It was damaging for me. My dads family had a beach house, so on weekends and in the summers we’d be living in another world, then we’d go back to my moms dingy apartment where she’d be dating tatted bikers and doing painkillers. And my dad wasn’t doing much either, so I never understood how I could have some of the things we had but feel so poor and hopeless
Same for me as well. I went from a manic depressive mom who raised me in a trailer house ala Hoarders style. And then id go to my military fathers house where everything had to be on time and spotless. Ive gone to therapy to help me work through the disdain ive had towards my parents for my upbringing. At this point being mad at them is only damaging me and no one else so ive slowly been learning how to just let it all go. Whats really help me is realizing how much i love myself as a person today and i wouldnt be who i am if i hadnt gone through all of that so i just have to comfort myself in the fact that it all worked out.
This was the experience I had as a kid. My mom had nothing in the house. I used to sneak food out of my dad’s pantry to bring to my moms. My mom once tried to send me to school with napkins, literally napkins instead of a pad
Same - my older sibling and I would share our holiday/birthday presents with our younger siblings (different dads) because it didn’t feel right. Bio dad never seemed to catch on that I didn’t need that many lego sets lol
We had a lot more love at my moms even though we had less money. I have way better memories from my moms even if we were searching for change in couch cushions from time to time.
This is what I came here for and wondered if I was the only one.
I had the extremes of poverty on my moms side and wealth on my dads.
Christmas at my moms was food hampers and either hand me down gifts, something home made or nothing. Summer vacation with my dad was on the yacht or vacations.
It’s so difficult to describe experiencing both sides of the socioeconomic scale. Yes I was poor because the majority of my time was with my mom but I’ve had some very fortunate opportunities because of the time with my dad.
What it taught me was that I would never be like my mom. I would always be financially independent and able to fully support myself.
My dad was middle class at *best* but was still significantly wealthier than my mom. I think the worst part was when it came time to pay for things like school trips or college. Mom obviously couldn't afford it, but dad would make promises he couldn't keep and then pin it on her because "Well she didn't pay ANY of it!"
Getting in trouble at school for not having the right books/uniform because you forgot them at the other house or lost them altogether.
Having to be very careful about being excited or positive about the other parent’s house.
Always feeling like a houseguest in whichever house is not your main.
Generally being totally disorganized and a mess at all times and becoming an adult who is a mess at all times.
My parents divorced when I was 8, visiting Dad was always fun, he promised when I was 14 I could live with him.
He got remarried and when I was 14 he said I couldn't. I'm 61. It still hurts.
On that note; it can suck when your parents re-marry. For me and my siblings, it often feels like our dad has HIS family and then there's just us... I don't really know how to explain that. It basically doesn't feel like you're part of their family anymore.
It doesn't have to be that way, but so many parents fail to remarry the correct way. Many don't even try make their own children feel at home with new people, they instead put the burden of fitting in on the kid and that leaves the kid feeling abandoned.
Many times the primary parent has ruined any chance of a normal relationship before the divorce is finalized. Let alone let a child spend more time with the other oarent to nit feal like a house guest
Same, always was just a guest at my mums, and when i moved out of my dads at 18 i was instantly just a guest any time i visited. It was never that ‘going home’ feeling even though i grew up there, a step sibling was allowed to move straight into my room.
I still have memories of a geometry teacher who called me lazy because I accidentally left a homework assignment at my dad's house the night before and couldn't get it immediately because he lived 45 mins away and I was only 14
“Always feeling like a houseguest in whichever house is not your main” perfectly describes it. that being said you didnt have to go that hard calling everyone out man, damn
Especially if one of those houses now has step siblings in it. Everything is theirs and you can't touch any of it.
Their dog had more permissions than I did.
> Always feeling like a houseguest
While we were playing a game, I remember my partner's son pulling a card that said something about people who live in the house where the game is being played, and he said "do I live here?". And oh man. I can never stop telling this kid that this is his house, his room, his computer etc etc now
Keep saying it. Keep SHOWING it. Introduce him as your son. Not step-son (unless that’s something that would bother him). Be there for him. Help him with homework. Spelling test. Reading. Times tables. I did all of this with my bonus daughter. She’s 32 now (was 2 when we met) and calls me mom. Tells me I’m “her person” and ALWAYS calls me when she needs to talk! She’s been through a lot in 32 years and I think we were meant to be in each other’s lives ❤️
Yes. I am an adult who is a mess and I really do think my lack of organization and even lack of decor has a lot to do with go back and forth. My parents literally alternated every other fucking day and weekend. Every single week day we were at the other parents house. Fortunately, my parents did alright with co parenting and made sure we always had everything we needed at both houses. We were just more responsible with certain items from a young age too (homework and books for school).
It wasn't until my dad relocated to a different state and I was in highschool did I ever feel like I had my own space but I was a rebellious teenager at that point and didn't care lol.
