A Daughter’s Perspective on Divorce

Those of you who have had experience with a divorce have probably had the thought “What about the children” pass through your mind. You wished you could know exactly how your children would react to the divorce. If they would fall apart and have it effect them for the rest of their lives, or if they would take it in stride and stay strong. Often couples contemplating a divorce will use their children as the reason why they stay together. One of our employees at Schmidt Law Firm has been that child whose parents stayed together for the kids, and this is her take on it:

My parents divorced when I was 22 years old. In my opinion, they should have never been married. They never did anything together. They were constantly fighting and never got along. Some people “stay together for the kids;” when I was a kid, I wanted my parents to get divorced. I just wanted them to be happy, and obviously they couldn’t do that as long as they were married. My parents are bitter now. They really don’t like each other. I think it’s because they just began to resent each other from their long, hateful marriage. I can’t help but feel like if they had divorced earlier on, it would have been less hateful. My dad would try to pit my sister and me against each other and my mom. He wanted us to hate her because he hated her. My mom would make snide comments about my dad to us. It was a hard situation for my sister and me, even though my sister was 18 and I was 22. Divorce is never easy at any age. My sister and I didn’t even live at home when the divorce started and we were still greatly affected. Even though the divorce was a struggle, we are all much happier now than we ever were when my parents were married.