Telling Your Kids about Their Divorce
WORKING COPY POSTED
And so the text came in on a Thursday night. "Hey we told James about the divorce tonight. Can you tell O? James wants him to know but doesn't want to tell him because he is afraid he will cry at school." So what do you do, you burst into tears and fevorishly text back "Are you sure?! Have you tried everything? Divorce is so permanent. You just don't know..." Because I do know. And, despite being divorced, I hate divorce. I want everyone to get a long and love each other, forever.
Telling my son about his friends parents divorce felt like I was telling him about ours. This was a house he spent a ton of time at. He loved that house and that family. I also loved that he was exposed to an intact, normal, household since he has had divorced parents since he was five years old.
But the whole thing got me thinking about what it must have been like for my friends to tell their kids about our divorce, when it's possible that they didn't even know what divorce was at that time.
You knew they were having trouble but you never ever thought they would get a divorce. What will you tell you kids? How will you explain to your daughter that her best friends parents will have two separate houses?
And if you are secretly wishing that you weren't wondering if you would let your daughter do sleep-overs at the fathers house anymore, don't worry you are human.
