It is the second week of November, and your phone is already doing the thing.
Text from mom: Are you coming to me for Christmas this year? I just need to know so I
can plan.
Text from dad, twenty minutes later: I want you to know she is going to be there. I hope
that is okay.
You put your phone face down on the counter. You have your own partner, your own
kids maybe, your own in-laws already expecting you on the 26th. And now you are
standing in your kitchen trying to figure out how to split a single holiday four ways while
processing something you are still not sure you fully understand.
Nobody prepared you for this part. And yet adult children of divorce, even grown ones,
carry a very real grief that almost nobody talks about.
The grief nobody gives you permission to feel
Everyone asked how your parents were doing. Almost nobody asked how you were
doing. You took the 11 pm calls. You listened to things you will never unhear. You
became the stable one because someone had to. And somewhere in all of that, you lost
the space to grieve your own loss.
Because you do have one. When parents divorce, adult children lose something real. The
version of home that existed in the past becomes complicated overnight. That is a
legitimate loss. It deserves real support, not just the expectation that you will handle it
because you are an adult.
When you found out things you did not ask to know
Sometimes adult children find out details about why the marriage ended that they were
never meant to carry. And sometimes the honest answer is more complicated than any
single reason, because marriages do not usually end in one moment. They drift apart
slowly, and then all at once.
However, it happened, carrying that knowledge comes with anger, guilt that is not
yours, and a loyalty trap that turns every holiday into a political statement you never
agreed to make.
And: this is their marriage. Not yours.
Your parents’ divorce is a real loss, and you are allowed to feel every complicated thing
about it. AND it is their marriage that ended. You have your own partner, your own
direction, your own life. Their choices are theirs to navigate. You do not have to manage
it for them.
The 11 pm calls are not a requirement. Splitting yourself four ways every December is
not your job. Setting a limit on what you are willing to hear is not abandoning your
parent. That is called putting your own oxygen mask on first. And it is allowed.
You are allowed to need support too
At AIM Counseling and Wellness, we offer divorce counseling and mental health
support for people at every stage of the divorce experience, including the adult children
who are holding everything together and are not sure how much longer they can.
You do not have to be in crisis to reach out. You just have to be carrying something
that is getting heavy.