My two cents on...divorce (part three) and the children who suffer the fallout:

The gravity of this post may be too much for some to read, and I will tell you in advance it may even be one that offends some too.  It's not meant to.  But it might.


I was mid post on another topic, a funny one actually, when something terrible happened to The Noise.  Her world was shaken by the all too familiar painful stab of heartbreak she has come to expect from "X".  And on her birthday to make matters worse.  We spent the entire weekend trying to put her back together, and mend her broken heart, but there's only so much you can do when a little girl's Superman turns out to be her Lex Luther time and time again.  Only she can be the one to make that distinction, and all you can do is sit back and watch, praying like hell he doesn't hurt her bad enough, but that he hurts her enough for her to finally see what a bad guy he is, all without her thinking that you are the one to blame for all this to begin with, because if you had stayed, everything would have been normal and fine and butterflies and rainbows.  It must all ultimately be your fault.  Yes, it is.


Divorce is a funny thing for kids to understand.  They will never figure it out.  It doesn't matter how old they are when their parents split up, so trying to justify in your mind that doing it when they're an infant or waiting till they're grown will somehow be better than doing it when they're smack dab in the middle of being a kid is pointless.  It's all the same: confusing.  A child will always wonder why their parents are choosing to divorce.  They will search for answers until the end of time.  And even if you give them an answer, that answer won't be good enough.  They'll think there's still some other reason that you're not telling them, so they'll keep looking.  Or at least thinking.  Why?  If you've been married for one year, "why couldn't they keep trying, why did they give up"?  If you've been married for 30 years, "why did they waste all this time together if they knew they weren't happy, why didn't they just let each other go a long time ago"?  Endless wondering.


Deep down inside, especially when they are young, they will always want you to get back together.  It would make their life so much easier and less painful.  How would you like to spend the first 18 years of your life being torn back and forth from your family every other week, flip-flopping holidays and birthdays, missing out on vacations, special events and parties because it wasn't "your weekend"?  Things would be a lot better for everyone if you would just get back together is what they think.  Now, granted, they aren't aware of all the reasons you got divorced to begin with, which I'm sure are dynamite, but all they know is that what is happening now sucks for them.  When their hopes of you getting back together dwindle away, even despite their best efforts following all the steps they saw in that box office hit Disney movie depicting the kids who get their divorced parents back together, they are just left angry and bitter, and you become the target of their resentment for the second time around after the initial divorce related anger you just finished getting them through counseling for.


No matter how old they are, or how young they are, if they live at home or not, they will always look at themselves as a possible suspect in the motive for this demise.  "If I am a product of this union, and this union was such a disaster not worth saving, something about me must also be a disaster and could be partially responsible for this mess".  A thousand "it's not your fault"s will make you feel better, but the writing's on the wall.  How can you look at your child's mother or father with such hatred, but then look at your child and tell them there's nothing about them that would be cause for concern relating to the demise of this marriage?  For example, The Noise looks just like "X".  I mean, they are identical twins.  She acts like him sometimes too, especially when she wants to piss me off.  Is it my daughter's fault that her dad and I are divorced?  No.  Do I sometimes have to take a breather and walk into the other room when she's acting up, because she is that much like him that it is too real for me to deal with in an appropriate manner?  Yes.  That's just me being honest.  She will always have to deal with that.  Being treated just a little different than Little and any other kids because I know I can't reprimand her the same way as I do them.  She just reminds me of "X" too much sometimes.  These children will always know there is in fact something about them, by nature of the fact that they are products of what broke, that is broken themselves.


Children who come from divorced parents will always have hearts torn in two.  They will always have split allegiances.  They feel it's not ok to love mommy and daddy because mommy and daddy don't love each other.  They just don't understand, because mommy doesn't foster a healthy love for daddy and daddy doesn't foster a healthy love for mommy in their respective homes.  More than likely the other parent is berated, belittled and talked about like a piece of garbage.  The child is made to feel like loving their other parent is wrong and shameful.  Even if not on that severe a level, true love of the other parent is never allowed in one parent's house.  Their heart remains torn because it just can't be whole in either place.  That would mean that it would be ok for it to love both parents at the same time, with the love for each swirling around inside together, but that is impossible under the conditions in which it's been placed.  They will always have an empty space in their heart, on the side where the other parent's love goes when they're away from them, because there's nothing else in there to fill it up.  In many cases, by the time they're teenagers or young adults, their hearts are so full of holes and empty spaces, they are willing to fill them with anything to make the pain go away.


