How much does parents divorce impact your life as an adult?

[Junebugjane]

I’m 32 and have my own family.. my parents divorced when I was around 14 (I think) I have blocked much of that time from my memory. My dad had an affair and left the family to be with new wife and her kids. I always thought it didn’t really affect me although horrific at the time. Now I have my own children I genuinely cannot comprehend me and my husband divorcing/ one of us having an affair.. I have been thinking about it so much recently and wondering how my dad could have done it as my children are my priority in everything. I’m also wondering if this time in my life may have impacted me more than I realised.. does anyone have similar experiences of parents separating and how it has impacted their lives as adults if at all?

@ahdlfj yes - there are some whose parents were never together or parted before they can ever remember being together. And even publicly “happy” marriages and parents can hide their extreme unpleasant behaviour - for their children to live with - behind smiles and perfect exteriors.

I wonder how the children of parents who never argued or raised their voices at home or expressed strong emotions fare in adult life, too!

Not sure if this was aimed at me, but the question was does the divorce still impact your life? And the answer for me is yes, in some very very practical ways. Add in huge distances (across countries) to navigate difficult post marriage relationships then. Yes my parents divorce does impact me. If only because they would have at least been in the same country. Would there be other impacts of they stayed together, undoubtedly. But that wasn't the question posed here.

Everybody's story is different. Happy divorces, unhappy marriages are all equally as valid experiences. I don't personally tend to stay in the "if only" headspace and it is possible to be fairly neutral about all of this and still acknowledge an impact.

@NeedsMustNet 15 years ago I'd have said of course not, I just wanted them to be happy. But honestly, now? The weight of my mother's happiness is on my shoulders since her and my step dad split, yes, completely and utterly selfishly I wish my parents just put up with each other so I could have a 'normal' relationship with my parents.

(No abuse I hasten to add, just mismatched people, although I think they'd get on better now).

But what would you have wanted the alternative to be? He didn’t love your mum presumably, so would you have preferred he stayed just for the children? Would you want your husband to stay with you if he didn’t love you anymore, or vice versa?

Presumably he did not… but they were not unhappy.. he obviously must have been but I still view it as selfish as if you make the decision to have children then you should be there 100%. It’s the upping and leaving the children I can’t understand not leaving the partner as such. And honestly yes I think I would rather my husband stayed with me if he didn’t love me.. I think it’s important to have both parents 100% there for children… it’s not a nice feeling knowing that your parent prefers to be with another family.

In my case my dad idolised my mum. It was my mum that ended it, but for complex reasons that seemed right at the time, but I'm not sure it's so clear with hindsight

I think most of us whose parent divorced spent time growing up in a warring household. They go hand in hand.

This isn’t a thread for mums who want reassurance that divorcing will be good for the kids - this is for adult children to reflect on the impact it had on their lives. Probably not recommended reading if you are the parent considering the future of your relationship.

My parents divorced when it was two. I don't think it had an effect on me. They didn't have a good relationship so it was for the best. My dad died a few years later.

My dm remarried when I was 5. She had an affair when I was a 18 and they divorced. This affected me greatly. My stepdad wasn't a very good parent or husband, not easy to live with, so I think the divorce was a good thing.

But what really affected me was the sudden and complete lack of stability from my dm. She and her new partner were totally wrapped up in each other. I had very little contact from my dm as she was always busy and uninterested. The family house was sold. I was at university but no longer had anywhere to come home to.

I really had a rough time in my early 20s from what felt like abandonment from my dm. In her eyes I was an adult and she was free.

She married her affair partner and they are still married now. He has 2 adult dc who have a whole host of issues. I live a long haul flight away and when I visit my dm, I still have to share her with her dh and his dc and dgc. My dc can never have an activity with their grandmother without his dgc also coming along. It's annoying and unfair.

My marriage is rock solid, happy and stable. I have teens and can't imagine them turning 18 and going months without checking in on them. I read so many posts on here with women who put their new partners before their dc and can't even see what they're doing. Trying to forcefully blend two families at the expense of all the dc and I think, no thanks, I learned that lesson the hard way.

Wow that sounds so hard, so sorry you went through that. I find it so difficult to accept the other family too and cannot imagine if that was my mum. My mum remarried but she keeps her new partners family at arms length which I appreciate. I have always hated how my dads wife’s family are always there and how their children called him grandad way before I ever had kids. I just wanted to scream he’s not your grandad. I hate the blended family bs and I never want that for my children ever. I want them to always feel the priority in everything me and my husband do. Totally agree it makes for a very rock solid marriage from us, he comes from a different angle though where his parents are very happily married and love and respect each other always so he wants that for his children too.

Agree that many people must have been very unhappy to get divorced and the impact of that unhappiness must be awful for children too and I totally understand how it can be better for everyone to seperate. My experience is perhaps more from the sense of abandonment of one parent choosing to leave the marriage/ children/ family due to affair and how that impacts the family left behind. Agree that you won’t see much support for anyone looking to justify an affair here! Maybe then the reason for the divorce in the first place depends on how it might impact you after and into adult life.

