A very recent personal story: Over drinks with a close friend, she disclosed unhappiness with her life and marriage that I could very much relate to, an "is this it?" feeling as she hits middle-age, emotional detachment from her husband, etc. I'm in the early stages of a divorce, and I asked if this was something she'd at all considered, to which she emphatically replied "No, I don't want to leave my family." To which I then responded, do you mean leave your "family" or leave your "marriage"?
I don't even remember what she said next, but the point is her choice of words. How is a hypothetical situation in which she would undoubtedly retain at least 50% custody of her children "leaving her family"?
I need to unpack this more at a later time, but yeah, this phrase gets thrown around all the time in relation to divorce and the connotation of abandonment sure sounds like fearmongering to me.
Ten years after my divorce from a 25-year, very lonely marriage, I am still struggling with negative feelings about being divorced that I didn't see coming. Not that I think I was happier in the marriage--it's impossible to be happy when you're living with someone who withholds affection from you all the time--but the period since my marriage ended has been much more unstable than I expected, and I find that I'm carrying around a lot of sorrow about the loss of ballast. Also, because I have become quite ill in the last three-plus years, I am often confronted with the fear that I might never have another partner--and that opens up space for a different kind of regret. I've been considering starting a blog about this; being single and chronically ill is a complex topic about which I haven't found much deep discussion.
Thanks for this affirmation! I am letting the dust settle on my recent move, but I'm hoping to take the leap within a few weeks. Would love to get some input about specific topics of interest within this general subject.
Yes, same! I think we need a lot more stories about the different shapes of love, dating, relationships, etc, and it sounds like you have a lot to teach us.
I agree with all the above. I am chronically ill and a mother- in a difficult patch of my marriage and very back and forth on the future. I would love reading your blog. I can only imagine how much you are struggling. I hope you also find pockets of joy and the ability to fully be yourself now.
I know someone recently described a true need for "ease" in relationships and how it doesnt all have to be so hard.. and its definitely got me thinking a LOT.
Yes! It's revelatory to imagine a relationship primarily characterized by ease. I've had glimpses, but never gotten there. And with the added tension of chronic illness, I often struggle to envision any kind of future with a loving partner. And yet, the dream is alive...
Thanks! I think I'm worried that I don't have enough to say that would be of interest to others. I'm glad to hear you think these very tentative thoughts might be enough to start with.
I got sober, in 20011, after my husband gave me the “if you don’t stop drinking, I’m going to leave you and take the kids” ultimatum.
I will always be grateful for what he said, because it was what I needed to hear to do the work and discover that living a sober life is far better than being a (relatively) high-functioning alcoholic.
Still, as the years passed I began to notice that everything, everything in my life had gotten better except for my marriage, and so in 2016 we began the process of getting divorced.
When I told my eldest child they were not surprised. “Well, I figured you’d stick it out until (her brother) graduated from High School. But I was so afraid that to do so, you’d start drinking again.”
OOF
If I had to use the word “broken,” I would do so more as to how I was showing up in their lives, when I was their mother struggling with addiction, but in divorce we became a home that could heal.
