My parents divorced when I was 8 and my sister was 5. My dad cheated and married the woman he was cheating on my mom with a year after the divorce was final and that was really hard. Of course I didn’t really know the circumstances until I was older, but my step mom was a horrible person and was extremely jealous of and competitive with us. She used money to manipulate us (since my dad was the one with money which she somehow controlled now).

So I guess I would say I wish either my mom or dad stood up to her and advocated for us. We went to family therapy and would tell my mom and dad how much we hated her and why yet no one did anything. Not sure why my dad could not have asked her to be nice to us. Or when she made us get jobs at 16 to pay them rent so we could learn responsibility, don’t understand why my dad just went along with it.

My parents also couldn’t be in a room together for years and years and that was hard. I think family dinner is a great idea and wish we could have done that.

All said, my sister and I are totally fine and other than a lifelong hatred of our evil stepmother no resulting issues from the divorce.

I keep some pictures out. DD had a family picture of the three of us in her room, ex is in some pictures out in the house, group pics and such. I've kept wedding pictures and other stuff from our relationship to share with her when she's older if she's interested.

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Anonymous wrote:OP here. I should add that right now we are trying to have family dinners once per week, based on his suggestion. We've done two since he's moved out and I find them painful due to the circumstances of how things ended, especially the one at his new place. I'm trying but still on the fence about the value.

I disagree with some of the others. I think family dinners are a good idea, and with time the pain will fade. I'd keep SOME pics of you all together. And as you note, do not bad mouth him. I understand this will be incredibly painful for you in the short term, and a therapist should help with that. But, keeping it so the kids don't have to choose, don't always have to be spread between two of everything, will be so, so helpful.

The couple of divorced friends and acquaintances that I have that share birthdays, have family dinners, share holidays (so kids get to be with everyone) as much as possible are winning at life. Everyone was (eventually) happier. Kids super well-adjusted. It wasn't always that way at first (esp where there was cheating involved) but after some passage at time, they are all better off.

Just recognize there is a light at the end and it will eventually get better. By contrast, my parents were contentious from day one of their separation. It was truly awful.

In addition to keeping our photos, we did do dinners together once a week for the first year. They fell off after time. We do holidays together (xmas morning we open all gifts from both parents, xmas eve we split in half). DS birthday we always spend together for dinner and then his actual birthday party we are both there.

We share Thanksgiving day and on Halloween we both go TOTing with DS and other families at school.

Other than that we don't split the other holidays but we don't do a big celebration for (example) Easter anyway so DS is just with the parent he's with on all of the other holidays and that's fine.

Don’t get remarried quickly. In fact, don’t get remarried with young kids. Odd are you’ll get divorced again. It is traumatic for parents to split up, but to then connect with a stepparent and have that split up too is worse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I should add that right now we are trying to have family dinners once per week, based on his suggestion. We've done two since he's moved out and I find them painful due to the circumstances of how things ended, especially the one at his new place. I'm trying but still on the fence about the value.

I disagree with some of the others. I think family dinners are a good idea, and with time the pain will fade. I'd keep SOME pics of you all together. And as you note, do not bad mouth him. I understand this will be incredibly painful for you in the short term, and a therapist should help with that. But, keeping it so the kids don't have to choose, don't always have to be spread between two of everything, will be so, so helpful.

The couple of divorced friends and acquaintances that I have that share birthdays, have family dinners, share holidays (so kids get to be with everyone) as much as possible are winning at life. Everyone was (eventually) happier. Kids super well-adjusted. It wasn't always that way at first (esp where there was cheating involved) but after some passage at time, they are all better off.

Just recognize there is a light at the end and it will eventually get better. By contrast, my parents were contentious from day one of their separation. It was truly awful.

PP here - this opinion does not necessarily hold if there was abuse and other serious concerns. That's a harder position. I didn't get that from your post but I just wanted to give that caveat.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I should add that right now we are trying to have family dinners once per week, based on his suggestion. We've done two since he's moved out and I find them painful due to the circumstances of how things ended, especially the one at his new place. I'm trying but still on the fence about the value.

I disagree with some of the others. I think family dinners are a good idea, and with time the pain will fade. I'd keep SOME pics of you all together. And as you note, do not bad mouth him. I understand this will be incredibly painful for you in the short term, and a therapist should help with that. But, keeping it so the kids don't have to choose, don't always have to be spread between two of everything, will be so, so helpful.

The couple of divorced friends and acquaintances that I have that share birthdays, have family dinners, share holidays (so kids get to be with everyone) as much as possible are winning at life. Everyone was (eventually) happier. Kids super well-adjusted. It wasn't always that way at first (esp where there was cheating involved) but after some passage at time, they are all better off.

Just recognize there is a light at the end and it will eventually get better. By contrast, my parents were contentious from day one of their separation. It was truly awful.

I think the lesson from this thread is that there is no one way to do it right. Some people think X would have been better while others think definitely Y is the way to go. Try to be flexible and talk to your kids as they grow older and open to the possibilities that a) what is right for one kid may not be right for another; and b) even the same kid may need different things over time. Good luck.

My parents divorced hen I was 4. My mother was an abusive, selfish, manipulative woman. My father was a filandered wo drank a bit too much but later in life got sober and faithful. He was always kind. My mother was mean and full of vile drama. She was routinely estranged from her siblings, parents and some of her kids. My father remarried a very kind woman who was an absolutely lovely stepmother to me. I became closer to her and eventually wrote my mother off.

