Author Susan Rowland's Divorce Blog

This is the first in a series of blogs about divorce.

Just to introduce myself, I am author Susan K. Rowland. My first book, Make Room for God: Clearing Out the Clutter, was published by St. Anthony Messenger Press in 2007. Last year, my editor asked me to write about my divorce experience, and my new book, Healing After Divorce: Hope for Catholics, is the result. It will be released around August 16 this year.

Whether you are just starting the divorce procedure or divorced long ago, but still hurting and trying to rebuild your life, you’ve come to the right place.  It helps to talk about it … and it helps to have friends to share the journey.

Let’s talk about one issue that I only touched upon in the book, but which came up recently in a radio interview. A caller asked, “What do I do about my grown kids? They blame me for the divorce, and they don’t seem to ‘get’ it. They keep inviting my ‘ex’ to come to my family gatherings — and he’s just not welcome in my house.”

I have a theory that grown children may ‘act out’ more than younger children when  it comes to their parents’ divorce. Daughters may blame the mother because, of course, Daddy can do no wrong. Sons may do the opposite, blaming their dads for everything. The oldest child — or all of them — may try to make the parents reconcile (long after it’s too late).

Little kids don’t want to see their divorced parents fight; they want the love of both parents — ‘let’s not rock the boat’ may be their unconscious motto. But older kids?? They may actually start some of the post-divorce conflicts. They may favor one parent over the other, pick fights, blow up over little or nothing. Of course, they are hurting, too, and they don’t want to admit that.

What do we parents do about it?

A few thoughts — just off the top of my head:

• The healthier you are, the better equipped your children will be to handle this trauma. So concentrate on your own mental health first. Remember how airlines teach parents of young children to deal with an emergency: “Put on your own oxygen mask first, then help your child with his.”
• You cannot make decisions for your children, and you cannot change their thinking. But you can insist that you be spoken to respectfully and that your personal rules be followed. The gal whose daughter tried to invite her ‘ex’ to a family gathering was firmly told, ‘No,” and the dad was called to uninvite him. That’s it. If the daughter had then refused to come to the gathering, that would be her decision.
• The grown child who ‘acts out’ is hurting just as much as the weepy kindergardener whose parents have split up. Except that the grown child won’t express herself as openly. Try to get your grown children to talk out their feelings.  Acknowledge your kids’ feelings, tell them you know this is hard. Be sure to tell them how much you love them, that your love won’t change just because the marriage ended.
• While I am not an advocate of ‘trashing’ the ex-spouse, it will help your grown children to talk frankly about what went wrong in the marriage. You should not put all the blame on your ‘ex.’ That would be unrealistic. There were a lot of things going on that ruined the relationship. Some of them were your issues. Some came from your families of origin. What can you all learn about good and bad relationships from this? It would be helpful to your children to be able to discuss it with them–when you have figured this part out yourself!

HOW ABOUT YOU???
What ‘issues’ have you had with your grown children during and after your divorce?

How did you deal with them?