I think it is common to struggle with it more when you have kids, especially when they reach the age you were when things were bad. For me, i feel as a child my feelings were minimised and i was made to feel i was silly/unreasonable for not having a relationship with my Dad. Once i had my own child I felt a lot of anger as I realised i definitejy would not make the choices he made.

I was 23 when my dad left my mum, it was a huge shock to us all, they had been together since they were 14.
I was hurting very much but had to be there for my mum who was devastated, she took it so bad she had a breakdown and was admitted to hospital.
It was such a stressful time and my relationship with my dad broke down which I was heartbroken over because we always had a really close bond.
Many years later I still look back I think 'how the hell did I get through that' but we do and things get better in time.

It affects me much more than I expected or than people realise. Like you, my father had an affair and left to be with her.
Ways it affects me:
I'm still sad that my father wasn't the person I thought he was. I miss the person I thought he was, but have a difficult relationship with the person he is - this brings a lot of anxiety when we are seeing each other.
I am single and find it difficult to have trust in a relationship.
My relationship with my mother suffered because she was so hurt, became bitter and also struggled with trust - I lost the mother I had when she found out about the affair and was left with a depressed mother.
Every family gathering or interaction feels a bit fractured. I feel really jealous of people who have easygoing families.

Same, just minus the grandkids.

My parents live close to eachother, so I always make sure they're both free to see me when I go home. Dad's relaxed about it all, but I sometimes feel a resentment from mum that I check availability with dad - I think she'd rather I didn't bother.

It's twice the work, and mum lives alone and I hate the dynamic when I go home with my husband. There would be much easier conversation and a more relaxed atmosphere if she had a partner.

My dad is married to a woman I'm not that fussed about, but I have to make an effort with her because, if dad gets dementia or similar in his old age, she will be who I need to go through to arrange access.

I really hate having divorced parents and would kill to have a mum and dad together.

My sister and I have both been with our husbands for 20 years and I can't imagine for a second either of us splitting.

My dad didn't want to split and was a decent husband - hard working, kind, a good dad - maybe a bit thoughtless. I think my mum could have stuck it out tbh, and think I would have done. The idea of breaking up a family is absurd to me (unless dv or abuse is involved).

Mum now has a very quiet retirement which looks a bit flat and involves lots of sitting in a chair watching TV. Meanwhile dad and his wife are here there and everywhere - cinema and theater trips, museums, pub lunches, weekend breaks - and I often think that mum missed a trick not staying with him.

@PoppyBaxter your post really worries me.

I am like your mum in my situation in that I initiated the split, and now live around the corner from my ex and his new partner.

I hate to think that my kids will see that as a huge burden some day (am 55 now) but I take on board what you are saying and that in many ways it's just another way in which the split has adversely affected their lives and will continue to impact them in later life.

That guilt keeps me awake at night. But at the time when I initiated the split, I felt I had no choice. It was after several years of horrendous friction, resentment and unhappiness, some verbal and emotional abuse, but no physical abuse. Yes I maybe could have and maybe should have stuck it out, but our home was not a happy place for anyone and the only solution I could see after years of it, failed therapy etc was to put some distance between us in the hope maybe we could work it out from separate spaces.

But that didn't happen. The kids, esp older ones tell me they think it was the right thing to do but they're only young and maybe telling me what they think I want to hear. And they won't be aware of the full impact until they have their own kids.

I am so scared that they will come to hate me later in life for it.

Bless you.. you should not feel guilty at all, it sounds like the absolute best case
in your families situation. It’s not like you had an affair and chose to move on with an entirely new family! I would never hold what you did against my mum if she felt she had to do the same.. my dad having an affair however.. very different! Your kids will not hate you!

I definitely don't hate my mum - I love her and we have a very good relationship.
I would have told her she did the right thing when I was in my teens and early 20s too, because it's what we're all socialised to say.

I think it's all made more difficult as an adult (I'm 40) by the fact that mum (purposefully) didn't move on and meet anyone else. Shes been single since she was 38. Not that everyone needs a partner, but I feel huge pressure to be mum's +1 in life. I think she envisaged a life of tagging along on holiday with me and DH, but that just wouldn't suit us. Nor would her coming to stay for extended periods. If she had a partner, I wouldn't worry about her being on her own on her birthday and Christmas, and I wouldn't feel guilty for going on holidays and out for nice meals that she isn't getting to enjoy.
She's always had a real victim mentality, but underneath it all I often think "you chose this!"
So, had mum moved on, been less of a martyr (she claims she never dated to keep us kids safe, which is fine up to a point, but not forever) and created a really full life for herself, I would feel much less resentment.

Thank you @Junebugjane thats really kind.

I think I will never forgive myself really for "breaking up" the family, even though I believed in my heart and soul that it was the right thing to do at the time.

