divorce from an adult child view

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1 to posters saying that married in-laws aren’t necessarily better. The first time I met my MIL she made snarky, self-righteous comment about her not being divorced unlike my parents. But my husband has issues likely caused by his parents’ crappy marriage, plus they really aren’t easy to be around because they bicker all the time. I like my in-laws generally but it’s not the case that I have more baggage than my husband.

And neither of us really blames our parents for some of our issues. Our issues might not be our fault but we are the ones responsible for dealing with them.

Would you like them better divorced, though? She could marry someone awful, your FIL could too, then there would be even more people to deal with. Nobody's saying a crappy marriage is easy or good. But really, think of the alternative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an ACOD and sorry but some of us act so entitled and dramatic. “My kids have to split time with three sets of grandparents? The horror! My selfish mother/father should have lived in misery forever.”

Divorce does sometimes, actually frequently, have a long-lasting, negative emotional impact on the kids which can impact marriages as adults. But really, a happy divorce is 100 times better than a miserable home life. Adults who divorce can and should make the effort to be the bigger person and have the most conflict-free divorce possible, and never say anything bad about their ex. If you do that, it might be an overall negative but it’s unlikely. And all the whining about holiday logistics is just something to ignore.

Marriage is hard for everybody and just because an ACOD has a hard time with it doesn’t mean it’s his parent’s fault. Everybody has to manage their own shit at some point.

I think most of the complaints come from ACOD of unhappy divorces and unhappy remarriages. It's a lot to impose on your children and grandchildren of you're just going to end up as miserable as you were before.

PP here and my parents’ divorce was actually really bad, and that was really hard for us. But my dad was miserable being married to my mom and I can’t imagine suggesting that he should stay in that misery just so that we could have a slightly easier life. I will say that he almost never said anything negative about my mom to us, even though there is a lot he could have said. And perhaps most importantly, we had at least one home where there was some stability and calm. So yeah the divorce was bad but it was better than them staying married for everyone involved.

[Anonymous]

Self-centered are the parents who divorced while expecting that they won’t shoulder any of the inconvenience. A lot of these so-called parents could use a dose of shut up. That’s not being a martyr. That’s an adult child sick of listening to their parents’ childish whining.

Yes, because it certainly is not an inconvenience for the parents to go through the huge changes that divorce brings into their lives (who you live with, where you live, the finances etc etc + divorces tend to be emotionally difficult even when they're 'easy'). That is NOTHING compared to you having to visit two households during Christmas!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an ACOD and sorry but some of us act so entitled and dramatic. “My kids have to split time with three sets of grandparents? The horror! My selfish mother/father should have lived in misery forever.”

Divorce does sometimes, actually frequently, have a long-lasting, negative emotional impact on the kids which can impact marriages as adults. But really, a happy divorce is 100 times better than a miserable home life. Adults who divorce can and should make the effort to be the bigger person and have the most conflict-free divorce possible, and never say anything bad about their ex. If you do that, it might be an overall negative but it’s unlikely. And all the whining about holiday logistics is just something to ignore.

Marriage is hard for everybody and just because an ACOD has a hard time with it doesn’t mean it’s his parent’s fault. Everybody has to manage their own shit at some point.

I think most of the complaints come from ACOD of unhappy divorces and unhappy remarriages. It's a lot to impose on your children and grandchildren of you're just going to end up as miserable as you were before.

PP here and my parents’ divorce was actually really bad, and that was really hard for us. But my dad was miserable being married to my mom and I can’t imagine suggesting that he should stay in that misery just so that we could have a slightly easier life. I will say that he almost never said anything negative about my mom to us, even though there is a lot he could have said. And perhaps most importantly, we had at least one home where there was some stability and calm. So yeah the divorce was bad but it was better than them staying married for everyone involved.

