by ANONYMOUS
When I was 27 my parents split up. They took me to a local café, bought me a milkshake and told me my mum was moving out. I couldn’t breathe.
I was only recently engaged and so at the highest high of my life, deliriously happy… I was forced to earth with the harshest of thuds.
The whole foundation of my life, my close-knit loving family, had been shattered. Irreversibly changed.
I’d seen it coming. But then again, I hadn’t. They’d been married for more than 30 years, and I just thought after that long you get your shit together and sort it out.
For my whole life to that point I’d thought theirs was an idyllic relationship, the one I always dreamed of. They held hands, they kissed each other hello and goodbye every day, they travelled, they had good friends, they rarely fought. To me, it seemed like they were best friends. Where had it all gone wrong?
The problem with being an adult child of divorce is that you understand everything that’s happening. You feel the very real and raw pain of your parents, every word that goes unsaid, and every awkwardly polite exchange.
In many ways, it’s the worst kind of break-up because (unlike your girlfriends) you can’t console one party by bitching about the other. You have to stay completely neutral, try not to lay blame and be on everyone’s side. It’s exhausting.
The thing is, no one seems to realise how hard it is. Most seem to think it’s no big deal. So many times I’ve been told, “Well at least it didn’t happen when you were young”, and that’s true. I don’t live at home and I have my own life. But the reason I had the confidence to tackle the big wide world head-on was that I had that solid base to start from and return to if anything went wrong. Without that, I felt completely lost, as though the rug had been pulled right from under me.
It’s not just my family going through this. Separation in couples over 50 is rapidly increasing. In fact it’s doubled in 20 years, a phenomenon known as “The Grey Divorce”. Most of those couples leave behind adult children, forced to navigate a new family dynamic, which can be incredibly tricky.
I do realise that whatever I’m going through is nothing compared with my parents. As much as it’s changed my life – I still have my loving husband to go home to. They made it through the largest part of forever, only to have to start again.
But I’ll admit it’s forced me to ask myself, “How can I now believe in my own happy ever after?” The answer to that one is simple…I’m not my parents. And their experience has taught me you can never stop working on your relationship. Never take your eyes off the prize.
What I don’t have the answer to is how this new-look family will work. I’ve spent all of my life having a stable family home. I have no idea how to cope with ‘the team’ divided. There’s so much said about how parents should handle a divorce when children are involved, but I’ll admit I’m completely lost with how adult children should handle their parents.
The author of this article is known to Mamamia but has chosen to remain anonymous.
Are your parents still together? Have you ever had an experience with ‘grey divorce’?
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Top Comments
I'm 33 and both my parents are going through a separation process. I hear both sides of the story and horrible things they say about each other daily. They seem tired, lack interest of moving forward, frustrated at each other and just lost their connection. My father has a gambling habit since I was little so my mother realises now that it isn't something that she can deal with for the rest of her life. I understand that, she needs her space, her financial independence. She cannot have that living with him. She stays in one room and Him the other. I stay in the house too. So every day is a tense and awkward situation. My brothers have left because they cannot deal with the drama. I'm trying to be the listener, the one to make them see both sides. It's just mentally draining. And maybe one needs to move out for everyone to get along with their lives and be truely happy...
I have seen my parents marriage fracture ever since I can remember. If my family had been Anglo-European or westernized, I am sure they would have split when I was just a kid. But as they are of Asian descent, my mother had to deal with the Patriarchy dominated ruling that was our extended and immediate family ever since she was born. My father was a good dad to us kids but never really a good husband to my mother and this hurt us very badly. It is now after nearly thirty years together, living in a Western society where you are supported and not judged for leaving your husband that my mother has had the courage to break away. My dad abused her emotionally,, mentally and physically. The fact that she is still so strong despite the years of abuse from her husband and in-laws as well as suffering from severe depression AND dealing with the running of the household while my father merely sat around being lazy is a profound relief. Yes, I will miss the rare good times we had as family but it is far more important to me that my mother walks away to live for herself and to be able to make decisions about what she wants to do.