As a teen in the 80's I *prayed* that my parents would get divorced. They were an unhappy mis-match who knew each other for only seven months before marrying in the late 1960s. There were violent arguments, objects smashed (luckily, no physical abuse), and alcoholism. From age 7 all the way through high school, I was always on pins and needles and felt responsible for shielding my younger sibling from it (he was very anxious--in those days, he was described as a "sensitive child"). There was a really bad patch when I was 16-17, and one night my mom escaped the house for a walk and I decided to go with her and finally say something directly to her about the situation, how it made me feel. Her response: "What do you want me to do? Get a divorce? We'd lose the house!" It felt like a slap in the face. Keeping up appearances was paramount to her, and she and my dad poured their all into that house, a fixer-upper bought when I was in middle school. All their money went into it--they were both working class people who didn't go to college, and saving money for their kids' college didn't cross their minds at all. Real estate trumps potential future happiness, is the message my mother conveyed. Only one person in their social circle was divorced, and it was quite the scandal at the time, so she was probably thinking about that, and also that her parents, who were very conservative, might cut her off. Her father was a very stern immigrant, her mother the child of immigrants, and nobody ever divorced in that family (well, not until the 2000s). Misery was the acceptable price to pay to keep up appearances in the community. Now, my parents are in their 80s and not in good health, though they are too worn out to fight like they used to. My mother pretends the past never happened, in fact she's invented alternate stories for various difficult times and accepts no push-back from me when I say, "well, I don't remember it that way..." Sigh. My father did quit drinking eventually, and they've been good grandparents. But I can't help but wonder what their lives would be like had they divorced. That one divorced friend they had later re-married happily, and I know that was a bitter pill for my mother; no doubt she had her "what-ifs" as well.
My parents were married for 53 years, until my dad died. My ex-husband’s parents were ten years younger than mine, but that means now they’re well into their 55th year of marriage. I assumed, as a result, that we were both prepared for the work towards longevity. We were not. And divorce felt like a failure to live up to their example, even though I didn’t admire their relationship dynamics.
My divorce was hard on my kids, but it also made both my ex and I better parents. I don’t regret my divorce for a moment.
Divorced parents, kids who live with grandparents, two mom households, 2 dad households, single mom or dad households all seem pretty commonplace in our school community- there is a great diversity of types of families that I sought out in preschool and lucked into with our magnet school.
My own experience is with parents who have been married for 37 years after first meeting at age 12/13 at the county spelling bee. They began to date at age 15/16 and have been together for 45 years in October. Their first official date was the school Halloween disco. while I have seen moments of disconnection over the course of my life, I could always see they respected each other, snd tried to communicate effectively. I saw my mom be passive aggressive at times where resentment would build and have tried to advocate for what I needed in my own relationships more directly.
I feel a pressure to make my relationship “work,” and my husband’s parents have also been married for 40+ years, 43 years in January. My own maternal grandparents were married for 60 years at the time of my grandma’s death in 2021.
My dad’s mom remarried the only man I have ever viewed as my grandfather when my dad was 12 and they will have been married 47 years in February. She was married to her first husband for about 5 years and did not have an easy time getting pregnant- he was in pharmacy school in a different city and he left her to go live with the mother of his twin daughters when my dad was 9 months old. I’m fuzzy on the timeline of the leaving and how pregnant she was but I know my aunts are about the same age as my dad. As a twin myself, I enjoyed getting to meet them when I was in middle school and my one aunt was named Elizabeth Duncan just like me before my marriage. Occasionally my grandma will refer to her divorce and broken home, it’s her 86th birthday today and she was talking about attributing my dad’s sensory meltdowns solely to the divorce. I told her my dad likely had undiagnosed ADHD and while the upheaval of routine may have exacerbated some of his symptoms, it is good she got divorced. I’ve met the man a few times, but I will never have a relationship with him because he never tried to establish a relationship with his granddaughters and he’s never reached out to meet his great grandkids since my dad sent him a card announcing my oldest’s birth 7 years ago.
All this to say, the broken family idea does not come from the divorce itself but the aftermath of the divorce if a parent decides to stop parenting and stop being connected to any member of the family. In the 1960s I assume it was more commonplace to live full time with the mother with no scheduled visitation, my dad’s only memories of his biological dad from childhood are riding to his drugstore an hour away and having a soda at the counter. My 7 yo said recently he thought his bio grandad was dead and was shocked to hear he was still alive. I told him we hadn’t seen him in over 10 years. Abandonment is a different issue than divorce, divorce can be great for everyone involved.
"Abandonment is a different issue than divorce, divorce can be great for everyone involved." Yes, exactly, even though the two issues so often get conflated.