No, you're missing my point. What if he ended up in another unhappy marriage? If your parents do end up happier, great, you're a lucky duck. But if they don't, it's worse. Divorce is rolling the dice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Self-centered are the parents who divorced while expecting that they won’t shoulder any of the inconvenience. A lot of these so-called parents could use a dose of shut up. That’s not being a martyr. That’s an adult child sick of listening to their parents’ childish whining.

Yes, because it certainly is not an inconvenience for the parents to go through the huge changes that divorce brings into their lives (who you live with, where you live, the finances etc etc + divorces tend to be emotionally difficult even when they're 'easy'). That is NOTHING compared to you having to visit two households during Christmas!

The parents, at least one of them, CHOOSE to divorce. And they CHOOSE to date and remarry. I have sympathy for people who are divorced against their will, but otherwise they need to take responsibility for their choices. If they chose to marry someone inappropriate for them, they need to be responsible for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Self-centered are the parents who divorced while expecting that they won’t shoulder any of the inconvenience. A lot of these so-called parents could use a dose of shut up. That’s not being a martyr. That’s an adult child sick of listening to their parents’ childish whining.

Yes, because it certainly is not an inconvenience for the parents to go through the huge changes that divorce brings into their lives (who you live with, where you live, the finances
etc etc + divorces tend to be emotionally difficult even when they're 'easy'). That is NOTHING compared to you having to visit two households during Christmas!

The fact that you fail to see how everything you listed above also trickles down to the children involved (at home or adult) shows just how self-centered you are. Easy to see why your marriage didn’t last. If your finances are so bad, are you going to quietly live in poverty, or are you going to guilt your children into supporting you somehow. Given your self-righteous grievances, you don’t come across as someone who will help themselves.

[Anonymous]

DH and I are both kids of divorce. All parents are remarried. Our kids have 8 grandparents! They love it!

We’re lucky in the DH’s parents live near each other and mine do as well, though each of our sets of parents are in our home states. So only 2 states to visit. Pre pandemic we went to each state once a year. Not sure what we’ll do this year. We don’t travel on the holidays but our families are welcome to come to us.

I hate it that all our vacation time is to visit family, but that would be the case regardless of whether our parents were divorced. It also helps that everyone is more or less functional and there’s no bitterness. DH’s mom is kind of a saint - DH’s dad married his AP and while his mom doesn’t like her, she is unfailingly polite and welcoming when they’re together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 to posters saying that married in-laws aren’t necessarily better. The first time I met my MIL she made snarky, self-righteous comment about her not being divorced unlike my parents. But my husband has issues likely caused by his parents’ crappy marriage, plus they really aren’t easy to be around because they bicker all the time. I like my in-laws generally but it’s not the case that I have more baggage than my husband.

And neither of us really blames our parents for some of our issues. Our issues might not be our fault but we are the ones responsible for dealing with them.

Would you like them better divorced, though? She could marry someone awful, your FIL could too, then there would be even more people to deal with. Nobody's saying a crappy marriage is easy or good. But really, think of the alternative.

It's not at all about what I would like. What they do in their marriage is their business. But more to the point, no matter how many issues my in-laws might cause my husband (and it would be bizarre if my husband, at age 38, suddenly had major personal problems because if the introduction of a stepmother), it is his responsibility to deal with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Self-centered are the parents who divorced while expecting that they won’t shoulder any of the inconvenience. A lot of these so-called parents could use a dose of shut up. That’s not being a martyr. That’s an adult child sick of listening to their parents’ childish whining.

Yes, because it certainly is not an inconvenience for the parents to go through the huge changes that divorce brings into their lives (who you live with, where you live, the finances
etc etc + divorces tend to be emotionally difficult even when they're 'easy'). That is NOTHING compared to you having to visit two households during Christmas!

The fact that you fail to see how everything you listed above also trickles down to the children involved (at home or adult) shows just how self-centered you are. Easy to see why your marriage didn’t last. If your finances are so bad, are you going to quietly live in poverty, or are you going to guilt your children into supporting you somehow. Given your self-righteous grievances, you don’t come across as someone who will help themselves.

