Are Your Parents Getting a Divorce This New Year?

The end of something always prompts a new beginning! It’s a new year, new endings, new beginnings, and resolutions…the ultimate time for change!

Exciting for some…

But who cares when the new beginning is the ending to our parents’ marriage?

What happens when the change isn’t something we made but still has an influence on the normal we live?

Forced to be strong in moments of feeling weak, left feeling like we should console when deep down we’re the ones that want to be consoled, and not feel selfish for wanting/needing it. Thinking, “how could this have been prevented?” And the ideas start rolling…while their reality never arrives.

Then the phrase replays, “my parents are getting a divorce.”

Ahhh, the sound of January.

To the legal world, January is known as divorce month. It is not a surprise to them at all, although we may or may not have saw it coming. January is the month when many decide that it is now or never, this is the moment, Christmas has passed, and allowing another year to come again in the same situation is just…not for them.

Personally, I lived through this as my parents’ teen almost 10 years ago with no knowledge of “divorce month” and much denial of its influence in my life. Only about 3 years ago did my compassion for this arrive, as reality checks began to request that I live and eventually love the truth more close to my face, leaving the despise for it as gas in my tank!

I am an adult child of divorce or “grown kid“ as I call it.

Please Note: You are not alone with any level of your thoughts, the bad, irrational…and even the good and rational! In some manner, we can all relate to one another, and I’ve learned the importance of doing so. Even though when everything was fresh, I most definitely denied others their want or maybe their need to relate with me. I just could not do it nor at the time was I able to see the point in sharing about our parents’ failed marriage.

However, as I began to confront, cope and learn from the truth of what I actually lived through, I wrote and published a book, Dear Divorce, Thank You (Even Though I Hate You) Sincerely, My Parents’ Grown Kid: A Journey of Hate, Healing and Understanding. It’s in realizing that our story has power that we find healing and help others to do the same.

Below are 3 important things deriving from the book that I hope will provoke your thoughts and help you confront and heal. I realized the quotes below through my healing process, yet I wish someone had told me these things during my parents’ divorce:

1. “It is not our life’s mission to find out why our parents got divorced but to understand what we took from it, whether good or bad.”

2. “I think sometimes we don’t heal because we are afraid to be honest about the truth that is.”

 a. “Forgiveness is the substance of acceptance and learning how to deal. It’s all I can offer for my own sanity. It doesn’t dismiss the wrongs but it allows me to recognize that things were wrong, so I don’t search for what’s right while confused about what was and still is wrong. Got it?”

 Lastly,

3. “Know that your parents’ relationship is not a reflection of you.”

Can you relate?

From one grown kid of divorce to another, this new year may bring unsolicited change but just like the legal world is about to gain, so can you through perspective of the truth.

This year may be tough but so are you!

My experience. My journey.

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