Thank you for this, Amanda! I am definitely the child of a, like, definitionally "broken home" and I do have the CPTSD to prove it, but I definitely never thought of it like that as a kid....It took adult therapy to realize that all the chaos actually impacted me. My situation is a bit different since my dad was hit by a car, and there wasn't a traditional divorce, but even so, and even with the trauma, I still 100% believe that capitalism/economic insecurity was the biggest factor in the "brokenness" and NOT the single parent (my mom was and is amazing, and I'm a better person for being raised by her, even with all the tough stuff too). So, that's my perspective on that.
As for dating show tropes, you nailed this. I became a Bachelor watcher about seven years ago and I will never forget the first time there was a prominent contestant with divorced parents AND from a low-income background (Dean on Rachel's season). I remember hometowns and seeing a SMALL, messy house. It was really impactful for me, after seeing all the rich, married parents for so many seasons, and that "married parents" was seen as an extremely valuable personality (???) trait somehow. This season is making me happy (and angry/annoyed/conflicted, per usual) but the fact that the lead and multiple contestants come from single parents and that the child of happily married parents (Sam M) sucked the worst....well, I'm kind of loving it.
Haha I love this Raechel! So funny, and true, what you say about married parents coming off as a desirable personality trait!! I had never thought of it like that, and, yup. I hate all the connotations of the term "broken" but you're so right that the representation of different kinds of families, on this extremely conservative show no less, really matters.
It took me a lot of therapy to see the trauma and dysfunction of my childhood home(s)/family for what it was, too. You're making me realize that's what can be validating about using a term like "broken"— it can affirm what hurt us, make it real, especially when we've been told it isn't/wasn't that bad. Totally different situation for me (addiction, intergenerational emotional stuff), but couldn't agree more that the economic insecurity and class antagonism stuff was at the heart (pun intended!) of all of it.
Thank you for speaking to the powerful moment when we saw Dean’s home- I had never seen a hometown like his! My parents were lower middle class and my husband’s childhood home was quite similar to mine so bringing him home felt fine for me but there is a marked class issue with a lot of these Bachelor Nation families.
I remember how ostracized my parents were after they divorced. Their friends and acquaintances criticized them for divorcing, esp after having seven kids. It was the 70s. They were so distraught. My mother was working and dealing with addiction, bringing in little money. We moved from lower middle class to poverty level. My father was out of work then. They’d both had affairs. We all took on the shame of that. But my mother, who was beautiful, white and intelligent, was able to take advantage of a social program for ‘homemakers entering the workforce.’ That and eventual therapy helped most of us recover.
ALSO- the "i only want to do this once" my husband fully doesnt believe in divorce and its so so so much pressure. As I navigate therapy for both of us and questioning opening up or leaving or what is the RIGHT thing to do - then looking at all the outside influences .. its wild. Its like .. damned if you do damned if you dont
I'm a child of divorce, too, and I remember as a kid feeling like: just please get divorced already. I could see my parents weren't compatible and they were making us kids miserable and scared. Re: brokenness, agree that the most hurt came not from the marriage ending, but from my parents not having the tools to process this change with us. Capitalism/economic concerns, as another commenter said, ensured they were both absent a lot more, and our "nuclear family structure" meant we didn't have the love or guidance of other family members or even nourishing family friends who lived with us or near us, to help all of us through it. It's not the divorce, it's the system set up to ensure that if you leave a marriage, you suffer.
Thanks for the encouragement! I've been stockpiling drafts of blog posts and trying to find the right launching point. Your interest helps me build courage to begin.
A very recent personal story: Over drinks with a close friend, she disclosed unhappiness with her life and marriage that I could very much relate to, an "is this it?" feeling as she hits middle-age, emotional detachment from her husband, etc. I'm in the early stages of a divorce, and I asked if this was something she'd at all considered, to which she emphatically replied "No, I don't want to leave my family." To which I then responded, do you mean leave your "family" or leave your "marriage"?
