Dear God,
Will you please tell book publishers to stop publishing books about “two homes” for children of divorce? Every time I see one, I want to scream. I know those authors and publishers think they are performing a needed service, but in reality they are whitewashing an extremely painful experience that never ends. Please tell me You understand what I’m saying because it seems to confuse everybody else. Let me explain. Take this quote, from I Am Living in Two Homes, by Garcelle Beauvais and Sebastian A. Jones:
It’s a grownup choice, through no fault of your own. Your dad and I are happier in two different homes.
Notice the word “choice.” It reminds me of “pro-choice.” “Choice” has been awfully hard on recent generations, Lord, don’t You agree?
Who is weaker, Lord: children or adults? I always thought children were weaker, but this book makes me feel like I was supposed be the strong one and sacrifice my happiness for the sake of my parents’ happiness. Isn’t that backwards, Lord? It seems like the older generations had a lot more family unity than more recent ones. Looking back, you can see that their parents sacrificed their “choices” in favor of their children.
Lord, I am reminded of what you said in Matthew 18:
Woe to the world because of offenses! For it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to the man by whom the offense cometh.
I love my family, Lord, very much, and I know You do too, but frankly, I’m offended. Very offended. In important ways it’s not their fault so please don’t be mad at them. When professionals who know better are silent, how can the normal people who listen to their advice be blamed? The psychological, psychiatric, and medical communities have abandoned people like me by not speaking out to defend the natural family, even though they know it is the best environment for children. My entire culture has gone off the rails by propagating beliefs like these:
- “Kids are resilient.”
- “Babies are blank slates.”
- “Kids can and do thrive under any number of family configurations.”
“The Sexual Revolution has blinded adults to the structural inequalities they are creating for their children. They have all embraced ideas of “freedom,” that are very heavy and burdensome for children who grew up like me and have to live with adults’ “choices.” For a long time I have tried to be a trooper and carry the burden as well as I could, Lord, but I am tired. So very tired.” It hurts so badly that my dad spends more time with his step-children than he does with me, and my mom had created a new family that I am not fully part of. Worse, I can’t say anything about it because I’m afraid of their reaction. And what good will it do? Will they get back together if I speak out? How can they get back together when they are already remarried with new families? I figured out a long time ago that there is no escape, and it makes me profoundly sad.
In addition to the professional communities mentioned, almost all of the Christian churches have abandoned me. Even my own church, the Catholic Church, the only Church that upheld the fullness of Your teaching about marriage and human sexuality in recent decades, is considering it. Will You please talk to the Catholics, Lord? I need somebody to go to bat for me. If they abandon me, where will I go? Children don’t have any money to put into the basket on Sundays. Let their tears be an offering instead, OK?
This verse in Your Word at Psalms 56:8 gives me comfort:
You keep track of all my sorrows.You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.
In the meantime, publishers need to know that we don’t need any more books whitewashing children’s pain of living in “two homes.” In fact, we need the opposite: we need books that encourage adults to live in “two homes” so that their children can live in one home. Yes, the children should live in one home, and the adults should be the ones to pack suitcases every week and make the back-and-forth trip. I’d appreciate it if you’d let them know that this is what they should be doing, instead of pushing that burden down to their children. I think this would wake them all up as to how heavy of a burden it really is.
Here is another thing we children of divorce can never understand: if one of my parents is too awful for my other parent to live with, then why am I packing my suitcase to go and stay at the awful person’s home on a regular basis? If they are so awful, then I shouldn’t be going there. Since I am going there regularly, then this means that they can’t be that bad. Either that, or I am being put into harm’s way.
Finally, Lord, will you please ask someone to write a book or make a movie telling adults that it is okay to stay together for the sake of the kids? I would be very grateful for that, and I know that other kids of divorce would too.
Sincerely,
An adult child of divorce who has been struggling with the aftermath for over four decades
Jennifer Johnson is the Associate Director for the Ruth Institute.
The rush to quicker “annulments” will only increase the number of broken hearts in our precious children. Marriage is means of sanctification which means the cross is present and we must carry it as best we can with the grace of God.
Maggie, most Catholics do not understand this. Most have been raised to have a secular view of marriage.
Divorce is so, so ugly. It’s no wonder God hates it. Since becoming Catholic, I see this as the root of all my personal/family problems. I’m desperately trying to salvage a second marriage. I’ve received my annulment, but my Protestant husband has not and sees no reason to get one, as he is forgiven….we even sought counseling (from an ex-pastor) who suggested divorce as our problems are so numerous and because for me to insist on my husband’s annulment would emasculate him and his authority as the spiritual leader. I offered to share a Protestant pastor’s teaching on how we commit adultery when we divorce and remarry, just as the CC teaches, he just became red in the face and ignored me. I did continue to push him to answer me how he knew who was right. The Protestant pastor who agrees with the CC? And more importantly, how do you know? It finally ended when he had to admit he interprets Scripture for himself. I shut up then….and haven’t been back since.
