Divorce Happens. And When It Does, The Children Have Needs
Children of divorce struggle through those scars that birth emotional cautions in our relationships. Despite the difficulties, we still do our best to love the best we can:
1. Commitment is a roller coaster ride.
On one hand, it might as well be a part of the ten commandments. We consider it in every relationship we have because it’s evidence that it won’t end in disaster. On the other hand, we shy away from it because commitment is so much more than words and we have to constantly question if it’s a real thing or not in our relationships.
2. Heavy trust issues…
because we’ve seen how fast trust can be shredded with our parents. We’ve see how they’ve trusted each other through vows, how we unknowingly trusted them to keep the family together, and how easily broken those trusts were. We enter our 20s with trust imprisoned, only opening it to those we’d trust with our lives.
3. Having a guarded heart…
in which we keep our emotions in a jack-in-the-box because we don’t want to be vulnerable, but keeping it all in can cause us to burst. So when we do show emotions, they’re extra intense.
4. Which is why we’re bad at expressing emotions.
We cry at the wrong times, we don’t say “I love you enough,” and have signature expressionless faces.
5. That nagging feeling that we’re frauds.
We’ve felt this guilt of us being the reason for our parents’ divorce even when they tell us we’re not. We carry that guilt into college graduation, getting a great job, winning an award, and other accomplishments in which we feel like we don’t deserve them.
6. Being very self-aware.
Watching the divorce of our parents stirred up that feeling of losing all control. So we try to keep control over ourselves and the environment around us.
7. Trying to please everyone…
because we’ve had to go back and forth with our parents, giving them as much love and appreciation as we can so they wouldn’t feel like we’re favoring one over the other.
8. Intense fear of abandonment…
that lives in the back of our minds. We secretly believe that the people we love in our lives will leave us one way or the other.
9. Relationship paranoia…
in which we tend to get in our own way because we believe no matter what happens, the person we love will leave us. So we become closed off, pushing them away.
10. Being overly affectionate…
to our lovers and friends as if to always remind them of how much we love them, in case they forgot.