Divorce When the Kids are Adults

As someone whose parents didn't get divorced until I had finished University, I thought I'd share a few things that I think might have made the transition more smooth for everybody. Of course a divorce is never easy, but just because everyone in the equation is older doesn't mean that the rules of behavior change. Basically, the big thing to remember as splitting parents is: follow the same rules you would if you were splitting up when your kids are still young. For example: don't bad mouth the other parent in front of the child, don't ask your child about details of a visit to the other parents place if it seems interrogatory, and definitely DO be upfront and honest with your kids!

I think if a divorce happens when the children are already grown there is a tendency to think that they can handle these kinds of things better because they are mature and understand what's happening. This may be true–I know in my case it wasn't very surprising that my parents split up. They hadn't had good communication for quite some time–but the child still should not be put in the middle of the situation and made to feel uncomfortable. I would like to state here that I hold nothing against either of my parents, and things have come to what I consider to be an amicable point with all of us. (They were divorced ten years ago.) I think, though, that we could have had better relationships all around much sooner if both of them had done a few things differently.

First, I would have greatly appreciated it if my dad had been truthful from the beginning and admitted that another woman had something to do with the split. He is still with her. I have finally accepted her, and though I wouldn't ever call her Mom, and I don't really encourage my kids to call her Grandma (I don't discourage them either, but I use her name with them) I get along okay with her. I don't see her as a really horrible person any more like I did in the first few years after the divorce. What happened was, my father divorced my mom and remarried this woman six months later. The whole time he was vague about whether he was seriously involved with her, and he emailed me about the wedding three months after it happened! Okay, I was out of the country, but three months later!? This is where I would have had a lot more respect for him if he'd told the truth (and maybe at least made the token gesture of inviting me to the wedding). I can understand how in his mind, he was probably worried about us kids cutting off contact with him or something if he told us, but he was going to have to tell us some time! I suppose it would have been nice, too, if he had taken a little more time before getting remarried, but as a parent now I understand that parents are people, and if he felt the time he did it was right, I can't change that. And I have since gotten over it.

Of course, the other part of this equation that made things difficult for me was my own mom. She was hurting, and she was angry with my father. She didn't have a lot of friends, and she ended up moving back in with her parents for awhile. This was an incredible blow to her self-esteem and her whole belief system. To her, marriage was sacred, and she'd felt like she'd failed. Of course, feeling this way, there were times when she would need to vent. So who did she vent to? Family members, including her children. I'll admit, there was some ill-will felt toward my father at that time (After all, he was the one who was adamant it was over and had ended it.) so I was very susceptible to my mom's less than positive comments about him (and his new wife) at the time.

I think what happened to me is what happens to children of any age in divorce when this goes on. I felt like I was being asked to take sides, and ended up doing so to some extent. It took several years to bridge these gaps, and I think it didn't have to be that way. No matter what the age of the children involved, do take their feelings into consideration if a divorce becomes unavoidable. It will make everything much less stressful for everyone.