Marrying into a Divorce: Part 1

A few years ago, a friend of mine found out she was expecting her third child. She was 41 and her next youngest child was 11 or 12.  Her oldest was 16. Among her many concerns about this pregnancy, was that she feared people would think she was...

that she was...

(divorced.)

She's not. I empathized with her, and found myself observing the dread she showed at the prospect that someone might think she was divorced. It was obviously very dear to her that she wanted nothing to do with the culture of divorce. Her logic made sense, as it would be quite common today for moms or dads with a particularly large age gap between children to have "traded in" their first spouses. That's a quote from another mom with a large age gap between her kids, who once boasted to me that she traded in her husband for an upgraded new model. I laughed instinctively (awkward), but I sure hope she doesn't talk like that in front of her older child- you know, the one with the substandard dad. cuz oh haha.

A little over four years ago, I was pregnant with my fourth child, and there was a seven year age gap between him and my third child. I remembered my friend's fear that people might think she was divorced. I wasn't overly concerned about what strangers might think of my family.

I was, however, in the company of juuuuuuust about no one else. The reality for me was that many of the moms I can think of with large age gaps between children really do have those large age gaps because of a divorce. Among the moms I know around my age who have both an 18 year old and a four year old, I am the unicorn.

mmmmm......... not funny. I really dislike divorce "humor" *

And speaking of unicorns, let's talk about divorce.
(sorry, I just couldn't think of a better segue.)

My mom was really good at planting anti-divorce wisdom into my head while I was a teenager. She didn't call it that, but that's what it was. My parents have been married for 44 years. They've maybe had more bumpy years than not, and our childhoods were far from idyllic. But the message they sent was that families stick together, though thick and thin. She would say things like "You can love a lot of people, but you can marry only one." She taught me about the bonds of shared memories. She would remind me that getting married in the Catholic Church gave us sacramental grace, which would carry us through the hard times. She taught me that getting an annulment in the the Catholic Church was never a guarantee, can take several years, if granted at all, and that those facts are not weaknesses of Church Law, but rather serve as a both deterrent from divorcing and a message that the sacrament is taken very seriously. She encouraged long engagements and big weddings. (Turns out big weddings often correlate with good marriages.) Living together before marriage would never have been tolerated, as it increases the chances for divorce. (It used to. It still might.) I never planned on marrying outside my faith for many reasons, one of which was that I had experienced first hand the steep price our family paid when my parents did. For me, as a second child and classic rule follower, if my mom said something would increase the risk of divorce, I paid attention. I had no intention whatsoever of ever getting divorced.

My parents were not really intrusive when it came to dating, but they did expect to at least be informed about who we were seeing, and would expect to see them at our dinner table regularly at some point. (If that didn't scare them off, not much would.)

My mother warned me, when I told her I was dating someone whose parents were divorced, that I should proceed with caution. (This was not a personal remark about my future husband's personality; this was, in her view, simply a fact.) She mentioned divorces tend to "run in families." (They kind of can. But a couple's choices can overcome this.) Being 19, in love, and sure I knew everything, I was unfazed. I simply quipped that each of his parents were re-married and had been for maybe 13-14 years each at the time or so, and I joked that at least they both "got it right the second time around." haha. (Obviously I had not developed my disdain for divorce humor yet.)
"Uh-huh," mom said, "and so what does that tell you about the realities he's grown up with?"
"I don't follow you."
"That the first time around is when you get it wrong, and that the first time isn't the only time."
"oh." That did give me pause.

Little did I know, that was the tip of an iceberg I would not more fully encounter for years.

“Divorce can be deceptive — legally it is a single event but psychologically it is a chain, sometimes a never ending chain, of events, relocations and radically shifting relationships strung through time, a process that forever changes the lives of people involved.” 
--Judith Wallerstein, Adult Children of Divorce Researcher


I didn't discover Judith Wallerstein's work until I needed to. She passed away at the age of 90, and was still writing a column for the Huffington Post on divorce and its permanent impacts on children. Specifically, her research and studies focused on how divorces impact the life-course trajectories for people whose parents had divorced as children. She began her unprecedented study in 1971, in the earlier years of the divorce tidal wave that swept the USA between the late 60s and early 80s.


Here's an excellent summary of her findings. Suffice to say, Dr. Wallerstein did NOT conclude that a divorce was a short-term event to be absorbed with a child's presumed "resilience," which was and still is sometimes, a prevailing thought.

In 1972, Dr. Wallerstein documented a conversation she had with Dr. Margaret Mead, a famous cultural anthropologist. Dr. Mead said to her: "Judy, there is no society in the world where people have stayed married without enormous community pressure to do so, and I don't think anybody can predict what you will find."

Right now, my plan is to write two more posts eventually, about how I am literally married into a divorce. My husband's emotional well being is a priority for me, and while I have at times been inundated with stories from both sets of his parents about his upbringing, surprise surprise, they don't really have the whole story about his feelings. After nearly 20 years of marriage, he's divulged enough to me about his perspective as a child of divorce that explains so much about his basic wiring. Some of this didn't click for me until very recently. Turns out you really can learn new things about your husband after 20 years!

This will not be a series about either of those noted researchers I mentioned earlier.

This will not be a series about whether I think any couple should or should not get divorced. (Not my circus, not my monkeys. I have my own, thanks.)

This is a series about how a 35 year old divorce still impacts my life, my husband's life, and our children's lives, and how my family still makes adjustments. 

Next up: Guess what? If I ask the Googles for advice in juggling two sets of in-laws, I get NOTHING. (I'm sure there's another circus joke in there somewhere.)  So I'll write my own.
After that I think I'll write about that "enormous community pressure" Dr. Mead referenced. I just find that statement both fascinating and of paramount importance. Stay tuned!








*Someecard used with permission