9 Lessons for Divorcing Parents from a child of multiple divorces

(Written from my experience knowing this doesn’t apply to all families or all divorces)

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1. When you divorce, your child becomes homeless. Homeless? Surely not because both parents have houses now. Well, when you were together the child went home from school to their house, now, they go to either their mom’s house or dad’s house, not their house.
2. Do not even attempt to get into another relationship soon to “provide another father figure” for child. The child needs you to solve your own problems first, because your problems will become their problems unless you show them how to fix them.
3. It is never ok to send child support money with the child to travel to their other parent’s house. This will make the child feel like a commodity. Just for reference, once I was visiting my father as a child and got upset about something as all children do and he said to me “i pay for you to come visit me and you act like this?!?!?” he also many years later said “you must work to pay the bills that you choose to make” and I was the bill.
4. Live reasonably close to your ex-partner. When I moved two states away from my father in Pennsylvania, my mother and I would meet him in a parking lot of a McDonald’s in Maryland and it felt like being part of a drug deal after dark. The time spent traveling is time taken away from a child to do their homework, explore hobbies, etc. Most kids just go home after school and don’t even think of not having time or a desk to do their homework over the weekend. Children also lose time having to adjust to the new environment/rules at each house among many other losses. Let me not even start with sleep loss having to adjust to new beds/schedules/eating habits back and forth.
5. The stress will last a lifetime and cause chronic illness. ACES(adverse childhood experiences) studies are right. I am 45 years old and still haven’t recovered from my parents’ divorces. (They both remarried and divorced again.) I would give my left arm and right leg if it would mean no child in the world had to go through what I went through.
6. There are three ways you may see your ex, but only one matters. First, your ex-romantic partner. You may feel jealous, anger towards them for not understanding your needs, mad that they moved on and you didn’t, very shortsighted and shallow. Second, your baby mamma or baby daddy, you think of them as a sperm or egg donor, unimportant, just a mistake you made getting into the relationship/having kids with that person, but they are not a person to you, just a responsibility you will have follow you around for the rest of your life. Third, (the one that matters) they are the parent of your child, a person you don’t want the child to hate because they will end up hating the parts of themself that are like their parents. They provided half of your child’s heritage and should be honored and respected if you want the child to learn how to respect themself and others.
7. Your child may be bullied for your divorce. Yes, I know the child has nothing to do with your choice to divorce, but that doesn’t matter to other children from intact rich families of particular religious persuasions. They will be bullied relentlessly just the same.
8. It is ok for you to find extra support for your child (a therapist, etc.) ONLY if you seek out extra support for yourself and you show your child this. I was sent to play therapy at 6 years old to help me deal with their divorce. I felt like my parents didn’t want to fix themselves (the cause of my problems) and just wanted someone else to fix me, as if I was the problem to begin with. I became a life long mental patient as a result. It solidified that I was the cause of the divorce/the problem if my parents didn’t have to go to therapy, it surely was my fault. Don’t make the child think they are going through all of this alone and SHOW THEM. After you take the child to therapy, go to therapy yourself and have the child wait in the waiting room while you are in session, both parents even. This shows you are in it together.
9. On rare occasions, divorce will lead to some small joys for the child that last a lifetime. All I can say that I got out of all of this was on the way to my dad’s house on my weekends with him we would stop at the video store and rent videos to watch. I got to watch Jean-Claude Van Damme movies and as much wrestling as I could ever dream of with him. To this day, action movies mean more to me than food and I am so glad I lived through the timeline when video stores existed.

I wrote at least 15 on my shower bars while taking a bath, but couldn’t read my handwriting again for 6 of them. Will update if remembered.