To think that kids from broken homes can be fine and happy and lead normal lives?

[westielover]

Wondering if I can get some accounts from others on whether I'm mad to expect this to be possible. I have a DD with my ex but he and I split up when she was two so she knows no difference and is 9 now. She's totally cool with having two homes and is very close to her dad and I and our respective new spouses.

My dsd is nearly 16 and has been my step daughter since she was 9 (parents split at 7) She is still incredibly angry about it and feels like her life is completely ruined and she will never be happy. She feels it destroyed her life and any hope she could have of being "normal". She is very angry at my dh and tells him often.

There was nothing dodgy about the break up. He left her, no affairs or anything, maintenance always paid. 50/50 contact for the first three years until her apparently complete and utter hatred of him and what he did when he "tore her family apart" finally got the better of them having a relationship. They now see each other once a week or sometimes less, for about an hour and he struggles to get anywhere with her without trawling through the ins and outs of how he has destroyed her life.

I don't want to drip feed so I'll say now that there is a lot of animosity from mum who also has never accepted what happened. But rather than go in to all of that I'd like to hear if anyone has experience of children of divorce kind of grieving the lost of their family unit, then moving on to become happy and stable people... dsd seems to believe dh and I are mental for even suggesting that she could move past it and be content with "her lot". He has suggested counselling/ family therapy/ talking to older relatives etc. to help her move on but she thinks it's pointless because "all children of divorce are broken people". Divorce is so common now, I can't believe such a huge proportion of the population are walking around seething with rage about their parent's divorce. Maybe she still needs more time.

I get that it's how she feels and I can't minimize that - what works for one won't work for another, but maybe someone could shed some light on how to get her to see her life doesn't need to be like this.

I have just ended my marriage. I made the decision on the 7th Sep and Ex moved out on 2nd Nov. During that time it was really hard as Ex wasn't taking very well and DD also 7 suffered a lot. Now things are settling and Ex's attitude is improving by the day, my attitude has always been very optimistic and positive so DD is also getting better and enjoying having two homes. She definitely enjoys the time she spends with her dad without me being present as there is no tensions and now he is more focused and attentive to her whilst before he kind of took quality time for granted.
Anyway as I am definitely a lot happier and she spends most of the time with me, I think the chances to be a more rounded adult improved for her since the break up.

I think it is different for every family, age of the children is certainly a factor as are the circumstances of the split.

In my own situation, my Dad died suddenly and unexpectedly when I was a teenager. My Mum met someone else within months and basically I went from having a family, to being excluded. The second Christmas after Dad died she went out with her new partner and left me at home alone, I am an only child. I grieved desperately for my loss of a 'family' and that need for a 'family' probably coloured decisions I made about my relationships as I got older.

I married young and had children quickly. When my marriage broke down when my DCs were young teenagers (due to his affair) DCs were devastated. DS twice attempted suicide and has never really got over it. DD behaved much as you have described your DSD, but now is happy, and has a good relationship with her Dad and is very happy. DD had counselling,which DS has always refused.

I do think counselling helps. The pain of having had a family and 'losing it' can be unbearable and in my experience it can stay with you. Persevere with trying counselling. Hope you can work things out for her,she sounds as if she is in a very lonely place.

The issues of parents splitting never really go away in my experience and I am now 35 years on. Part of your childhood is taken from you and you are saddled with emotional issues which are not your fault and which have a big impact on the rest of your life.

My parents separated when I was the same age as your DSD. I'm now 26.
It did effect me greatly and was very hard to deal with at the time and as a teenager.
I'm very happy now. Happily married, good job, two DDs.
I don't think I'll ever be fully 'over' it. Much like I will always be sad when I think about people close to me who have died, I 'mourn the death of the family that could have been'. I sometimes feel this as anger towards my Dad, who left. However, my Dad left a lot of his parenting role behind aswell.
The 'mourning' is worse at certain events such as my wedding/graduation.
Being a teenager can be tough at the best of times. Hopefully, if your DH continues to make an effort consistently their relationship will improve once adolescence has passed.
My experience says surviving your parents divorce does not mean you will be unhappy as an adult, but does impact who you are, takes time to adjust to and is not forgotten.

Dust dragon I'm sorry you had that happen to you. How awful it must have been.

She did get to hear all the ins and outs of the divorce so I understand the poster who feels that they lost their childhood has a good point. Very unfair to have all that on little shoulders

My home was broken when we lived with my x. Fixed it by leaving.

People stay partly becauae of all the bullshit statistics put out about children from one parent families with no information releasedwith poverty breakdowns or acknowledgement that abusive domestic situations much more destructive to children than one parent families

We met about 9 months later and dsd and I met about 3/4 months after that. She'd already met two new partners on her mums side by then though.

There's your answer then. Its not the ending of a relationship that necessarily does the damage. It's often how the adults behave afterwards. I don't think nine months is very long at all. And it must have been very difficult coping with her mum having two new partners in that same time period. Doesn't sound as if she has been given any time at all to grieve. And telling her to 'move on' and 'other people can cope with it why can't you' isn't going to help.

Personally (please.don't shoot me) I believe that it is better for a child to have two happy stable parents who aren't together and live apart than it is for them to live with both parents seeing arguments or feeling tension.

It doesn't give them an example of a healthy relationship staying with someone just for the sake of the child. Though I am by no means saying relationships don't have their ups and downs and should just be thrown away.

