Societal judgments just can’t help but add salt to the wound sometimes.
By Anne Smith
“You have a problem with everyone around you, but as I see it, there is an obvious explanation here,” my therapist said.
At 12 years of age, I had been in therapy for a year as it was suggested for my sister and me to get help processing our parents’ impending divorce. In this particular session, I was talking about my never-ceasing frustration with the unreciprocated relationships I had around me. The point she would eventually digress to is now that I am a child from a broken home, as in my mother and father are divorced, she said that I was likely to follow their pattern and be unable to make a stable home for myself. This was the first time that I’d been exposed to this idea.
Her therapeutic water fountain was trickling as she uttered that statement, it almost mocked me with its tranquility as I was in disbelief, in a “child growing-up overnight” sense, feeling like someone just chucked a ball right at my head. It was humiliating, I went from having the perfect house in the friendly neighborhood to sitting on a gray, broken-in couch hearing some therapist tell me news I thought was only told to people who did something to deserve it. Later on, I would be angry but not know it at the time. Looking back, she really ripped off a band-aide that maybe didn’t need to be removed so early on, or at all?
Come to find out, she really wasn’t the right therapist for me, as there was a continued pattern of blaming my family’s shattering on my outlook. But I’ve thought about that conversation for years.
* * *
It is estimated that around 50 percent of all marriages in the United States will end in divorce or some type of separation. And yet, societal opinion about the decision to divorce is negative. Setting that precedent is the negative portrayal of divorce in media, “It was common to see popular media portray a traditional family as good, while families affected by divorce were characterized as dysfunctional.” stated Merel Family Law P.C. In a study conducted by Victor Hiller and Magali Recoules they stated, “An increase in the proportion of individuals who disregard the stigma from social norms will rise divorce rate.”
That being said, I will admit the outcome of a study conducted by Wilkinson and Finkbeiner Family Law Attorneys on divorce doesn’t help my case, saying “Children of divorce are 50 percent more likely to marry another child of divorce.” To make matters worse I am at higher risk as they go on to reveal, “Certain studies have shown that daughters of divorced parents have a 60 percent higher divorce rate in marriages than children of non-divorced parents while sons have a 35 percent higher rate.”
I know that doesn’t bode well for me.
The more I searched the more I found this was a stereotype many believed or even played into. This may have been why, when my parents got divorced, people talked to me like I’d gone through some misfortune.
* * *
Spoiler alert, even after an assertion made by a therapist more than a decade ago, I have found that my parent’s divorce was one of the best things for me.
When the explosion of my parents’ initial separation ended and we got into our new norm, I didn’t have much experience with non-traditional nuclear family living situations, I was very naïve. Surprisingly it wasn’t the melting away of the union that my parents vowed to keep that dazed me, but responses to it. There were staring eyes, heads turning, and pursed lips. Never mind trying to step out of the turmoil of my parent's relationship, but the reactions made me feel like a criminal on trial. And I had no control over it.
There were remarks such as, “Well this is a consequence of things being allowed to fall apart that you’re going to learn how to live with” or “I’m so sorry you are going to have to deal with this from now on but be aware of how it affects your relationships.” I felt like people were telling me from the beginning that I would be messed up from the divorce, this was a defeating narrative, even as an adult now.
While some people meant well, even when they were saying the wrong thing, because even as a kid, I could pick up on the not-so-subtle theme, I am a product of instability. Regardless of the tone or presentation, there was hardly ever an original perspective on the situation, I was stuck with the same negative reinforcement around me. Within myself, there was a growing feeling of the need to be self-conscious.
Admittedly, religion reared its head into the situation making it worse at times. I was involved in a youth group at the church I was going to at the time. But when I say involved, I mean similar to a dog being allowed to run around in a yard only if he is leased and anchored to a stake in the yard, to prevent him from running too far in any direction. My previous therapist’s judgment of me wasn’t unique to her professional opinion. Because I was allowed to participate in events and sing during worship, but outside that, no trust was placed in me.
I was told it was because “I am emotionally immature due to my circumstances” and “I had no good examples to lead me in life”. Therefore, I was only ever meant to be a sheep in a group of shepherds because of my home life. Slowly as the dismissive treatment got in the way of friendships, and growth opportunities, I began to boil over with hurt. The adult leaders of this group who boxed me in didn’t realize they were doing more harm than good.
But as I said, I learned to see the lesson in messy circumstances. During those years in my life, I learned there could be a positive to all this that gives me an edge to help others in a way the others in the youth group couldn’t.
There came a growing sense that yes, divorce did change the fact that I was unique in my outlook, but it wasn’t the type to thwart possibility for me.
* * *
The tables started to turn at the beginning of college. Really, I am not quite sure what made me get back up on the horse and try again with therapy, but I felt it was the right thing to do. There was no settling, I wasn’t happy with the way things were.
Maybe there was another approach to working through all that had happened to me while breaking down the patterns I had built up for the future. And there was, it was called cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Through this process, everything was questioned. As time went on in CBT, I learned a lot about myself. Unlike the band-aide that was ripped off several years ago, these realizations happened at the right time and launched me further into believing I wouldn’t sabotage my relationships moving forward.
Tracking my thought process to better understand my emotions and therefore regulate my reactions, was the golden ticket. The only person who can dictate how I act regardless of what my parents went through was me, which means if I don’t want to be “broken”, I don’t have to be. This also highlighted the uphill battle I was fighting to control other people’s opinions was on the subject. With the guidance of my CBT therapist, she would reinforce I was more than a distorted image of other people’s negligent quips. She would say, “You are capable of connecting to others and forming healthy relationships”.
No longer did I succumb to the mindset that would only lead down a predestined path. Moving forward I recognized my future was separate from what took place in the past. There will always be a heightened awareness for society’s judgments, this depiction of misfortune that only gathered shallow sympathy and disapproval. Like a proverbial ball and chain, it has been the narrative to so many others in this scenario. If truly 50 percent of marriages end up this way, then is the other 50 percent that not divorced, the more respectable portion of society? What if divorce was as accepted as marriage? I don’t like idealizing what would happen if they were still together, but all I know is much growth arose from the end of my parents’ marriage. And not even my therapist from all those years ago couldn’t tell me that isn’t a positive.