I worry know that while the kids and my ex, all of us came through it fairly well becasue I worked my damnedest to keep it amicable as possible, used mediators no lawyers etc and welcomed ex into home always for sake of kids, I worry that in the future they will all worry about me and I will be a burden becasue I do not have a partner whereas their dad has a partner now and they have a lovely life, travel lots etc

I am perfectly happy living on my own, but I do see how for adult kids it's much more inconvenient splitting visits between two households to see their mum and their dad.

And of course we as parents only see them half as much as we would if we were together.

But thank you your kind words really helped and made me feel a bit teary but in a good way 🥹

@PoppyBaxter yes I get what you mean and I definitely agree that while my daughters in their late teens and now in their early 20s would tell me it was for the best that we split, I am also keenly aware that they have maybe suppressed their own pain to protect me, and don't realise the damage the split did to them, maybe won't realise that till they have their own families.

And kids do seem to get on with things and be resilient etc and I worry about what's going on underneath all that outer strength

For me, I haven't chosen to not have a partner. I tried dating again, got badly burned and hurt, I live rurally and there is not a whole lot of options for me to meet someone. I've even paid to join an old fashioned dating agency all to no avail.

I'm open to and would love to meet someone but in the meantime I got my career back on track after being a SAHM for 16 years, I'm proud of that. I also try hard to fill my life with friends and travel as I would never want me kids to feel they are responsible for my happiness,

It's hard though, the nights are the worst when I really wish I could have endured the marriage to keep their lives easier in the long term, I just was not strong enough.

It didn’t really and I think they should have done it sooner. It actually made me think that divorce is fine and it’s ok to move on if one of you isn’t happy! I also had divorced and remarried grandparents, who were all friends (very civilized!) and as DC, it was amazing on birthdays and Christmas 🤣 I really don’t like DM’s second DH and that has all but ruined my relationship with her, but the remarriage was when I was an adult and in an established relationship myself so I can deal with it. I think the only thing I do miss is a longstanding family home, with two parents, to go back to. At family events at my aunt and uncle’s, or with DH’s parents, I feel quite envious of the continuity of the family home and the same two kind people just being there. Again, I can cope with this and have tried to recreate that feeling for my own DC. It is what it is!

It has had a really negative effect on all the now adult dc involved I think. But that is because of how it was done. Affairs, lies, resentment, bitterness, new partners who didn’t like the dc but were prioritised, dc pretty much left to their own devices. A shit show in a nutshell!
It could have been very different if they’d just…..remembered they had children and behaved like grown ups? But they didn’t. Like you op, I cannot imagine behaving like that myself now.

Similar here, except the squabbling was while they were still married, and it went on for years.
It wasn’t the divorce that affected me, it was their miserable marriage. But I took it as a lesson in how not to do marriage and parenting.

I was 9, the actual divorce not much. He’d been working away a lot and he ended up marrying his landlady in the digs he used 😂. The worst thing was what came after tbh, he took my mum to court over the house, during this period my mum had a job but also side jobs on the sly (childcare for friends kids after school who me and my sis became close with ) cleaning etc all cash in hand. He wasn’t meant to know about any of that, so my mum would have to script us before we saw him, not to mention these kids etc which when you’re 10 just becomes weird.

Regardless; it was tough financially but I never felt I missed out. My mum was great, I’ve made mistakes as an adult, but never put it down to the divorce or not having a dad growing up. Everyone’s different though I get that. I think if you have at least one amazing parent you’ll probably do just fine, divorce happens IMO.

My parents split when I was 6 so I have no real memories of being a family unit. One of my older siblings does and it was obviously a very unhappy marriage. Any major family event now is for one side or the other. All holidays / Christmas have to be carefully split equally or there is a huge emotional fallout from my mother.

My mother spent our formative years telling us some awful and very inappropriate things about our father and our life growing up with her was difficult. On reflection she has been depressed for a long time.Our father did not behave well but didn't criticise our mother (not to us directly) although he was in a new relationship pretty quickly.

Having said this my mother was considerably worse off financially and I can see that life was really hard for her compared to my father's relative wealth, comfort and second marriage. She is still very anxious about money and income and has already voiced expectations about receiving a proportion of any inheritance from my father (he is still very much alive!)

My parents generation are starting to pass now and at a recent funeral my sister commented that it would be very difficult for us to talk about life with either parent as we have no memories as a family.

The divorce caused a divide across our wider family which is only healed by our relationship with cousins who we have a great relationship with. Multiple other members of the family have been cut off by my father who saw them as inappropriately sympathetic to my mother. My mother still feels that she is part of my father's wider family and seemed very hurt not to be invited to funerals etc even though the divorce was several decades ago.

For what it is worth, I am a solo parent and on the whole enjoy it. Definitely would not want to be in the middle of years of arguments and spite and I would not expose my child to that. My ex was vile and I do not have either courage or interest in pursuing another relationship.Both of my siblings have long and successful relationships with their husbands and children.