Child of Divorce

“Hi. My name is Matt and my parents are divorced.” No, I am not in some support group for people who come from broken homes. Maybe I ought to be though. I was 15 when my parents divorced. I always read things about children who think it is their fault that their parents divorced. I never thought it was my fault. I never asked, “Did Daddy leave because of me?” That blaming myself thing never happened to me. That’s not to say my parent’s divorce didn’t affect me. It did. It took me awhile to figure out how it affected me. For awhile, I didn’t even know that it did. There are probably still some hidden issues that it caused in my life, but I think I have found most of them and dealt with them.

I know at first I doubted the whole area of relationships. Can healthy loving relationships actually be real or are they something you only read about? (Personally, I have never read about any of those. I mean, there are those fairy tales and all…but they are make believe.) I was talking to a good friend of mine the other day about conflict in relationships. He actually said that conflict is what keeps the relationship interesting. Maybe I should rephrase that. Differences are what keep the relationship interesting. If you agree on everything then it gets boring pretty fast. I listened to Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz) talk about the elements of story the other day. He also said that conflict is what keeps a story interesting. Without conflict in a story we are left with something like, “Bob went to the beach. The weather was nice. He ate a good lunch. He played a game of volleyball. It ended in a tie.” See, no conflict or struggle or differences equals boring. I used to have this tendency to shy away from conflict in a relationship. Probably stemming from my parents divorce. I guess I thought that a conflict would lead to an ending of the relationship as it did with my parents. Now I know that there are always going to be differences in any relationship. Come on, you are two completely unique individuals becoming one…that is bound to cause conflict. I guess the main thing is working through the differences. A healthy relationship is not agreeing all the time or being exactly the same; it’s working together despite the differences.

I remember reading an article in a Christian magazine a few years ago. It was on dealing with being a child of divorce and how that affects your own relationships in your adult years. I knew it to be true. My parents divorce did affect my future relationships in a negative way. Thankfully, I realized this during college and with God’s help have been getting over the issues. I guess the main thing I dealt with is a fear of rejection. You know, pushing others away before they had a chance to reject me…this way at least I felt in control. But I wasn’t in control. The fear was in control. And once I realized that I didn’t want to live out of this fear, I had to come to terms that to pursue a relationship meant risk. Risk making mistakes, risk to be rejected. My favorite quote is this…"Nothing in life worth having comes without some kind of fight." (Bruce Cockburn) I believe that we can substitute the word risk in for fight and it still be true. Nothing in life worth having comes without some kind of risk.

There have been more things I have had to deal with over the years. Being too independent is one. Going through my parents divorce left me with this attitude that I will not need anyone because they will eventually let me down. The only problem with this is that when you don’t need anyone, no one needs you. Yes, being independent can be good in some instances. But God designed me to desire relationship. Independence and relationship seem to work against each other. One more thing I have had to deal with is handling with the flaws of others. I am not sure if this has developed from being a child of divorce or not. Probably so. Probably something like, “I have always been quick to point out the faults in potential relationship partners because this way I would have an excuse not to get close to them,” or something to that affect. I’ll have to research this more while I am studying counseling. But yeah, making excuses and pointing out dumb flaws is another thing. I guess that could fall under the fear of rejection category. Pushing others away before they got too close. I heard this somewhere before, probably a movie, but I like it. “There are always a million reasons not to do something.” I can always make excuses. But I know I don’t want to make excuses anymore.

Well, that’s a peek into what it’s like being a child of divorce. If you’re not one of us, you probably will come across one of us. And if you do, remember these things because children of divorce mostly have the same issues. Don’t think that we are messed up because we all are kinda jacked up in our own ways. If you can relate to the things I have said, I hope you have talked to someone about these things. You cannot get through them on your own. That’s all for now…