Posted on 01/15/2026 5:04:09 PM PST by DoodleBob
If you ever want to get an interesting – sometimes shocking – glimpse of today’s culture, try reading the advice columns that populate many of the nation’s newspapers. A letter to Slate’s “Dear Prudence” column caught my eye today.
The letter writer explained that a friend (“Chrissy”) in her late 30s was still dealing with the effects of her parents’ divorce, roughly 25 years after it had happened. Chrissy’s “heart was irrevocably broken, and she lost all trust in relationships,” which, of course, made the idea of a long-term commitment difficult for her to navigate.
The writer of this letter, also a child of divorce, expressed her disgust at Chrissy for not moving on emotionally. She said that Chrissy’s home had been a loving one and that the divorce had been amicable, while her own home had been abusive and the divorce had been messy. Prudence responded that it is indeed time for Chrissy to get over her parents’ divorce, and furthermore, that continuing a friendship with Chrissy would be toxic for the writer.
It’s likely true that Chrissy needs some help processing and accepting her parents’ divorce, but those who callously dismiss her “stuckness” are just ignoring the lifelong trauma that divorce can bring to a child’s life. I can’t help but wonder: how many of the problems that we see in society today – hookups, single parenthood, children and teens with psychological problems, anger and rage, etc. – have their roots in the divorce mindset (and practice) that permeates our society?
I can almost hear in response the usual talking points about how amicable divorces aren’t harmful to children, or how children who are in rough homes are better off when their parents divorce. But I wonder if that is really true.
According to Leila Miller, children of divorce – even so-called good divorces – have many untold stories. She tells these stories in her book “Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak.” In talking to these people, Miller found that many are besieged by unsettling feelings, feelings that they often hide from their parents, who have enough of their own baggage to deal with. Parents may eventually move on from their first marriage, but children have a much more difficult time, as the divorce erases part of their own history and sense of place, particularly as many children of divorce live like vagabonds, traveling back and forth from one home to another.
Fear of abandonment and difficulty navigating future relationships is another problem that children of divorce encounter. As one middle-aged woman told Miller:
I believe [the divorce] instilled a fear of abandonment in me with regard to all of my relationships. I developed problems trusting people to be there for me, believing that when the going got rough, people would leave me. I never learned any skills for solving conflict in relationships. As much as I desperately craved intimacy and love, the closer someone came to me, the more terrified I was of getting hurt, or worse—abandoned. I unconsciously sabotaged relationships, as I didn’t know how to receive and accept real love …
Perhaps the struggles of Chrissy, in the “Dear Prudence” letter, are more legitimate than her irritated friend was able to see.
Unfortunately, Miller’s findings aren’t outliers. Elizabeth Marquardt, herself a child of divorce, presents similar views in her book “Between Two Worlds.” She tries to bust the myth of a “good divorce” such as Chrissy’s parents had. “Advocates of the ‘good divorce,’” she writes, “refuse to recognize that our childhoods were dominated by frequent sad departures.” Endure that for any amount of time as a child, and you might soon become calloused and removed from the world. That or just an emotional wreck.
The work of Miller and Marquardt might seem strange. After all, divorce is nothing new. We’ve lived with it for ages, and family breakups are a dime a dozen – over 630,000 divorces were reported by the CDC in 2020 alone.
But that’s exactly why we need to talk about it. We’ve become far too comfortable with divorce, and we don’t speak out against it for fear of stepping on toes. But we shouldn’t be silent, because the fallout of divorce affects all of us, even those who come from intact families. Because divorce is so prevalent, everyone has multiple friends and contacts who are children of divorce, and thus everyone encounters the associated difficulties: the fear, the abandonment, the displacement, the inability to deal with feelings that have followed these poor children into adulthood.
Years ago, some relatives of mine went through a divorce that threw their children into the displacement and confusion that come with parental separation. In recent years, the effects of that divorce have been playing out in those children as they try to navigate their adult lives. Seeing this turmoil, their mother sadly said, “If I had known what my divorce would do to my children, I never would have done it.”
Would that we could all have the same epiphany.
What’s always fascinating - and, frankly, saddening - in these threads are the lengths to which ‘conservatives’ twist themselves like leftists to justify divorce.
In theory, conservatives are God-fearing people. Our Lord was clear about divorce. He didn’t pile on a ton of qualifiers. “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
And that’s a One-Way ticket to Hell. Do not pass Go.
Leftists similarly twist themselves into pretzels to justify all sorts of immorality. They get (rightly) bashed. But divorce? Well, Doodle….you don’t get it…it’s complicated….she’s was a beyoch/he’s a loser.
