When Do You Recover from Your Parents' Divorce?

Question:

Hey Telltale Har,

When I was around 24 or 25 (I can’t remember the exact time period) I came to the realization that I had known my parents longer as divorcees than I had as a married couple. This was a very difficult thing for me to adjust to, and to be quite honest I still don’t think I’ve fully recovered from it. I am a child of divorce (or a COD) and this is my story.

I think the thing I remember most vividly about growing up as a COD was the shared custody. My parent’s split was very amicable, so I consider myself luckier than most. With that being said, I (and my two siblings) spent most of the time living with my mom. My dad moved in with my grandparents (his parents), while my mom got to stay in the home that she and my dad had bought together a few years prior. What I remember most about the shared custody was counting down the days every other week until my siblings and I got to spend the weekend with my dad. Because the split was so amicable, we got to see my dad sparingly throughout the week, but every other weekend was just us and him. This also meant I got to spend more time with my grandparents, who I grew extremely close to, especially my grandmother who became the most important person in my life up until her death. I feel like these weekends with dad truly shaped who I was becoming as a young man, and at the same time, strained my relationship with my mom.

Shortly after my parents separated, my mom started dating someone. The thought of anyone but my dad entering my life was so foreign to me that I immediately shunned my mom’s new boyfriend. I also felt that I had the newly added responsibility of being the protector of my two younger siblings. They were young enough, in my eyes at least, that there was a chance they could forget my dad and consider this new guy a suitable replacement. I was not okay with this. It may seem unfair, even extreme, but taking care of them and protecting “the idea” of my dad became the most important thing in my life. When they reached the point in their lives when my mom had been with the “new guy” longer than she was with my dad, I was devastated. This was now the norm for them, and I had a very difficult time dealing with that.

Over the years, things did get somewhat easier. I eventually came to the realization that my siblings were going to make up their own minds, and there was not much I could do to change that. Luckily, in my eyes at least, they shared my thoughts on the situation. Being a child of divorce, I always told myself there was absolutely no way I would let myself go through the same situation. The very first thing I told myself in every relationship I’ve been in has been “this won’t be like my parents.” In retrospect, maybe this has been an unhealthy thing to do, as all my relationships to this point have seemingly ended on worse terms than my parents.

I’m sure every child of divorce has different experiences that have shaped the kind of person that they are. I won’t deny that I’ve had it easier than many in my situation, but I also cannot deny that growing up under these circumstances absolutely shaped what type of person I am today. Self-esteem issues, trust issues, abandonment issues, loneliness… I attribute all of it to the situation between my parents. I’m sure I could have done many things differently but am rather unsure of how to handle certain things today, as a man in his 30s, still very much dealing with this.

-Story of a Lonely Guy

Answer:

Hey there Lonely Guy,

It’s nice to hear from you again.

This is an incredibly touching and relatable story for many people, I’m sure.

I like the idea that you cared so much for your dad that you felt the need to keep his presence alive in the hearts and minds of your siblings. That shows that you have a lot of love for your family.

I can’t say for sure, but it does seem to me that you hold a bit of animosity towards your mother for moving on with someone else.

I’m curious to know if you feel that way towards her even now.

The main thing I want to address is that you should’ve never made yourself responsible for maintaining your siblings’ relationships with your father. Though it’s too late to go back now and change anything, they (and your dad) were ultimately responsible for their own relationships with each other.

Also—your mother was (is) a grown ass woman, and when a marriage goes sour—that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to try and find love again. I have no idea how she conducted herself towards you and your siblings, but from the way you spoke about looking forward to time with your dad, I can infer that you weren’t (aren’t) very close with her. Alas, her wanting to find someone to share her life with isn’t something to be vilified for. I do understand that as a child, you did not want anyone to take your dad’s place, and that’s perfectly normal—but here and now, you’ve got to let that go.

Which leads me to this: you cannot base your choices or your relationships off your parent’s relationships. You are a whole grown-ass man. You are not your mom, or your dad, or their mistakes and mishaps. You owe it to yourself to realize that the partners you come across are not your parents, they are their own humans who will make their own mistakes.

It’s time to stop attributing your own loneliness to your parents.

Your trust issues need to be addressed—if your parents have acted in ways that made it hard for you to trust them, then you need to address that with them. If you’re saying that you have problems trusting the people you’re in relationships with because of the way your parents conducted their relationship with each other, you have to let that shit go. It was NOT your relationship—it was theirs.

Self-esteem issues also need to be addressed. I can’t even say I honestly know how that could be blamed on being a COD, but regardless, you need to take a step inward and see what’s up with the what’s up. What qualities do you like about yourself? Focus on those. If you can’t think of any—find them. Make them. Be the kind of man you’d want to be friends with. Be the kind of man a person would want to date. Find what you have to offer the world, and then offer it to yourself. No one will stand and support you if you’re not already holding yourself up.

Your issues with abandonment aren’t rare or uncommon—shit, no one wants to be abandoned. If you feel your parents abandoned you, again, you need to address that with them or address that in therapy.

If you enter all of your relationships with a bias against the other person from the get-go (i.e. you’re probably going to leave me, I can’t trust you, you don’t like me/find me attractive/think I’m great), then you’re automatically going to be leaking that energy out into your partner. Whether you say those things or not (and boy, I hope you don’t say them) simply thinking them creates this cloud of self-loathing and doubt over you and you will rain all over your partner’s parades without even trying.

The whole “someone can’t love you until you love yourself” thing really applies to real life. And someone can’t love you until you let your fixation on your parent’s relationship die—they’ve moved on, and it’s high time that you do too.

Until next time,

Telltale Har

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