Yesterday I read this in Newsweek. It really made me think a lot about how divorce has affected my life and changed from the time I first heard of it as a kid, until now. The funny thing is, for Al, it is something that happens. And that’s okay. As long as it doesn’t happen to him.
On my first day of kindergarten, most of the students in my class were from married homes. A few weren’t and it took me a little while to understand why they sometimes had different last names than their mothers. My parents and ten of their twelve siblings (between the two of them) were all married. All of our godparents were married. Everyone we interacted with was in their original marriage.
Then around 1981 or so, the crises started. Lost jobs. Affairs. Arguments. More affairs. My father’s oldest brother’s marriage was the first to unravel. In the next three years, my father’s sisters’ marriages would erode to two divorces and a separation. Then my mom’s siblings began to divorce. My godparents divorced. At school, more and more kids had stepmoms, stepdads and Uncle Steve’s in their lives. Whether people had money or not, went to church or not, divorce was something everybody was dealing with the after effects of. Awkward thanksgivings. Lots of pain. Lots of listening. Even more pain. Because somebody who used to be there all the time suddenly wasn’t and sometimes shady things would break out for real. This was what I eyewitnessed as a kid. So this does not even include the lack of child support paid over time and things of that nature.
When I went away to a boarding school, less than half of my friends’ parents were together and when I started college, none of my friends’ parents were together. The vast majority of my parent’s siblings had long been divorced (some remarried and divorced again). I think that the article was right because some of my friends from school are still a little hesitant about pursuing marriage. Only one I know of has divorced. I’d hate to put my kids through a divorce based on what I’ve seen and experienced, but I would hate more for them to grow up scarred for life because I was too weak to get out of a broken marriage.
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