to talk, we're here....

[TaintedGoth1]

Yes, I've been affected by it....but it wasn't something that I couldn't get over.

Dad was always at home with us kids while mom was always out getting drunk or sleeping with some guy. Mom left dad for another man, who turned out to be a pedophile.

As for your decision: it is more unpleasant for the children to be in a home with parents who should be divorced but aren't. It would be better IMO for your children if you were happy. They'll be upset at first but things will get better. Don't stay if it's not good for you. Because what's good for you is also good for your children and vice versa.

<font color="purple">How has divorce effected you?
Well, my parents divorce didn't have any sort of major kind of psycological impact on me, I was 5. In any case, the biggest two problems that I've ever faced were custody issues- I really wanted to live with mom, but I went to live with my dad because he was much more grounded then she was. Another problem is that I'm always feeling guilty that I love one parent more then the other, because that's probably hurt the other parent who isn't as loved feel like crap.

Were your parents abusive to each other and/or to you?
Nope, though I must say I've had a run-in with a questional babysitter, it was mostly my peers who were more abusive.

Was there any alcohol or drugs involved?
No, they just divoced because the just didn't love eachother anymore after 10 years I guess.

Do you wish that your parents could have worked things out? Or are you happier now that they are apart?
You know, I used to hope all the time when I was a kid that they would get back together, but I've learned to accept that it's not going to happen. In the end, it's for the better because now I think after 11 years of being divorced they've both found their soul mates. (and having two families in one isn't bad either)

Which is worse - dealing with divorce - or watching your parents obviously not love each other anymore?
Definately dealing with the divorce. It's not like my parents hatedeachother, they just were apathetic and made sure to be civil because my brother and I were involved. I don't ever remember them being lovey-dovey to begin with, so I've never been bothered.

By the way, I'll be turning 17 this June.
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[crazybones]

How has divorce effected you? since my parents divorce i have not seen my real dad for 16 yrs i live with my mom if you can call her that

Were your parents abusive to each other and/or to you? not to each other no towards us kids yeah mostly mom dad cared to much

Was there any alcohol or drugs involved? no

Do you wish that your parents could have worked things out?
not really becuz my mom would have brought my dad done and he doesnt need to be put through it my dad is doing much better in his life and i recently seen him last summer and he told me i could come live with him but he is to far away and i dont want to leave my friends behind

Or are you happier now that they are apart?

Which is worse - dealing with divorce - or watching your parents obviously not love each other anymore? none of the above i knew the divorce was for the better and there was no love in this relationship to begin with

[AAAAA]

I feel a bit odd about posting here as my parents never divorced, but I’d like to share my story for the parents that stuck it out, the results were both good and bad. It might be lengthy, I apologize in advance.

My father volunteered to go to Vietnam right out of high school, only my mother turned up pregnant at the ripe old age of 15. He wasn’t permitted to go right then, and perhaps that was the source of some of the friction. My parents were madly in love, there is no disputing that, even when things were at their worst, love was never an issue. Luckily for them money wasn’t either, my father became head sawyer at the mill and made a nice income. But some of my earliest memories are of fights, there were good times to, but I the fights, and based upon the house we were living in, I was no older than four, my brother 2.

My father joined the military and we moved to Kansas. I remember the change in the living environment in two ways, 1) there were no more fights and 2) I could only get either a soda or an ice cream once a month. That was quite a change from being able to walk to the store every day to get candy or a soda. And we had to drink powder milk and homemade bread for most of the month because at that the military only paid once a month. Here they were dirt poor and no fighting. I found out later it was because my father was an MP and on call 24/7, there was no alcohol. Plus we lived in a dry county.

Fast forward 4 years later, I’m eight and all I remember is fighting, all the time. When we were older and no longer needed a babysitter, my mother would call and say go to bed. That meant dad was in a fighting mood. I was a natural target. I didn’t stay in bed when they fought, I would get up and start yelling he’d go after me, mom would try to get in between us, we both got hurt. Later, if she did talk about it, she’d say “why don’t you just stay in bed.” As I got older, I realized if I got my Aunt, his sister, she could settle him down with one phrase “your mother would roll over in her grave if she saw you.” That also meant the next time he got drunk, i.e. the next weekend he’d be mad as hell because he knew I was going to run out the door (he’d pull the phone out of the wall if I tried to use that) and run down the road to my Aunt’s, so he’d start on me as soon as I woke up.

He eventually quit drinking when I was 12, but he was mean as hell all the time. A dry drunk the councilor later called it. The trigger… my mother had a break down, attempted suicide and was hospitalized for 8 weeks; I threatened to shoot him with his own gun if he ever hit me again. My dad had already had an appointment to enter in patient detox, and it was for like 12 weeks. There was three weeks where the two of them were both in the hospital and I had to stay with my Aunt. I didn’t realize how much the war at home affected me until my cousin, who was also a police officer, came home after working afternoon shift, clomping upstairs in his heavy boots. I was out of bed, in the hall ready to fight. He was had no idea what was going on. We had this sibling rivalry type relationship and that was the first time I ever remember him being nice to me and it scared me.

My father was able to beat his alcohol addiction, my mother got help for her mental illness and the rest is **** and Jane material. He still had a temper and could pick me up by my ankle out of a chair when I was 18 and kick me in the butt, but his explosions were relatively few in the next 6 years. Through all of that they were still madly in love until his dying day. We all had a happy ending, right?

Except the first time my husband and I got into an argument and I jumped when he yelled and was prepared to defend myself; which totally offended him. I have never allowed my husband to discipline our children. I trust only myself to do that. And there is the fact that my brother also has an uncontrollable temper, and occasionally drinks too much; was also in the Service and saw things no one should have to and he’s trained to injure, and he happened to marry a woman that likes to strike when she’s angry. The last time she got pissed off at him and slapped him, he nearly killed her, literally, he nearly choked her to death.

At least in my house we were able to break the chain. My husband and I do not drink, and warn our children that alcoholism runs deep and wide in our family on both sides. But my brother and I paid a price for that undying devotion.

This is why I get SO upset when people say “oh they’re just kids, they don’t know, or they won’t remember.” I’m here to say, we do remember, and it DOES affect us for the rest of our lives. Wounds that deep don’t heal.

So which was the right answer? My parents didn’t stay together for the kids, they stayed together because they loved each other. I love and admire both of my parents, the fortitude it took to make it through the other side of that %#@&amp;#! storm is amazing. I just wish that I hadn’t witnessed it.