damn near plagiarism

not really but i'm running out of friggin' titles. anyway, a friend posted on FB today "i'm a child of divorce - i know what i'm talking about". i'm not calling that friend out by name because i'm not calling him out at all. i don't know what the context was or what he was talking about that he was affirming that he knew what he was talking about about (hehe). but it got me to thinking about my own experience of divorce and i am truly running out of shit to talk to - well, stuff i'm willing to.

my parents separated when i was three ; again when i was eleven and finally for good right before i was eighteen. by the time i was sixteen i sat them each down separately and begged them to divorce. i don't remember much about my reaction at three. but at eleven - the first two months were hard. especially since the way it happened was i came home from two weeks at overnight camp - we drove four hours with the two of them losing their shit at each other; got home and he went upstairs and packed and left. little blindsided. but after the initial shock - it was actually pretty good. it was hard on my mom and of course i was with her more so i fought with her more but overall my parents had begun to actually interact with me consistently as opposed to randomly fighting with each other through me. plus there was no more constant screaming in my house. the only thing that really sucked about it was being made fun of by kids in my neighborhood. when my mother started spending sundays with us i was pissed.

now don't get me wrong. we had good times all together as a family - truly and there were some really good years in fact. but eventually . . . like i said by 16 i could see that they were fighting a losing battle. i told them i respected them trying and i knew they cared for each other but that they would never ever work. and if you know my parents then you know that trying to picture them together is like trying to couple chimpanzees and giraffes. seriously. they were dismissive of me and the next two years went into such a full tilt crazypants that i just broke off from them mentally and emotionally for a few years.

also, let me put a foot note here that i love my parents. this isn't about bashing them. my parents are fantastic people. they always tried to talk to me and treat me like a person and with respect. and i'm sure that in part they stayed together for my sake - they felt it was something i deserved. so not one word of this is intended to cast any aspersions on them. they were young and in a trying circumstance with few ideas of how to handle it. but they tried to find the answer and that part is good. they taught me to seek answers. the problem is - they never taught me when to quit. the only way out was for all things to be completely desiccated. and there was no sense that sometimes things just don't work. if it doesn't work; it's because you didn't try hard enough. and it's your fault.

so anyway, the point is (i realize i've lost my coherence) - the general outlook is that divorce is horrible for kids and that anyone who says the opposite is just full of it. now, i agree that you can't walk at the first sign of trouble especially when there are kids involved but at some point you truly are doing them a favor. i promise.