When not to get a Divorce

When I was in sixth or so grade I joined the ranks of the children of broken families. My parents were divorced and I was faced with adapting to a new reality in which mom and dad no longer came back the the same dwelling each night. It was hard. I cried for weeks and carried on. I knew my parents still loved me. At no point did I feel that it was something that I had done or it was because of me that this separation had taken place, but it was hard just the same. I remember crying more over the change of it all, over the fact that everything was going to be different and I liked the way it was already. It was the same way I thought about our yard and where we lived. I would always have these nightmares in which I would wake up one day and run out to play in the woods only there would be no woods but a development sitting where trees had once been. It was scary because I liked the way the forest was. It was the country, it was beautiful the way it was and there was nothing that anyone could do to change it that would make it better.

It's not that I didn't care about my family cohesion or that I loved my comfort more than our relational health, but at the same time, that's exactly what it was. I was a child and that's how it was. As a child things just are the way they are, as they should be. The only thing "wrong" or that doesn't belong is change. Everyone realizes this one day as they reach their twenties. They find themselves in the midst of a fluffy memory of a family party and all of the sudden, some image, some action, some family members personality hits them as wrong, for the first time ever. They think about it, mull over it and conclude: "man, uncle so and so was a real alcoholic." "No wonder he was always just sitting around like that." "That's why so and so always left early." Reality comes twenty years late.

But that's how it is as a child. Everything one lives in just is as it should be and as it's supposed to be. On the other hand, children are also very malleable. They can deal with and make it through most life changes and issues just as long as someone is there to care for them. A child is quite the paradox. They have not the understanding or insight of an adult capable of picking out the strange in one's own family. They are naive enough to love even the most unlovable as long as they're a permanent fixture at picnics and Christmas. Change is hard because it feels bad but it's doable because complex answers aren't needed in order to justify change. Just as a child will tolerate and even depend on the abnormal just because it happens to be their family, they'll tolerate a change just because it has been given some explanation (hopefully some form of the truth).

During my first semester in college I began to notice that I knew a hand full of people whose parents had recently or were presently going through divorces. I found that odd. I think one of the first thoughts that came to me upon learning such information from these individuals was something along the lines of "isn't this a little late?" Late. Parents are supposed to get divorced while one's in elementary school, or just beginning middle (life sucks then anyways, might as well pile another drama on top and get it over with while you're not enjoying anything anyways).

As I saw this more and more, and at a Christian college none the less, I formed a theory about Christian divorce. It seems, from my observations, that as Christians, if we are to divorce it must be done either before children are in the picture or after all children have left the nest. These are the two windows that exist for proper Christian divorce. It makes sense from a parental standpoint I would think. Keep the family cohesion going so the kids can have a normal life. However, I feel that this is not the best practice. From what I have seen, twenty year olds have a harder time with parental divorce than ten year olds do.

It's all in the thinking. A husband and wife decide to stick it out and stay together for the sake of their children's mental health. Of course, with children and their thinking, this is the best time for such a monumental change. When people divorce when their kids are young the result is fairly simple. The kids cry their eyes out for a few weeks, mope around a little and then get back on track with everything. An easy answer is most likely found somewhere. In the midst of wondering why mommy and daddy split up a possibility could be that time daddy forgot to get milk or perhaps that last time daddy left the toilet seat up just was too much for mommy and he just had to leave. These are possible causes. These are also lessons a child can pack away quite easily. While surveying the damages it's all being recorded: "note to self, change the toilet paper role when empty." "To avoid what mommy and daddy just went through you may want to refrain from drinking directly from the milk carton." And life goes on.

When twenty, sadly, the mind is not so amused with such answers (even if answers to certain situations, not divorce, are in fact so simple). The twenty mind must pull everything apart. It must all be analyzed. Ironically, at twenty, an age when one can truly understand, not agree with, a concept like divorce, a parent may find it to be a good idea to just explain why it's all taking place. It seems logical. Two adults talking about reality, what could be easier? Anything. At twenty the mind does not want explanations and prepackaged reasonings. "Yes, they told me this, but what is really going on?"

The kids in these divorces end up driving themselves mad. They replay their entire lives in their minds searching through every detail like a Sherlock Holmes novel. This is when it gets bad. This is when the mind does something it should never do. That being, taking apart every situation, every scene, every moment and reality from their upbringing and pulling it into question. Suddenly everything is suspect and at times everything is guilty. If a child's mind is naive in finding everything in their environment "normal" and just so, the twenty something going through his or her parents' divorce is quite the opposite. Insanity ensues and the only people these individuals have to turn to is their professors whom they're still scared to ask questions in class to and their friends who have most likely by now gotten into reading large, unchecked amounts of philosophy (meaning they can think their way out of anything but not really think of anything) thus deeming them no help whatsoever.

Twenty is also when one begins to realize one is more like their parents than they had previously hoped for, therefore, the fact that as a parent you've just made divorce a possibility for your personality ultimately calls into question that perhaps divorce is possible for the kids' personality; and on it goes.

On top of this, at twenty kids begin seeing themselves as more a peer than a child to their parents so instead of, as a child may, thinking it was their fault their parents are getting a divorce, the kids may end up feeling like they're bad friends because they couldn't say the right things to keep these two peers of theirs together. Now their parents are going through a divorce and they suck at being there for their friends.

Get divorced young, or when your kids are young. Once they begin thinking and everything is not taken for granted and life is no longer an unquestionable reality and crying for a few weeks doesn't solve any problem and "daddy and I just love each other differently now" is no longer a valid answer (that answer doesn't make any sense whatsoever); then you'll really be able to ruin your kids' lives (while they have loans out none the less).