+1000. If only it were just having to do two holiday visits! It's way, way, way more complicated than that. It's trying to care for two sick old people having simultaneous health crises in different cities. It's when they're broke because they couldn't really afford two homes so you have to bail them out. Or when they remarry badly and are miserable and their awful step-children move in and mooch off them and drink.

You can say "boundaries!" all day long, but not seeing them means my children don't get to know their grandparents, so that's a hard choice to make. And when you're dealing with people who are old and becoming cognitively impaired, there's very little choice other than to deal with them and their problems and drama. It's either that or the horrors of the public safety net. It has been really eye-opening.

[Anonymous]

The fact that you fail to see how everything you listed above also trickles down to the children involved (at home or adult) shows just how self-centered you are. Easy to see why your marriage didn’t last. If your finances are so bad, are you going to quietly live in poverty, or are you going to guilt your children into supporting you somehow. Given your self-righteous grievances, you don’t come across as someone who will help themselves.

I'm actually married to my [first] husband and don't foresee a divorce and my child is a toddler, but, of course, all your character evaluations about me are 100% correct nevertheless. You are very insightful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 to posters saying that married in-laws aren’t necessarily better. The first time I met my MIL she made snarky, self-righteous comment about her not being divorced unlike my parents. But my husband has issues likely caused by his parents’ crappy marriage, plus they really aren’t easy to be around because they bicker all the time. I like my in-laws generally but it’s not the case that I have more baggage than my husband.

And neither of us really blames our parents for some of our issues. Our issues might not be our fault but we are the ones responsible for dealing with them.

Would you like them better divorced, though? She could marry someone awful, your FIL could too, then there would be even more people to deal with. Nobody's saying a crappy marriage is easy or good. But really, think of the alternative.

It's not at all about what I would like. What they do in their marriage is their business. But more to the point, no matter how many issues my in-laws might cause my husband (and it would be bizarre if my husband, at age 38, suddenly had major personal problems because if the introduction of a stepmother), it is his responsibility to deal with them.

It would not be bizarre! A stepmother can be introduced at any time in life. It might not emotionally upset him in the same way it would if he were a child living in a household with a stepmother, but believe me, an older parent making a bad remarriage choice can be quite hellish for the adult children. If your FIL married someone who was an alcoholic or had financial problems or had adult children with problems, or even just major health problems, believe me the whole family will feel it-- including you. You can say it's his responsibility to deal with them, but you'll feel the impact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Self-centered are the parents who divorced while expecting that they won’t shoulder any of the inconvenience. A lot of these so-called parents could use a dose of shut up. That’s not being a martyr. That’s an adult child sick of listening to their parents’ childish whining.

Yes, because it certainly is not an inconvenience for the parents to go through the huge changes that divorce brings into their lives (who you live with, where you live, the finances etc etc + divorces tend to be emotionally difficult even when they're 'easy'). That is NOTHING compared to you having to visit two households during Christmas!

DP here. I’m not visiting twice as many people on the holidays. If you choose to divorce, you get half as much time. That’s how it works. I will rotate but I will not twist my family into a pretzel. And I don’t feel guilty - this is what you chose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an ACOD and sorry but some of us act so entitled and dramatic. “My kids have to split time with three sets of grandparents? The horror! My selfish mother/father should have lived in misery forever.”

Divorce does sometimes, actually frequently, have a long-lasting, negative emotional impact on the kids which can impact marriages as adults. But really, a happy divorce is 100 times better than a miserable home life. Adults who divorce can and should make the effort to be the bigger person and have the most conflict-free divorce possible, and never say anything bad about their ex. If you do that, it might be an overall negative but it’s unlikely. And all the whining about holiday logistics is just something to ignore.

Marriage is hard for everybody and just because an ACOD has a hard time with it doesn’t mean it’s his parent’s fault. Everybody has to manage their own shit at some point.

