Adult Children of Divorce and the Parents Who Love Them

Adult Children of Divorce

and the Parents Who Love Them:

A Road to Reconciliation

By

Aan Breken

Trilogy Christian Publishers

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Copyright © 2023 by Aan Breken

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 979-8-88738-549-5

ISBN 979-8-88738-550-1(ebook)

This book is dedicated to my son.

I’m sorry. Please forgive me.

I didn’t know.

I know a little more now.

I never knew love until I knew you.

Everything I know now I have learned from loving you.

Whether near or from afar, I always have,

and always will,

love you.

Mom

Acknowledgments

I have been blessed and graced with many supporters along the way of writing this book, and I am grateful for every one of you! You know who you are, and I thank you for your prayers, words of encouragement, and friendship.

And of course, to my dear husband of many years, whose love and support through this very difficult project has continued to show me what steadfast love and strength of character looks like. Unearthing these kinds of painful issues from my past, as well as listening to the stories of other Adult Children of Divorce and other divorced Parents, has been deeply disturbing to our own present life from time to time. But you’ve weathered the storms and handled my distresses and my sorrows with courage, trust, faith, and love. You teach me how to stay married—no matter what. I am so blessed to have you by my side, till death do us part. Thank you.

And lastly, this book would not have happened without my Chief Encourager, Joe. Your constant words of support and encouragement were the wind beneath my wings. I could not get off the ground without them! I am forever indebted to you for your unwavering support, belief, and confidence in me and in this book, when I had no confidence of my own. Your words, your story, and your friendship moved me from where you met me, in a state of paralyzed fear, to courage—the courage to finally write this book! I hope that you are pleased with this work. It would never have come to be without you, Joe. Thank you!

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Part Two

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Part Three

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Addendum

Endnotes

Preface

Anonymity: As every divorced parent knows, a failing marriage and divorce is wicked and ugly, and it brings out the worst in every person who is associated with it. Divorces range in levels of cooperation.

Some are highly volatile. Some are quite amicable. And others have differing degrees of cooperation between those two extremes.

But most divorces are sad. And painful. And there are usually many players involved, which then involves an even more far-reaching ripple effect of family and friends who are affected by our divorce. Our stories are messy. And painful. For these reasons I prefer to write this book anonymously, and to share all the stories, including my own, anonymously. My hope is to protect all the parties involved in my own story, as well as the many families of those who had the courage to share their stories with me. The world will not know who you are, but I will never forget you. Thank you for sharing, in the hopes of helping others.

Can we start a reconciliation process if all parties won’t show up? First, let me clarify that this is not about a reconciliation between the two divorcing parents. Most ACDs (adult children of divorce) would rejoice if both of their parents were involved in this effort. There is nothing that brings an ACD more joy than to have both of their parents getting along. But that complex side of this issue is beyond the scope of this book. I am only writing about the journey of a divorced parent (mom or dad) trying to reconcile with their own ACD. So, whether you’re the parent pursuing and hoping for reconciliation with your adult child, or if you’re the ACD, hoping to reconcile with your parent—either way, we can start this process with just one participant.

I have been in this process for almost three years now and my own ACD is completely unaware of all my study and research on the effects of divorce on children. One time, I did briefly mention a book that I was reading about this topic. He told me, "That’s really nice that you’re reading that, Mom. I do appreciate it. But you will still never understand what it was like if you haven’t been through it yourself." Fair enough. But the work I’m doing is changing our relationship for the better all the time. He can see the conversations between us improving, even though he does not understand why or how the improvement is happening.

It would be ideal to begin with both parties onboard from the beginning. But if that is not the case, we can still begin with ourselves.

Below is what Joe (my advising ACD) told me from his perspective about what I am trying to accomplish with this book.

"ACDs believe their parent’s divorce is not the child’s issue. The divorce belongs to the parents. So, the ACDs don’t feel any need to resolve anything because it isn’t their problem; so they might not be interested in reconciliation. The ACDs and the parents both know that their relationship is not what it’s supposed to be. But the ACD has no concept that it can ever be any different from what it is.

I think that one way to bring a reluctant ACD into the reconciliation process might be if their mom or dad invited them into something that they, the parents, have already been working on. I think the ACD would be onboard with that kind of approach. That it’s the parents’ problem and the parents have been dealing with it on their own, and now the ACD is just coming in as an extra addition to the parents’ own process."

