My senior year of high school was supposed to be the best year of my life; it ended up being the worst. After 20 years my parents decided to end their marriage with a divorce. My sisters and I were left devastated, broken, and confused.
Now, three years later, I have finally learned the positive and negative effects my parents divorce had on me.Yes, it still hurts terribly every day, but you learn to deal with the pain. Being a child of divorce is very stressful, you want nothing more than for your parents to be happy, but you wish their happiness could be together. In the beginning of the divorce, you are left worrying and wondering if it was your fault. Was the divorce because of me? I thought that for so long, but I’ve learned to brush it off because it wasn’t about me.
I lost something when my parents got a divorce, I can’t say exactly what it is, but there's a part of me that’s just not there anymore and that’s missing. But with that missing piece, I found a big piece of myself that I didn’t give much attention to.
My Faith
Growing up, I attended Sunday school, bible school, and church regularly. As I got older, I started to get busy, where I hardly attended church or it’s activities except for Wednesday night confirmation, and when my parents divorce came along, I felt as though God had let me down. But when I was in my loneliest hour is when I found my faith again, God was the one I turned to. He led me through the tough times I was going through and stayed with me every second of every single day.
Psalm 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
With finding my faith again is such a positive thing to being a child of divorce, but a negative thing of being a child of divorce:
The Holidays
The holidays are the hardest for a divorced child. Being separated from either your mom or your dad on Thanksgiving or Christmas. The holidays are supposed to be the happiest times of the year and now they’re just sad because I can’t be in two places at once. There's no way I can choose a parent over the other. If my sisters and I are with my dad I can’t bear the thought of my mom being home alone for Thanksgiving or Christmas night, or the other way around, it makes me feel like the world's worst child. I call it the "Holiday Depression." (Don’t get me wrong, I still L O V E Christmas, you better not think you can skip out on me Santa!)
If you’re one of those people whose parents are still together and think they’re annoying, obnoxious, drive you insane, can’t wait to go to college and leave them, etc. and complaining about all these things. There are people out there (including myself and my sisters) that would give anything to have my parents back together again, even if it’s just for a day. I miss my family as one.