I think most of the complaints come from ACOD of unhappy divorces and unhappy remarriages. It's a lot to impose on your children and grandchildren of you're just going to end up as miserable as you were before.

PP here and my parents’ divorce was actually really bad, and that was really hard for us. But my dad was miserable being married to my mom and I can’t imagine suggesting that he should stay in that misery just so that we could have a slightly easier life. I will say that he almost never said anything negative about my mom to us, even though there is a lot he could have said. And perhaps most importantly, we had at least one home where there was some stability and calm. So yeah the divorce was bad but it was better than them staying married for everyone involved.

No, you're missing my point. What if he ended up in another unhappy marriage? If your parents do end up happier, great, you're a lucky duck. But if they don't, it's worse. Divorce is rolling the dice.

He did actually end up in another semi-unhappy marriage, and I don't like my stepmom, and I think it was a mistake for him to marry her. But it was still way better off than them being married. And even if it wasn't, I personally think it's much worse to see your dad and mom in a bad marriage together than your dad and stepmom in a bad marriage together.

Regardless, the way I see it, the person getting divorced is the one who bears the risk. When kids are adults, they don't have to be around bad parents or bad step-parents. I rarely think about how my dad's marriage is going. I live my own life, which yes sometimes involves complicated holiday logistics but 360/365 days out of the year it makes no difference to me who my stepmom is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Self-centered are the parents who divorced while expecting that they won’t shoulder any of the inconvenience. A lot of these so-called parents could use a dose of shut up. That’s not being a martyr. That’s an adult child sick of listening to their parents’ childish whining.

Yes, because it certainly is not an inconvenience for the parents to go through the huge changes that divorce brings into their lives (who you live with, where you live, the finances etc etc + divorces tend to be emotionally difficult even when they're 'easy'). That is NOTHING compared to you having to visit two households during Christmas!

DP here. I’m not visiting twice as many people on the holidays. If you choose to divorce, you get half as much time. That’s how it works. I will rotate but I will not twist my family into a pretzel. And I don’t feel guilty - this is what you chose.

So they're gonna get half as much eldercare from you too? Half-manage their medical care when they're too old to do it? You're gonna half-sell their house, half-find them an assisted living?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 to posters saying that married in-laws aren’t necessarily better. The first time I met my MIL she made snarky, self-righteous comment about her not being divorced unlike my parents. But my husband has issues likely caused by his parents’ crappy marriage, plus they really aren’t easy to be around because they bicker all the time. I like my in-laws generally but it’s not the case that I have more baggage than my husband.

And neither of us really blames our parents for some of our issues. Our issues might not be our fault but we are the ones responsible for dealing with them.

Would you like them better divorced, though? She could marry someone awful, your FIL could too, then there would be even more people to deal with. Nobody's saying a crappy marriage is easy or good. But really, think of the alternative.

It's not at all about what I would like. What they do in their marriage is their business. But more to the point, no matter how many issues my in-laws might cause my husband (and it would be bizarre if my husband, at age 38, suddenly had major personal problems because if the introduction of a stepmother), it is his responsibility to deal with them.

It would not be bizarre! A stepmother can be introduced at any time in life. It might not emotionally upset him in the same way it would if he were a child living in a household with a stepmother, but believe me, an older parent making a bad remarriage choice can be quite hellish for the adult children. If your FIL married someone who was an alcoholic or had financial problems or had adult children with problems, or even just major health problems, believe me the whole family will feel it-- including you. You can say it's his responsibility to deal with them, but you'll feel the impact.

*Major* personal problems? Disagree. That would be bizarre. My mom has a plethora of extreme issues issues--emotional, financial, and personal-- that just seem to keep coming and I have grown up enough to not have *major* personal problems because of them.

I cannot imagine somebody taking into consideration the theoretical possibility of an adult child having major personal problems when deciding whether or not to divorce at an older age. But I guess if somebody wants their parent to remain miserable so they don't have to deal with problems that could potentially stem from a bad step-mom, that's their business.