I don't even remember what she said next, but the point is her choice of words. How is a hypothetical situation in which she would undoubtedly retain at least 50% custody of her children "leaving her family"?
I need to unpack this more at a later time, but yeah, this phrase gets thrown around all the time in relation to divorce and the connotation of abandonment sure sounds like fearmongering to me.
Yes— the way family and marriage (and divorce and abandonment) are mushed together is so damaging.
oooooph yes this.
Ten years after my divorce from a 25-year, very lonely marriage, I am still struggling with negative feelings about being divorced that I didn't see coming. Not that I think I was happier in the marriage--it's impossible to be happy when you're living with someone who withholds affection from you all the time--but the period since my marriage ended has been much more unstable than I expected, and I find that I'm carrying around a lot of sorrow about the loss of ballast. Also, because I have become quite ill in the last three-plus years, I am often confronted with the fear that I might never have another partner--and that opens up space for a different kind of regret. I've been considering starting a blog about this; being single and chronically ill is a complex topic about which I haven't found much deep discussion.
I would love to read about this, Rachel.
Same. If you ever feel that opening to put words to it, I know many people would want to read them, myself included.
Thanks for this affirmation! I am letting the dust settle on my recent move, but I'm hoping to take the leap within a few weeks. Would love to get some input about specific topics of interest within this general subject.
Personally, I feel like what you said up there is a great trailhead to begin with. I could see so much just from there.
Yes, same! I think we need a lot more stories about the different shapes of love, dating, relationships, etc, and it sounds like you have a lot to teach us.
I agree with all the above. I am chronically ill and a mother- in a difficult patch of my marriage and very back and forth on the future. I would love reading your blog. I can only imagine how much you are struggling. I hope you also find pockets of joy and the ability to fully be yourself now.
I know someone recently described a true need for "ease" in relationships and how it doesnt all have to be so hard.. and its definitely got me thinking a LOT.
Yes! It's revelatory to imagine a relationship primarily characterized by ease. I've had glimpses, but never gotten there. And with the added tension of chronic illness, I often struggle to envision any kind of future with a loving partner. And yet, the dream is alive...
Such a kind thing to say. Your blog is so thoughtful and intelligent--I aspire to create a similar tone but my thoughts are often very raw!
Thanks! I think I'm worried that I don't have enough to say that would be of interest to others. I'm glad to hear you think these very tentative thoughts might be enough to start with.
Tentative thoughts are my favorite ones to read about ❤️
I thought I was the only one :)
I got sober, in 20011, after my husband gave me the “if you don’t stop drinking, I’m going to leave you and take the kids” ultimatum.
I will always be grateful for what he said, because it was what I needed to hear to do the work and discover that living a sober life is far better than being a (relatively) high-functioning alcoholic.
Still, as the years passed I began to notice that everything, everything in my life had gotten better except for my marriage, and so in 2016 we began the process of getting divorced.
When I told my eldest child they were not surprised. “Well, I figured you’d stick it out until (her brother) graduated from High School. But I was so afraid that to do so, you’d start drinking again.”
OOF
If I had to use the word “broken,” I would do so more as to how I was showing up in their lives, when I was their mother struggling with addiction, but in divorce we became a home that could heal.
This is really beautiful: "...in divorce we became a home that could heal."
