Divorce is the Worst Thing That Can Happen to a Son

My parents divorced when I was seven years old. Looking back at my life, this event had the greatest impact on me growing up and in my adult life.

I guess the truth is that it really isn't the divorce that should be blamed, but my father. He robbed me of the childhood I should have had. I'm not going to spell out the details of why the divorce happened, because I know I have family reading this. Suffice it to say, I don't blame my mother for divorcing my father.

The divorce caused me to lose a father, as well as mother. First, my father was already gone for half the time because of his enlistment in the U.S. Navy. In the years leading up to the divorce, it was hard for me to bond with him. For one, I was so young, I couldn't appreciate having a father, and two, he was gone most of the time. By the time the divorce took place, I had just started developing that bond.

I also lost my mother because it forced her to work. She had been working anyways, at night, to supplement the family income. But now, there was no longer a mother for me to come home to after school. She'd either come late in the afternoon, or she'd be working all evening long.

But worse, both my father and mother remarried and virtually started their lives over again. My mother remarried when I was ten years old, and my father remarried when I was fifteen.

My mom had a new son as well as a new husband, and I couldn't help seeing the three of them as a new family, with me tagging along as old baggage. After my half-brother was born, I kept looking to my father as my only family. He'd visit me once in a while, and I relished those visits.

But eventually, he remarried too, to a woman who already had a son, about five years younger than me. His name was Alex, and he never knew his real father. Alex latched on to my father, and my father seemingly latched on to him. Alex was the son my father never had in me. He relocated his wife and Alex to his hometown in Renton, WA, far away from me. I couldn't see him again, except for a few weeks in the Summer.

Even visits up to my Dad's house seemed empty. It wasn't like the old days when it was just me and him. We didn't really go out and do much together. For the most part, my dad was preoccupied with Alex's soccer teams. It took me until I was in my 30's that I realized I had lost my father long ago. All this time I kept going up to visit him, hoping that we could rekindle those times when it just me and him, but it never happened. He had become Alex's father, and I was old baggage.

The last time I visited him was Christmas of 2000. I never went back, I never called him again. His communication with me was reduced to sending cards for my birthday and Christmas. One Christmas card he sent was unsigned. At least three times he included personal checks that bounced. I stopped cashing his checks, refusing to take his money.

My mother is still an active part of my life, at least as active as most moms are with their middle-aged sons. Even though I resented her remarriage and her new family, she still loved me, and after I left home, she still kept in touch with me, and still visited me. For that, I still honor her.

The Pain

The reason why I say divorce is the worst thing that can happen to a son is because when the parents remarry, and start new families, that son feels as if he's lost his sense of identity.

I felt like the family I once had was destroyed. I didn't feel like a part of my mother's new family, and I certainly wasn't a part of my father's new family. I wanted to run away. In fact, I tried to, but returned home late at night realizing how stupid that was.

It's a feeling of rejection, as if you're a painful reminder of what went wrong. I became very angry that my family was taken away from me. I'm still angry today, though I've managed to gain enough sense and cool to put some reins on it.

If not for my wife, I'd probably be in prison, or would have killed myself. Lisa is the calming effect. She grew up in a home where the mom and dad remained married for life, even though they had their problems too. They went to church, had lots of close family, didn't move around, and created lots of fond memories. Perhaps that's part of what attracted me to her. She's always there to remind me that I now have a place where I belong, and that I don't need to be angry anymore.

Had my father been the good man he should have been, and my parents never divorced, would I have turned out differently? Absolutely. My life would have taken an entirely different road. Yes, I would not have met Lisa, and I would have a totally different career, but I'd be a different person, a better person no doubt.

But I can't complain. Lisa has been great for me, I love the business I've started, and I like the friends I have now. But that anger still chews away at me.

Labels: Childhood, Divorce

Posted:   Monday, July 03, 2006