Products of Divorce
Divorce is a breakup, a breakup with greater importance than any other relationship break up. It’s an extreme long term relationship break up. An end to a legally, formally, and possibly religiously recognized relationship. It is a split of a couple, and at times, it is unfortunately the split of a family. This break up doesn’t only affect the two who are in it, but the children that their relationship gave them. It breaks apart the family that the couple created together. The children suffer from this divorce, they don’t gain from it like their parents do. In the end they might have some positives from the situation but journey is unfortunate.
One day mom and dad are together then the next day they aren’t. As a child your world flips upside down. Now the kids have to share their time between two houses and their two parents. Then they are put in a new school. They have to leave their friends and their life behind. They have to go through the parents fighting over custody. The child usually ends up living with one parent during the week and the other parent every other weekend. It is not their choice when they’re young. If they want to see one parent more than the other, they can’t because it is not their choice. Everything is split up: costs, time, birthdays, holidays, the list goes on. Then there’s the drama. Like in any other break up the couple goes through a period of hatred. This doesn’t always happen but, now the parents pull the child into it and tell them lies and things that confuse the kids and turn them against the other parent. Why should the kids have to deal with their parents bad decisions? It’s not the kids fault, then the children so often get so lost in the drama that they begin to believe that it is their fault.
Then after everything calms down the parents start to move on. Imagine being the child, one day you come to your dad’s house and you have to go to dinner with a stranger, or known as “dads new girlfriend”. Then before the kid knows it their parents are getting married to someone new. Now they have these new parent figures in their lives and new brothers and sisters. They don’t always like them either, but then again it’s not the kids choice. Adjusting to their new family is hard. Their parent having a whole other life, that’s hard. At that point the kids whole life changes again. Rules at home change, maybe they move again, and now they have to make room in their lives for this whole other family.
Some parents are so different that their rules and lifestyles are like night and day. Some parents are strict and some don’t care about what you do. As kids get older and they want more freedom, they usually go to the more lax parent. But others might go to the strict parent. When the child turns 15 they get to finally chose where they can live all the time. This is heartbreaking for the parents when they have to let go of their child early, it’s not like normal parents who don’t have to watch their child move out till their 18. Not only does this hurt the parents but it hurts the siblings. They don’t notice at first but that is just another split. You split up the children then it is like two totally different families now. Children are raised together in a house all of them together there whole child lives. Siblings are like bestfriends, they are there for everything, they love you from day one, they fight with you, worry about you, they look out for you and teach you. Siblings are the closest friends we have. Living in different houses and having complete different lives. It is like moving someone across the country from their best friend.
The effect divorce has on the children may come unnoticed but it’s real, especially in relationships. As the kids grow older and start to develop relationships they have problems. After being raised through this crazy break up they get scared. The kids get stuck in relationships that are unfair because they don’t know better. Then, even worse, they are scared to leave that relationship because their scared of the break up, their scared to go through their parents went through. It’s unhealthy. They have no sense of a relationship, sometimes no sense of family. In people’s younger lives they watch the relationships around them and they learn how to be in a relationship and how to love and be loved. Growing up around a healthy relationship you learn how to have a healthy relationship. You have a relationship to look up to, you watch that couple throughout your life and learn how have a happy healthy relationship, you have hope for love. Children whose parents divorce grow up watching this crazy break up and this unhealthy relationship.They watch their parents hurt and struggle. This is the only idea of a relationship they have. So instead of learning positive things they learn negative things and that results in negative things.
My parents are divorced. I was young, but old enough to remember and to understand. I had to move, change schools, and live between both parents. My siblings and I chose who we wanted to live with as we got of age. We got split up and moved from one house to the other. There was times I didn’t see my siblings for months. Now I live with one parent all the time and have since I was 15. There are times I go months without seeing my other parent. I know there are kids who have it worse but it was hard. I struggled. Although I had a hard time I got through it and was blessed by being able to live with two amazing parents and my step parent taking me in and raising me like their own. I don’t know where I would be without them. I had a relationship to look up to and learn from other than the divorce. I learned now that it was for the better and even though it was hard it got better.