As a father now, I die inside a little remembering the way she treated me. I remember her limiting my time on the phone with my dad and taking away weekends with him when she was angry. I have one distinct memory of being on the phone with him while crying asking him to please come back and my mother 'caught' me on the phone, took it away, hung it up and preceded to beat me. I was about 6.

Please be good to your kids people. I'm a bit damaged and I wish I wasn't.

My DD had a friend whose parents divorced & they a)kept the family home & b)got a condo relatively nearby (also in DMV). Then the parents, not the child, rotated. So the parents had to live out of a bag, not their DD. I think it was big of the adults to do this.

That's going to work until one parent meets someone else. I can't even imagine dating a single parent who rotates between a house and a condo, but basically that would also mean the new partner also has to rotate living arrangements. Doubt anyone would put up with it.

OP, read the book "Between Two Worlds" asap. Nearly every comment on this thread is echoed in the book, and it also goes into a lot of other topics like spirituality and religion, careers, school achievements, written as a series of studies of children of divorce across decades. it's not a negative book about divorce, but it definitely gives strong evidence for things not to do within a divorce, and gives you a window into a young mind trying to make sense of it, through hundreds of first person testimonials and interviews.

Anonymous wrote:Keep the pictures. My DH, who is the child of an acrimonious divorce, treasures the few he has.

Also, don't make holidays miserable. Shortly after DH married into my family, he stopped spending any holidays with his side of the family at all. I tried to encourage it, but he refused, because he was so sick of dealing with his parents and their endless sniping over the holidays. There was a time in his life where he went to three Xmas dinners in one day to satisfy them, and he just got fed up. He said he wasn't putting me and our eventual kids through that.

+1 It pains me every time my parents do or say something that suggests every moment they had together was a misery. That "misery" was my childhood. I don't question their choice to divorce at all - it was right for them and for me. But I challenge the notion that there were no good times. It just isn't true, and the pictures show it.

Keep the pictures. My DH, who is the child of an acrimonious divorce, treasures the few he has.

Also, don't make holidays miserable. Shortly after DH married into my family, he stopped spending any holidays with his side of the family at all. I tried to encourage it, but he refused, because he was so sick of dealing with his parents and their endless sniping over the holidays. There was a time in his life where he went to three Xmas dinners in one day to satisfy them, and he just got fed up. He said he wasn't putting me and our eventual kids through that.

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Anonymous wrote:The number one thing, looking back, is that I wish they had not made me shuffle between their houses every week (one week with dad, one week with mom). It left me feeling like I had no real home and was just living out of a duffel bag.

+1. Our schedule was 2 days, 2 days, 5 days, 5 days and it SUCKED. My friends' parents would even comment to me that it was so hard to try to make playdates with me because of my schedule. That's a lot for an 8 year old.

I'll also agree with the unpopular opinion on remarriage.

Don't use your kid as your therapist.

Don't point out things you dislike about your ex and then identify that trait in your child. To their face.

Put them away, but keep the photos. I'm always intrigued to look at them and think that, once upon a time, my parents could be in the same room and smiling.

How hard is it for the other parent to forward the email saying Larla is being asked for a play date. This is your day so please coordinate or decline.

As a stepparent if I have both addresses, I sent things like invitations to both parents since many would not work together.

Parenting with a every other weekend and 6 weeks summer is pointless. That's your favorite uncle situation, not a parent. At that point, just terminate the parents rights so everyone can move on.

You are very wrong. Plus logistically speaking divorced parents are not always able to remain within a 10 min drive from each other. 50/50 custody is not always possible when one parent gets relocated for work or various other life situations.

No, I am not. My husband has several kids. It was completely pointless especially when its so easy for mom to deny visits. Dad becomes a child support check. If a parent moves away with a child, the other parent should get all summer and every holiday. If the reality is the one parent rarely or never sees the child, the rights should be terminated and the custodial parent should be 100% responsible. We got sued by someone after one of the kids did something really stupid. The judge threw out the part of suing us but went after mom as she had custody but it was a huge mess and cost us a lot of money. Mom refused visits and Dad was a child support check as the courts would not uphold visitation.

I had an every other weekend situation with my dad and the idea that I'd have been better off with nothing is insulting and cruel. You're a step parent not a child of divorce so dont speak about that which you do not know.

You sound cold. You can have a robust relationship with your kids with limited visitation. I know because I had it. My dad called me all the time and we lived by a mantra of quality not quantity.

Seriously do not apply your bitter experience as a stepparent to try to encourage parental alienation. If you convince even one parent that this is true that results in a loving parent being alienated you will have done a terrible thing and literally made a person's entire life lesser.

Something that you need to be aware of are the stepparents like the PP.

They’re looking for any reason to aileanate kids from their parents and they’re absolutely obsessed with child support. Just look at PP saying it would be better to terminate the dad’s parental rights in exchange for no child support. There are horrible people out there - your ex could very well marry someone who hates your kids.

The biggest mistake my mom made was lack of financial planning. She never really caught on that divorce meant she had to do that herself. She remarried to someone who also has no money and no understanding of money. So I am paying for her and it sucks. Divorce is expensive.