As a teen in the 80's I *prayed* that my parents would get divorced. They were an unhappy mis-match who knew each other for only seven months before marrying in the late 1960s. There were violent arguments, objects smashed (luckily, no physical abuse), and alcoholism. From age 7 all the way through high school, I was always on pins and needles and felt responsible for shielding my younger sibling from it (he was very anxious--in those days, he was described as a "sensitive child"). There was a really bad patch when I was 16-17, and one night my mom escaped the house for a walk and I decided to go with her and finally say something directly to her about the situation, how it made me feel. Her response: "What do you want me to do? Get a divorce? We'd lose the house!" It felt like a slap in the face. Keeping up appearances was paramount to her, and she and my dad poured their all into that house, a fixer-upper bought when I was in middle school. All their money went into it--they were both working class people who didn't go to college, and saving money for their kids' college didn't cross their minds at all. Real estate trumps potential future happiness, is the message my mother conveyed. Only one person in their social circle was divorced, and it was quite the scandal at the time, so she was probably thinking about that, and also that her parents, who were very conservative, might cut her off. Her father was a very stern immigrant, her mother the child of immigrants, and nobody ever divorced in that family (well, not until the 2000s). Misery was the acceptable price to pay to keep up appearances in the community. Now, my parents are in their 80s and not in good health, though they are too worn out to fight like they used to. My mother pretends the past never happened, in fact she's invented alternate stories for various difficult times and accepts no push-back from me when I say, "well, I don't remember it that way..." Sigh. My father did quit drinking eventually, and they've been good grandparents. But I can't help but wonder what their lives would be like had they divorced. That one divorced friend they had later re-married happily, and I know that was a bitter pill for my mother; no doubt she had her "what-ifs" as well.
"Real estate trumps potential future happiness, is the message my mother conveyed." Oof.
My parents were married for 53 years, until my dad died. My ex-husband’s parents were ten years younger than mine, but that means now they’re well into their 55th year of marriage. I assumed, as a result, that we were both prepared for the work towards longevity. We were not. And divorce felt like a failure to live up to their example, even though I didn’t admire their relationship dynamics.
My divorce was hard on my kids, but it also made both my ex and I better parents. I don’t regret my divorce for a moment.
Divorced parents, kids who live with grandparents, two mom households, 2 dad households, single mom or dad households all seem pretty commonplace in our school community- there is a great diversity of types of families that I sought out in preschool and lucked into with our magnet school.
My own experience is with parents who have been married for 37 years after first meeting at age 12/13 at the county spelling bee. They began to date at age 15/16 and have been together for 45 years in October. Their first official date was the school Halloween disco. while I have seen moments of disconnection over the course of my life, I could always see they respected each other, snd tried to communicate effectively. I saw my mom be passive aggressive at times where resentment would build and have tried to advocate for what I needed in my own relationships more directly.
I feel a pressure to make my relationship “work,” and my husband’s parents have also been married for 40+ years, 43 years in January. My own maternal grandparents were married for 60 years at the time of my grandma’s death in 2021.
My dad’s mom remarried the only man I have ever viewed as my grandfather when my dad was 12 and they will have been married 47 years in February. She was married to her first husband for about 5 years and did not have an easy time getting pregnant- he was in pharmacy school in a different city and he left her to go live with the mother of his twin daughters when my dad was 9 months old. I’m fuzzy on the timeline of the leaving and how pregnant she was but I know my aunts are about the same age as my dad. As a twin myself, I enjoyed getting to meet them when I was in middle school and my one aunt was named Elizabeth Duncan just like me before my marriage. Occasionally my grandma will refer to her divorce and broken home, it’s her 86th birthday today and she was talking about attributing my dad’s sensory meltdowns solely to the divorce. I told her my dad likely had undiagnosed ADHD and while the upheaval of routine may have exacerbated some of his symptoms, it is good she got divorced. I’ve met the man a few times, but I will never have a relationship with him because he never tried to establish a relationship with his granddaughters and he’s never reached out to meet his great grandkids since my dad sent him a card announcing my oldest’s birth 7 years ago.
All this to say, the broken family idea does not come from the divorce itself but the aftermath of the divorce if a parent decides to stop parenting and stop being connected to any member of the family. In the 1960s I assume it was more commonplace to live full time with the mother with no scheduled visitation, my dad’s only memories of his biological dad from childhood are riding to his drugstore an hour away and having a soda at the counter. My 7 yo said recently he thought his bio grandad was dead and was shocked to hear he was still alive. I told him we hadn’t seen him in over 10 years. Abandonment is a different issue than divorce, divorce can be great for everyone involved.