And where do the step parents fit in?  When your real parents are divorced and you have step parents, who are you supposed to really love?  Is it ok to love your steps?  Are you allowed to call them mom and dad?  Is it acceptable to give them hugs and kisses and let them tuck you in at night just like you would your real parents?  When do you let your guard down?  Do you ever?  Children with step parents have the hardest time trying to understand where they fit into this new dynamic.  Not only are they dealing with all of the above, but now they have a new person in the mix that is pulling at mommy and/or daddy.  They are scared this person is taking their parent away.  They may lash out or shut down.  They won't know how to act around this person or their new extended family.  Things are going to be really weird, probably for a really long time.  It could take years to build a bond with a step parent, and it could take only a moment to tear it apart.  One little thing could cause that bond to come crashing down.  The child will be in a constant state of waiting for the other shoe to drop with this step parent, so they will be much more likely to suffer the backlash of emotions than the parent themselves.  The step parent will be pitted against the parent and the child will play mind games to try and see where everyone's allegiances lie within their homes.  They will test limits and boundaries and patience.  Being a step parent will be the hardest role to play in a child of divorced parents' life.


These children look through eyes the rest of the world doesn't understand.  When they grow up with parents who've already disappointed them and stolen their trust, which I hate to be so blunt but to a child that's what divorce is, there isn't a far way to fall from there.  I remember being a child, after my own parents had divorced, and looking at every adult with such disdain and distrust.  I no longer had respect for any of them, including the ones I had never met.  Once they've had their childlike sense of trustworthiness taken away, they're now of the mindset that all adults need to earn their trust and respect, instead of the idea that it is freely given until proven otherwise.  They see the world now through the eyes of a child who's been hurt, which is not like the eyes of an adult who's been hurt.  An adult who's been hurt can feel the pain, but has the experience of life and the knowledge of what they've learned along the way to carry them through.  They have understanding and foresight.  They have reasoning and logic.  For an adult, even though they've been betrayed, they are able to reason that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that things will get better.  Someday.  For a child who's been hurt so deeply, especially by a loved one such as a parent, without the knowledge, experience and reasoning skills of an adult, the sense of loss and complete despair is overwhelming and unbearable.  A child who has no hope of a positive ending or an optimistic future, because they don't have the reasoning skills to take them through that thought process, looks at the world through eyes that only see the color grey.  Their mind stays clouded and they see people as only out for themselves.  Their self esteem takes a nose dive because the view of their reflection is so distorted.  They either withdraw inside themselves or become overly gregarious to distract from their lack of confidence in their own abilities.  Sadly, we will never be able to fully see what their world looks like, because we are adults.


In my personal situation, The Noise will never think that "X" is at fault in any way.  With all that he has done, and I could write an entire novel on just that alone, she will never think that it was by any intentional fault of his own.  To her, he can do no wrong.  When she comes home crying every single time he drops her off, and she tells me all of the awful things that have happened, and I try to help her understand that he needs to take responsibility for his actions.  Somewhere along the way in the conversation, she's given a well rehearsed reason for his despicable behavior and I have become the villain in the story for even attempting to discredit his heinous and ridiculous excuses.  I manage to always become the bad guy.  I live in a constant state of "mommy, he didn't mean to...so you shouldn't...and why are you so mean".  I do my best to keep my composure and maintain my internal peace, but all I really want to do is scream.  The momma bear instinct in me wants to do so many things that the rational human woman won't let me do.  I only hope that one day she'll be able to fully see who her Superman is, who her Lex Luther is and who's been standing right next to her this whole time.