Thank God My Parents Divorced
From the perspective of an older sibling.
The car door slammed shut. My brother and I hopped into the backseat. Trash bags stuffed with our belongings squished against our legs and hogged the trunk. No space for my dad — as far as Mom was concerned, he was out of the family equation. Forever.
I’d had hints. Mom, during a couple of vulnerable moments, dropped some unpleasant marital updates. That she would split from my dad was obvious. I just…didn’t think she’d pull the trigger. Not yet. Not until I’d graduated, with two hundred miles of Californian desert between me and the radioactive crap that came pouring out of my parents’ fission.
Idiot. I’d hoped to escape it all despite actively encouraging it. I’d even told Mom that I’d rather wade through the waste of their nuclear fallout than watch her suffer through another two years of poorly repressed anxiety.
My mom flailed like a drowning sailor as she sought refuge for the three of us. I only saw the bad bits — the crying, the fragility, the fear — after we’d hopped in her car and peeled the fuck out of my parent’s house while Dad vacationed elsewhere, unaware that it’d be weeks — months? — before he’d see us again.
The Bad
You’d think, for a relatively stable middle-class family, divorce would be tame. Some papers, a few court appearances, lots of bitching over split resources and child custody, but nothing awful. Nothing that would strain relationships to the point of fracturing.
Think again.
Mom shocked friends with her stunt, and Dad could kiss goodbye to twenty-plus years of family ties on my mothers’ side. Money poured like water as my parent’s fought over custody of my younger brother, who had zero say despite being sixteen — old enough to make his own damn choices.
Mom won. Moms tend to win custody battles over kids, or so I’m told. She, my brother, and I couch-surfed for a year (update: it was a only a month, according to Mom. Holy crap, did it feel like longer) while she scrambled for stable housing. She cried a lot, and there was little my brother or I could do to comfort her. One time, she broke down in the middle of a restaurant because we still hadn’t found a place to settle down, and she hated relying on charity. Another time, we were booted from the house by a “Church acquaintance” who got cold feet a week after we’d moved in all the furniture. Go figure.
After a year of juggling mundane high school drama with housing instability, the divorce hadn’t finalized, but my Mom had found a nice apartment, and my brother and I were free to visit our dad again a few weeks after the house-escape.
It took some time to repair the relationship between the men in the family, but we persevered. Love is weird like that — my dad, brother, and I weren’t particularly affectionate with each other, but we visited my dad when we could. As the older brother, I felt responsible for splitting my time between my parents evenly.
We tried. We all did.
The Good
Despite emerging battered from a financial and emotional wrecking ball thick enough to put Miley Cyrus to shame, I’m happy it happened. If I could go back in time and do it all over again, I’d still encourage my parents to divorce.
Why? Because what they had was toxic, the little respect between them eroded by years of passive-aggressive escalation that trickled down to my brother and me. For better or for worse, I was done with the bullshit. My dad needed to stop snapping at everything, my mom needed to exercise some parental authority, and I needed parental figures I could look up to.
The divorce needed to happen. I needed it to happen. And when it did, a lot of good came from it.
My family came out stronger, healthier, and better prepared for the future. I’m not saying it’s all cake and roses — it’s not — but it didn’t take some miraculous “light at the end of a tunnel” to see that my nuclear family had made some qualitative improvements within the five years following the finalized divorce.
Because of the divorce, my Dad went through changes so steep, they’re borderline miraculous. Old habits (like bleeding-edge sarcasm and stagnant work routines) were examined and tossed out, replaced by an uplifting optimism and a powerful drive to break into a brand new career field.
Because of the divorce, my Mom has found a supportive community and a job she genuinely enjoys. She’s also remarried to a guy so fantastic that I’ve taken to siphoning life lessons from him without telling, and honestly, I feel kind of bad — like I owe him for being true to himself. It’s a debt I’m happy to accrue.
Because of the divorce, my brother and I have been introduced to dozens of wonderful people who we consider family, including three brand-spanking-new step siblings. We look forward to eating dinner with both sides of the family.
My nuclear family has strengthened. Constant headbutting has transformed into amicable friendliness. Even on bad days, I have only to cast my thought back to realize that things could be so much worse — we could all still be suffering from the chemical refuse of a toxic relationship.
I love them all — always have.
Our Future
2020 has been a tough year. It’s already tested my family’s endurance for living in close proximity. So far, there have been zero casualties. Yeah, I’m officially broke, and my dating aspirations have been hurled into 2025 to make room for projects like this blog, but hey — I’ve got my family back.
We fractured, but we’re stronger than ever. And larger, too — I’m no longer the eldest sibling, which freaks me out, and my dad’s girlfriend is basically family at this point, and I live with two of the most ADORABLE cats, and I’m rambling (which isn’t great) but THE POINT IS…
Thank God my parents divorced. I couldn’t be happier.