I’m very sorry to hear this. I am a Protestant convert and so I have a suggestion based on my experience. When talking to Protestants, try referring more to the Bible and less to the the CCC. They don’t accept the authority of the CCC, and using it too heavily without using the Bible may end up being seen as evidence that Catholics don’t value the Bible. I don’t know if this is true in your case, but I suspect it is true in many other cases.
In your particular case, check out Jesus’ words in Mark 10, Matthew 5, and Matthew 19. BibleGateway.com is a great resource:
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?qs_version=NRSVCE&quicksearch=divorce&begin=47&end=73
Thanks Jennifer. I do use Scripture, but of course we interpret it differently. And my point with the Protestant ex-pastor was that I had a teaching from another Protestant pastor who teaches just as the CC does….so how does he know who is right? It’s a question they would rather avoid.
Lovely, but sad perspective from the vantage point of one child. My parents divorced when I was only 2 yrs old. I thank God that my father decided that at age 5 he wanted to have partial custody of me on weekends. God knows that was the only reprieve I got from a mother who should have been institutionalized….yes, she was JUST that nutty. A narcissist through and through, she would tell me I never should have been born. This went on for 23 years of my life, up to and including the day I got married.
I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say, that today she would have been locked up for major abuse on many fronts…emotional, psychological, physical and even, sexual on a tortuous mental plane. My step father I viewed as a lily livered man who never stood up to her except for one time when she was choking my little brother to the point he was about to lose his life. They had two children after getting married. She always told me I didn’t belong to their family. I was the oldest child and was forced to become a parent at the age of five. At least this is what a shrink ascertained many years ago.
As my real father was much different than my stepfather, in character, temperament and intelligence level, I tended to favor him. My mother hated that fact. She hated it when I came home with all A’s on report cards. I recall at age 11, writing a poem due in school the next day. I asked her to read it and check for grammer and ended up getting beaten as she thought I had copied it. I did not..it came from a mature mind the poem being inspired by our Lord. I still recall the very first lines. I think she had a hard time processing that a kid could actually think on a higher plane than some adults.
As I got older, a god given talent/artist/drawing/painting showed up, I would be punished and not allowed to do any art at home. As I moved into my teens she became insanely jealous of my stature, (5’6″, blonde, green eyes and slender) I hated it if we went to a ladie’s clothing shop in Detroit and a sales woman would go up to my mother and tell her I would make a lovely model.
Little did that saleswomen know that I would be beaten as soon as we got back home. Once I began dating at 17 she would answer the door to greet the guy coming to pick me up…and she would be wearing revealing clothing that she never wore any other time. Always having been an extremely shy girl, I recall wishing I could disappear under a sofa when this happened. To say I was embarrassed is an understatement.
It was at the age of 13 that she decided to cut me off from my father for good. I shall never forget that day for I think I had a mini breakdown knowing that I would never ever see him again. He was the only stable loving person I had in my life. And so, my point in telling you all of this is that sometimes if one partner is full blown psycho, or sociopathic or totally narcissistic, it is the best thing in the world for a child to at least have some contact with the healthy parent.
Back in the day the child more often than not, was taken by the mother, no matter the nuttiness factor. This meant that for 5 days in the week I was living under the worst roof, weekends at least I got to experience normalcy. Although it was only about 400 times in 8 years that I spent with my father, the quality overruled the quantity that many kids enjoy with two parents. He left an indelible mark on who I would become. That bore fruit eventually in the five children I birthed. They turned out beyond my wildest dreams…all the praying for them paid off. Awesome families, all successful!
I thank God everyday for the 8 years of weekends, I was with a parent who showed me love. My father instilled a love of books in me early on. Am sure it accounted for the good grades. My dad who came here from Belgium at ten years old, never did get to go beyond 8th grade. I loved it when on a Sunday so he had to finish up work in a Greek orthodox church. Mass would be out, and the church so still as I sat in the pew, waiting/watching him doing his sculptural plastering. It is from my father that I inherited his artistic nature and love of fine art.. reading, learning and love of philosophy.
An avid reader himself, after a long day in construction work, and after helping my step mom with the kids (they had 9 together—she already had 2 from her ex), my dad was a modern guy way before it became the trend that guys help out at home.
He passed away 4 yrs ago at age 93. That blessed man I’m sure is with the Lord.
I don’t now who chose to leave who. But if your father chose to file for divorce, then despite the rosy picture of him fighting for you for 2 days each week, he should have been there to be buffer between you and your Mom everyday of your life. He should have been there for you to prevent your Mom’s worst abuses.