Actually…I DO get it. Your spouse is a handful. Or…maybe….YOU are a handful. Ok…work within the Law of God. Separate and stay chaste. Counseling. Fight for morality. Whatever…. Figure out the problems.
The solution to a boy who wants to be a girl isn’t reassignment surgery.
The solution to a terrible spouse isn’t divorce.
Or, be like a leftist, and make up whatever rule makes you feel good.
I knew a couple who were multi millionaires several years ago. This couple was one of the wealthiest families in my home town of Tucson. They decided to go their separate ways and looked closely at their respective attorneys and the direction they were being taken. They wisely decided that their respective attorneys were in the game for a big payout. They took a long weekend and worked out a settlement agreement together. They had a paralegal draw up the agreement and they both signed it. They then took copies to their respective attorneys and said that this was their final settlement. The attorneys didn’t get the big payout they were expecting.
‘ The solution to a terrible spouse isn’t divorce.’
Oh good grief.
You suffer until death if you want.
Suffer for a few years or eternity.
I didn’t make the rules.
Oh H** yes.
I read that in the year my parents got divorced and I was 8 years old in 1955, the number of children in “single parent households” was 54,712 (11.1%). But for years I held to the figure of 5% which I read in an almanac. Either way, it was an oddity.
Suffering for eternity?
For no longer putting up with the bs of a spouse?
Q, no such thing as eternity for biological be.
Second, your delusions are your own, don’t expect others to buy into them.
And yes, you didn’t make the rules. You also don’t understand them.
Thank you for proving my point.
I don’t wish Hell on anyone.
Jesus is clear.
Souls are at risk of damnation.
I’ll pray.
Divorce is generational. It affects the children (no matter how old they are) along with any grandchildren too.
Kids know when they see grandma and grandpa separately that something's wrong. They may not know why until later, and yet it impacts them on what a healthy relationship is vs. is not.
I could write a book on this topic alone.
“In theory, conservatives are God-fearing people. “
In theory, conservatism has nothing to do with religion.
“But it was not this way from the beginning.”
In the beginning there was only one man and one woman.
“And that’s a One-Way ticket to Hell. Do not pass Go.”
Their is only ONE unpardonable sin.
“Separate and stay chaste. “
“And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth And multiply in it.”
‘Thank you for proving my point.’
How’d I do that?
‘I don’t wish Hell on anyone.’
I don’t wish imaginary BS on people either.
‘Jesus is clear.’
Of course. Have you read the beatitudes?
‘Souls are at risk of damnation.’
Souls are not a real thing in the way you think they are.
‘I’ll pray.:
Spend you time as you wish.
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In most divorces someone gets “disposed”of. Children learn this and are damaged inside in a way that can never be healed.
If the demographics of the Minnesota anti ICE mobs were carefully studied. the majority of the protestors are likely the products of divorced parents.
💯
East Germany divorcing itself from Russia was a good one.
The divorce of the Confederacy from the Union not so much.
It's easy to judge if you've never been married to a genuine abuser, a situation that requires at the very least a measure of civil protection for the child(ren). Some people are skilled at "passing" in the early days, but slide after their conquest of a mate deep or deeper into cheating, overspending, alcohol or drugs, and sometimes all of them at once -- even (or especially) the wealthy, privileged professional types -- and life becomes a living hell of guilt, shame and terrors.
Maybe you think God wouldn't approve of taking the kids out of that mess, or even being willing to endure years of lawfare by self-aggrandizing spouse against the one remaining sober and protective of the kids. If you've never experienced such a thing, be grateful that God has blessed you; don't take His blessing for granted; and try being compassionate to those not similarly blessed, but sorely tested. Many who are first in this life shall be last in the next, and vice versa.
I don’t remember the part where Jesus said “divorce is a one way ticket to Hell”. I think I remember the part where you can pray for forgiveness for even the worst sin. 😏
You weren’t redundant, to me.
You have my sympathy for all the years of pain and you have my respect for moving forward in a healthier way.
May you keep yourself healthy and continue to help others to do so, as well.
Absolutely.
But the problem, per se, is unwinding the subsequent sin.
I know a woman whose husband divorced her. He remarried; she didn’t.
Let’s say the ex wakes up one day, and goes to Church and confesses that he divorced his wife for something other than adultery. That addresses that sin.
But when he tells the priest about his new wife, he is stuck. If he’s not living like brother and sister with #2, he will be in a constant state of sin. He would have to leave #2 and either remarry #1 or live celebate.
Again, I don’t make the rules. But I see the perfection in them.
And than you for reminding me that pride cometh before the fall.
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