I could say my dad dying ruined my Life. I was a baby at the time but I don't and never have. Things might have been different. But you can't live a life of what ifs. You have to make the best of what you've got.

I completely agree that it is better to split up than remain together in an unhappy or abusive relationships.

But sadly for this child, she has seen her parents split up, live apart and is still subject to tension because her mother hates her father and blames him. So she has the worst of all worlds.

I wonder whether she is keeping her rage up at such a pitch because she worries otherwise no one would pay any attention to her.

Is a year to meet dad's new partner really too quick? I can see why two new partners with mum very quickly, then dad meeting someone too a year later was a lot to take in but wouldn't the anger then be directed at mum..? You'd think. Although it was dad who left so I think that's why she sees it as his fault, even her mums relationships.

Dsd accepts why they spilt now... She understands they were fighting a lot and it was a "bad" marriage. But I think at the time because they'd hidden the fights (with best intentions) so it must have seemed to be "out of the blue".

I'm sorry to anyone I've offended with the term "broken home". My home is certainly less broken now than when dd's dad and I were together!

So do we think it's just time that will heal then? In the absence of therapy which she's refused.

Her mum and her dad were her world. They split up when she was 7. Within a year her dad has a new partner and her mum has had two.

Yes, I think that's quick.

No I don't think time will heal this. It does sound like she needs professional help. But you can't force anyone sadly.

But spero, if that is the case then in answer to my original question you'd say "no it isn't possible" as I'm sure a year is at the upper end of what most children experience.

Maybe the relationships her mum had so fast impacted more than if realised. Because no anger is directed at mum if assumed it was something DH had done that had caused this.

Of course it's too quick. It's all too quick when your parent, who at the age she was, is the centre of your world, walks out. And for all the stuff about it being better to raise a child apart than unhappily together (which is true) it's still a massive loss. Now that I have children it blows my mind that my father could leave us. I could never leave mine, ever. And starting a new relationship always feels like a massive kick in the teeth for the children left behind.

It sounds as though you don't really understand what it's like to be a child who is left OP.

No sadly we can't force her - and even if we could it wouldn't work through force. So if time won't heal then she's lost. What a waste and so unnecessary

She lives with her mum I assume? So any anger and misery she feels HAS to be directed at her dad. She has already 'lost' one parent, she can't risk alienating the one she still lives with.

Not sure I understand your post. Yes children from relationships that break down can be happy. But a lot is down to the adults and how they handle it. Children can't be expected to process adult emotions and contain their own. Unless the adults have high emotional intelligence and keep any bitterness to themselves, then yes, children will suffer and sometimes it does blight their entire lives.

I'm thinking she feels rejected by her father and the anger masks a feeling of abandonment. She might feel she did something wrong to make him go away. She might know rationally this is not the case but she is still thinking like a seven year old.

It's hard to understand because she wasn't really "left". They all moved out of the family home three months after they announced the split and she stayed with her mum and dad 50/50.
I find it confusing and sad that she says she was "left" because she really wasn't. I can't take her feelings away from her but I wish I could as she carries this sadness and feeling of abandonment when she really wasn't.

Sorry cross posted. There's no rationalising this and there's no point comparing it to what most children experience.

Is divorce a massive trauma for children? Yes I think it can be and it was for us. Can you go on to live a good life as an adult? Yes of course but it takes time and support. There's no contradiction there.

To be honest you sound very committed to the idea that dsd is doing this wrong somehow and other kids would be fine and dandy by now.

She was 7! of course she is going to feel as if she was 'left'. She was 'left'. Her father left her mother and left their joint home.

50/50 contact doesn't cut it.

Sorry, but it doesn't seem to me like any adult in this scenario is able to see this situation through the child's eyes.

Westie, the actual terminology is immaterial. What she is articulating is that she feels left, that everyone moved on and left her behind.

My parents aren't divorced but my mum did die when I was still at school. My dad found another woman about five minutes later (only slight exaggeration!) I stayed in the same house with my dad, but he still left me emotionally if not physically.

It's not about the realities here, it's about her perception of them.

She was left. That's how she sees it. The family unit was split up and she felt adrift. Mother moved on to other relationships and father too very shortly afterwards. You need to stop trying to get her to see this your way. You are wrong about how it feels to be a child in this situation and faced with that sort of incomprehension I'd be inclined to turn up the anger too.

I wonder if the problem here is that the adults just won't take responsibility for the fact that everything in life has a price. The cost of your mutual happiness with new partners is the pain felt by this child. And it would be a lot easier for you all if she would just buck up and pull her socks up and get on with it.

I think I've even confused myself a bit. I wanted to ask, after the most recent hurling of accusations at having torn her world apart and that her life has been destroyed by him divorcing her mum, if I was barmy to actually think this doesn't have to be the case and that it wasn't a foregone conclusion.
It's been 8 years now that DH has been hearing this and I think he maybe at the point where he's thinking - you know what, maybe what I did actually did destroy her.
I'd like to know that it is possible for a man (or a woman) in an unhappy marriage to leave that marriage, and for his children to be able to live happy lives.
It seems however that although this is the case when the adults manage things well, lots of other factors have contributed to this child being pretty damaged over all. And maybe there is no hope for her. Especially as she won't have therapy.
So sad for everyone involved really.