If he was the one who left, then he chose to run and abandon you to the evil of your mother.
It was NOT he who chose to leave Marc…she left him for greener pastures…further the judge has more say than the parent. Here in CT there are hundreds of horror stories of judges giving the child to the faulty parent. Do you advocate any man or woman go kill the judge? Are you not aware that 60+ years ago the children always went to the mother, no matter what a whackjob she might be? No man can just go up to a judge, determining the fate of his kid’s lives.
You have no understanding of what a corrupt system exists in most states. My man, a former federal agent put 48 federal workers behind bars who worked at Job Corp..an agency that takes in kids not wanted. They give those kids a roof, feed them, clothe them and train them for a job and, then out the door they go at age 21 or so. They were abusing those kids and making money off them for drug running and prostitution..that was here in New England in MA.
If you think govt/state/fed is your friend, not so. Now you would think that the church would help those kids out, but judging by the horror stories coming out for eons of pedo priests, that is not the case.. Horror stories abound of kids in orphanages here and Europe. Yet, the clueless keep attending church and feeding the beast via sunday baskets where money goes to pay off lawyers. Often the parents are paid hush money as was done in Boston for decades.
I don’t think that many people appreciate the power of the state over individual lives. Now older and wiser, I know the facts..and they are that parents don’t always have a say..Female judges have awarded children to molesting fathers. Female judges, if lesbians themselves, often hate heterosexual women, but will reward sick fathers.
Or as in the case of my man who is in a VA hospital now, the head of the spinal cord injury dept is a lesbian man hating doctor. We have reason to believe that she is trying to harm him so he is out of the system for good per bama’s healthcare/death panels. Good luck on trying to buck the system.
As a kid I saw all those great classical movies…the one with Moses parting the red sea…to allow freedom to his people. Nothing has changed since those days…people are still looking for freedom, but neither church or state afford anyone their right to freedom from coercion or a gun pointed between their eyeballs. I do not castigate my own father for something he had NO control over…courts are courts, and in recent decades they have gotten far worse when it comes to parents or children’s rights.
I don’t get your vehement reply. I said IF your father was the one who left. You said it wasn’t him.
That should have been the end of it.
As long as Catholic pulpits at mass or on so-called Catholic radio &TV are blaming divorce on men the problem will only get worse. This man-bashing must stop. Listen closely, especially on the Sunday of Father’s Day. You’ll hear some boob proclaiming that divorces are the fault of men cheating or beating on their wives and if only men would shape up blah blah blah. However, that’s been known to be false for anyone able to look around. Statistics back it up too. And we know that most divorces are initiated by females, most of the time for frivolous reasons such as “I fell out of love” or “I don’t feel fulfilled”.
Eventually bishops may find their way to the truth about divorce. But after the recent synod, I’m not holding my breath.
I think if people are honest with themselves they will say that the current state of affairs between men and women is the fault of both genders. We have not been true to the nature God has given us nor have we followed His commands. We have let each other down, as well. We treat each other like enemies when in fact we are made for each other.
You won’t hear that from the Ruth Institute.
Beautifully done. Once there is a divorce, there can never be wholeness. Nobody how well-intentioned or civil everyone is, the brokenness remains and it carries on through the generations.
I recently listened to a radio program lionizing some woman who had somehow “suffered a divorce”. I did not gather that there was any physical abuse, adultery, suggestion that her husband just left her, or even a good reason for a separation. It was classic no-fault scenario. And yet she was said to have suffered it, always suffered it, as if the divorce had just happened to her. Little was said about her young children amidst all the cooing over her strength and resiliency.
I was aghast. I was one of those kids. She didn’t suffer anything save the consequences of her sin. Suffered a divorce? Try perpetrated.
Suffered a divorce sounds a tad screwy to me. If you have been treated poorly or abused throughout a marriage, the word suffer in reference to divorce does not come to mind. For me it was more like rejoicing that the real suffering of emotional and physical abuse at the hands of a narcissist would finally end. Two daughters screamed at me when I got the divorce. the screaming was “Why did you wait so long to get a divorce. It didn’t do us any good to watch you being abused.” So that gives you a different perspective on why some marriages were never met to be. And that is something that the goofy cana classes never addressed…that if one partner was severely abused as a child, that chances are she is marrying another rinse, repeat….But then, I guess one can’t expect men in dresses to know anything about the real world or anything about psychology.