"Abandonment is a different issue than divorce, divorce can be great for everyone involved." Yes, exactly, even though the two issues so often get conflated.
Thank you for this, Amanda! I am definitely the child of a, like, definitionally "broken home" and I do have the CPTSD to prove it, but I definitely never thought of it like that as a kid....It took adult therapy to realize that all the chaos actually impacted me. My situation is a bit different since my dad was hit by a car, and there wasn't a traditional divorce, but even so, and even with the trauma, I still 100% believe that capitalism/economic insecurity was the biggest factor in the "brokenness" and NOT the single parent (my mom was and is amazing, and I'm a better person for being raised by her, even with all the tough stuff too). So, that's my perspective on that.
As for dating show tropes, you nailed this. I became a Bachelor watcher about seven years ago and I will never forget the first time there was a prominent contestant with divorced parents AND from a low-income background (Dean on Rachel's season). I remember hometowns and seeing a SMALL, messy house. It was really impactful for me, after seeing all the rich, married parents for so many seasons, and that "married parents" was seen as an extremely valuable personality (???) trait somehow. This season is making me happy (and angry/annoyed/conflicted, per usual) but the fact that the lead and multiple contestants come from single parents and that the child of happily married parents (Sam M) sucked the worst....well, I'm kind of loving it.
Haha I love this Raechel! So funny, and true, what you say about married parents coming off as a desirable personality trait!! I had never thought of it like that, and, yup. I hate all the connotations of the term "broken" but you're so right that the representation of different kinds of families, on this extremely conservative show no less, really matters.
It took me a lot of therapy to see the trauma and dysfunction of my childhood home(s)/family for what it was, too. You're making me realize that's what can be validating about using a term like "broken"— it can affirm what hurt us, make it real, especially when we've been told it isn't/wasn't that bad. Totally different situation for me (addiction, intergenerational emotional stuff), but couldn't agree more that the economic insecurity and class antagonism stuff was at the heart (pun intended!) of all of it.
And oh my god I don't even know where to start with Sam M. He needs his own week-long series.
My good friend said she liked Sam and I said REALLY?!? Like what ep are you on?
Thank you for speaking to the powerful moment when we saw Dean’s home- I had never seen a hometown like his! My parents were lower middle class and my husband’s childhood home was quite similar to mine so bringing him home felt fine for me but there is a marked class issue with a lot of these Bachelor Nation families.
I remember how ostracized my parents were after they divorced. Their friends and acquaintances criticized them for divorcing, esp after having seven kids. It was the 70s. They were so distraught. My mother was working and dealing with addiction, bringing in little money. We moved from lower middle class to poverty level. My father was out of work then. They’d both had affairs. We all took on the shame of that. But my mother, who was beautiful, white and intelligent, was able to take advantage of a social program for ‘homemakers entering the workforce.’ That and eventual therapy helped most of us recover.
ALSO- the "i only want to do this once" my husband fully doesnt believe in divorce and its so so so much pressure. As I navigate therapy for both of us and questioning opening up or leaving or what is the RIGHT thing to do - then looking at all the outside influences .. its wild. Its like .. damned if you do damned if you dont
I'm a child of divorce, too, and I remember as a kid feeling like: just please get divorced already. I could see my parents weren't compatible and they were making us kids miserable and scared. Re: brokenness, agree that the most hurt came not from the marriage ending, but from my parents not having the tools to process this change with us. Capitalism/economic concerns, as another commenter said, ensured they were both absent a lot more, and our "nuclear family structure" meant we didn't have the love or guidance of other family members or even nourishing family friends who lived with us or near us, to help all of us through it. It's not the divorce, it's the system set up to ensure that if you leave a marriage, you suffer.
Thanks for the encouragement! I've been stockpiling drafts of blog posts and trying to find the right launching point. Your interest helps me build courage to begin.