Joe continued, "In our journey together, Aan, you were not ready to bring your own ACD into the conversation yet. Throughout our six months of extensive conversations, you had your ‘parent’ questions, and I had my ACD answers, perspectives, wounds, feelings, opinions, and stories of the experience of divorce on a child. Through our interviewing process, we were both learning a lot about each other’s side of the divorce experience. And you were gaining the insight and knowledge that you needed to learn from an ACD, in addition to all the reading on the subject that you had done for two years before we ever even met. With all of that new information, you were just beginning to understand that your own child’s experience of divorce was completely and radically different from your own."

And so, in the same way as my own journey, I understand that this book needs to present a lot of information to the parents first, before we ever bring our precious ACDs into the process.

However, the ACDs reading this book will gain tremendous insight into their own childhood trauma, as well as the satisfaction of seeing their own feelings and experiences put into words, knowing that their side of the story is being told by other ACDs, and then it is being heard by their parents—maybe for the first time.

It does take two to reconcile. But both Joe and I (a divorced parent) believe that it’s the parents who have to take the first step. Probably the first fifteen steps actually, before we even begin to understand enough to be able to approach our ACD without causing any more harm.

If you are currently married, with children, and sitting on the fence, flirting with the idea of a divorce, a fresh start, or seriously contemplating a divorce, or even in the process of a divorce, please read this book first. It may save your children’s childhoods and your entire family line for generations to come.

If I knew then in 1986 what I know now, in 2023, I might have made very different choices. Or at the very least, I might have delayed some of my choices for a while, for a higher good. If I only knew then the ramifications of what I was about to do to my child’s life; if I only knew what was to come. This book will be most enlightening to the still-married reader. Please read it before you make your decision.

It is my fervent hope that every divorced parent and every adult child of divorce who reads this book will be healed, as we walk this road together, towards understanding and reconciliation. Let’s get started!

When we see broken beyond repair, or too far gone, we still hope.

Introduction

Divorced parents ask: Why is my adult child so angry with me?

Adult Children of Divorce (ACDs) ask: How can my divorced parents be SO clueless as to why I’m angry?

As divorced parents, we must come to understand what our divorce did to our kids.

As the Adult Child of Divorce (ACD), please know that we are finally starting to see and understand how our divorce affected you.

At the time of this writing, my ACD is thirty-two years old. He is successful, college educated, has a beautiful wife, a new home, a great job, many friends, and he travels extensively. It’s all good. And I am so grateful for all of that and so proud of him. But he keeps his distance from me, the single parent who raised him. And I never understood why.

The litany of my marriages and divorces in his childhood are as follows: his dad and I separated when he was two years old and divorced when he was three. I remarried a second time when he was almost six and then divorced again when he was eight. I remarried a third time when he was ten and had my second child when he was eleven; and this third marriage has lasted twenty-five years and counting. But that’s not all my son’s childhood divorces.

His dad had already been divorced once before he married (and divorced) me. He remarried for his third time, when our son was seven years old and they divorced when he was twelve. His dad’s current girlfriend came on the scene when our son was about fourteen. If they were married, she would be his fourth wife. This litany means that my ACD lived through three divorces and four remarriages during his childhood. Not during his lifetime, but during his childhood. That is a lot of trauma in a few short years.

My chief advisor on this project, Joe, is an Adult Child of Divorce (ACD). Both of his parents married and divorced three times, for a total of six divorces that Joe has had to deal with. He is now forty-eight years old and has anxiety issues, which is very common among ACDs. Nevertheless, he has been happily married for twenty-eight years, has two grown and married children, and two grandchildren. Throughout our hundreds of hours of interviews together, I am beginning to grasp some of the deep complexities of divorce from a child’s perspective. And by his listening to some of my perspectives as a divorced mom, a few areas of Joe’s relationship with his own mom have been improved. I believe that Joe and I are a team, able to represent both sides of this issue with humility and courage. Joe’s stories, along with my own and many others, are woven throughout this book anonymously.

The picture on the front of this book was chosen very deliberately. The universal symbol of peace is a dove and an olive branch. The dove is weaving its olive branch over barbed wire. The reason that I’m drawn to this picture is because this book is dealing with very difficult, complicated, and painful issues; and because of what I’ve read and been told by ACDs.

Generally speaking, but not always, it will be the parent who is pursuing reconciliation. Hence, the one lone dove, bringing their olive branch to their deeply hurt and very wounded ACD. We discover that our ACD has developed a powerfully protective barbed wire fence around their hearts to keep