As someone who is happily divorced and blessedly annulled from an abusive, unhealthy, unhappy marriage, I find this article extremely selfish and naive. The best thing for children is for their parents to be healthy and high functioning–dare one even say happy?–so that they can properly care for their kids and be good models to them, and that often requires being apart from their ex spouse. Yes, it is unfortunate that children have to pack their bags each week, but even this is a blessing: how many divorced parents (particularly fathers) stop having their children visit and slowly stop all contact, abandoning them utterly? The author should consider herself blessed that both parents maintained a relationship with her. And seriously? She is upset that her parents went on to have wholesome family lives post divorce? How does that add up when that is exactly what she is advocating in the first place? I for one can’t wait to have a healthy, happy sacrament and more children, and provide that stability to my current children.
It is a very sad thing that her parents’ marriage didn’t work out, and no it’s not fair that she was hurt. But really, her bitterness points to the need to forgive her parents so she no longer chokes on her own poison. Four decades? That is a long time to hold a grudge.
Methinks you protest too much.
Perhaps you do not want to see the harm your divorce did to your children.
Divorce is selfish. It is no wonder that Jesus was so against it.
Yes, YOU are happily divorced. But can that be said for your children.
Perhaps you want to keep pretending that all is well. Perhaps for you. But not for everyone else.
If you think packing your bags and being shunted about is a blessing, then perhaps it is the parents who should do that?
No, “the best thing for children” is for their parents to be HOLY. Which means things like sacrifice, hardship, and faithfulness to holy vows…
Your post is unbelievably selfish. Personally, I think an adult should get over it form their own family and remove the parents from her life entirely as she is not really part of their new families that make them “happy.” But as a child if you think she was ever really part of either family living part-time no blood tie to the step family that lived with her father full-time or was not considered the outsider and a living reminder of a failed relationship to the mother and the remains of his wife’s relationship with another man to the step-father you are being dishonest. When the mother has children with the new husband, the existing child is no longer really a full member of the family because the stepfather is not her father and now has real children and the mother has children with the man she “loves” not the man she thinks is awful and the half siblings are just that half-siblings. Add to that not living full-time in either home casts her as a visitor. As to the wholesome family lives post divorce — how is adultery wholesome? Did the parents date to find these new spouses? Did they remain chaste until marriage to set an example for their children? If a divorce is necessary truly necessary and especially if their are children the parents should lead lives of celibacy.
My dad left when I was 23 and married, so I thought it would not affect me so much. Was I ever wrong. I have 7 younger siblings and 5 were still at home. I am now 64 and it is still a problem. There are no more family Christmases because my dad’s other woman (not married for 40 years) did not like my brothers’ attitude one year so they traveled then for years until we got over that and my mom had one for years but over the last 5, she might come over but is just as likely not to come. Fortunately we have 7 kids and 18 grandkids so we are not lonely but miss the family a lot, especially since we live in the same area. I have even had to invite us over to my dad’s house after three years of him never inviting us!.
I don’t see the problem, and I don’t mean this unkindly but you have been blessed (honestly could you be more blessed?) with 7 children and 18 grandchildren — you are not lacking family at all.
Oh yes, I am tremendously blessed and that is exactly why I feel the lack. I was not raised to treasure family and finally “got it” when my oldest was 22 and youngest 5. We raised a very close family and all our kids get along very well. My husband even says jokingly yet seriously, “If I ever hear of you kids not getting along I will be calling…!” Me being the oldest of 8 kids but not having been shown to treasure family, just flew the coop, went off to college in the same town even and never called home, didn’t go to my siblings’ school concerts, just walked away from family connections, not knowing any better. Once I started having my own children, I started to realize how nice more closeness really is. So I was back peddling, trying to make up for lost time and relationships as my parents were breaking up after over 20 years. I still cannot figure out how a secretary could justify stealing the father of 6 kids still at home, I assume for her supposed happiness? I sympathize with her pain, feel that emptiness, long to be close with my sisters, bothers and parents but that doesn’t mean I am missing joy and blessings? No, I am very happy and my heart is full! I still miss my family and the family times….we had so many fun adventures.
I’m a recent revert who married outside the Church a few years back. My wife wants to divorce me because I changed by embracing my faith. I’m fighting to save this relationship mostly for the sake of our 1 year old. It’s really hard because according to the Church we’re not married.
Just another example of fundamentalists demonizing everybody because only THEY know what is best for everyone else. When a child is in a house where there is constant physical, verbal or emotional abuse there is no benefit to the child. Staying together for the children just means more years of psychological damage to the kids and an example of what a relationship should never be in cases like this.
Each case and household is different. Are there people who divorce for selfish reasons? Of course, but it’s so easy to get on one’s high horse and comdemn everyone else for their “sinful” ways – after all, pride is the devil’s favorite sin.
My daughter is a daughter of divorce. I had no choice when my “husband” left us. I cannot read this letter to the end. I think my divorce is a punishment for my sins. Now my daughter will have to suffer for my fault her whole life. I have asked God for forgiveness. What it´s hardest is to forgive myself.