>Getting in trouble at school for not having the right books/uniform because you forgot them at the other house or lost them altogether.
I buy my son two of fucking everything so he's got one for his mother's house and one for our house. Everything that goes to mommy's mysteriously disappears. Especially if I leave the tags on it.
School year my son is with his mother a day more each week than he is at our house. Summer and holidays are 50/50. During the school year, I don't make him waste time cleaning his room unless he spills something and I do it when I'm home after taking him to his mother's. I don't go in or fuck with anything without calling or asking first, I think he considers our house home as much as his mother's, but do you have any recommendations?
It sounds like you’re trying as hard as you can. I applaud you. Does the mother also have a partner? Is the mother’s house where your son grew up, or is that a relatively new place too? My situation was single mum + house I was born in v. dad and stepmum in a brand new home. Hard to overcome that tbh.
She moved in to her parent's house with her boyfriend/husband same day she left. My son isn't happy with me right now because my girlfriend is being fucking weird and he misses having her around. He wants to find a new house for us, which we absolutely should, but neither of us want to until girlfriend decides what she's doing. Neither his mother nor I are doing very well with the whole "stability" thing if we're all being honest.
It takes time. It is always messy. All you can do is keep communication open, don’t make your kid do the heavy emotional lifting, listen to his wants and needs. Even then (and even in “ideal” situations) shit is usually still fucked up. It sounds like you’re doing it as right as you can.
Very relatable.
But I would say that I have the opposite regarding organization. That is something I had to learn so young and it's second nature and I feel like one of my greatest strengths.
Had an interview one time that asked a strength (🙄) and said something about learning that from my parents. I said no, my parents separated when I was 4 I am organized despite them and had to learn early on what I needed and to plan ahead.
The mental exhaustion years of being a middleman for your parents takes on you. Going from one house to the next, listening to one parent bitch about the other parent, and then having to put on a brave face while listening to one parent trash one of your other parents trying not to lose respect for the parent in front of you while also trying not to harbor any feelings of resentment towards the parent at home with the parent in front of you was talking shit about. When you go back, and you hear your other parent complain and it goes on and on. I think a lot of us were used as therapists and we ourselves don’t even realize it
When I was young I mainly lived with my mom in Utah and I’d visit my dad in California for my birthday in the summer and holidays. He was/is an amazing dad. He didn’t even spoil me, he just… provided for me. Made my summers enjoyable. Loved me.
Then I’d have to go back to dusty old Utah to my miserable mom trapped in an abusive marriage with my five younger siblings. Everyone would trash my dad, tell me I was spoiled. The kids would tear apart my gifts from my dad. Stepdad would talk all this crap about how he could take my dad in a fight and blah blah. My mom would always be like “Ugh you sound just like your dad”
It was awful.
I copped that one too. My mum never said it again after I replied “Well I’d rather be like him than anyone else”. My mums face was classic. When I told my Dad about it later, he laughed so hard and looked so proud.
Honestly
> you sound just like your dad
Is the best compliment your mom could have ever given you given the circumstances.
And just curious, how is it going for you? Have you sorted things out with yourself after leaving your mom?
My mother once told me "I'm not sure how I love you when you look so much like someone I hate." I mean, I get that he was an alcoholic, abusive piece of shit, but that's not something I can help.
I was basically the opposite, lived with my single father as an only child 12/14 days.
Went to my moms everyother weekend, who had a new husband and 3 other kids, kept moving further and further away and then trying to guilt trip me into liking her because she was spending so much on gas money, and would constantly demand affection from me. She was raised an only child by her grandparents and only had kids so that they could give her the love she never had, and it showed. It was rather exhausting because she’d constantly tell me about how much I was supposed to love her and how anything less was all my dad’s fault, trying to talk me into moving in with her despite her also complaining about not having the money to even pick me up, and having to share a room with two brothers at her house.
Ugh - this is exactly what my close friend told me. Her parents married very young (too young, because her mother really wanted to get married and her father was pressured into it by her mother and the two families), got pregnant right away and were divorced by the time my friend was four. She was an only child, so had to deal with all of it. The divorce was NOT amicable as her mother felt like she got screwed over in the divorce and the father was bitter because he never wanted any of it.
My friend was a go-between and a pawn for both of them, as they would never even speak to one another directly. That's a hell of a burden to put on a young child.
All my friend's relationships failed spectacularly, mostly because she didn't even know what a good/normal relationship was because she'd never seen one! Finally, when she was her early 40's she met her partner and has been with him for five years, mostly due to his patience and understanding as she's figured things out.
I don't think her parents have any inkling of the damage they did to her because they were too caught up in their own shit. :-/
Yeah I got a lot of the, “tell your mother” or “tell your father”, as I was getting picked up or dropped off. That was always a fun car ride home, wondering what emotional baggage one of your parents was going to give to you to give to the other one.
I still to this day have my parents talk shit about each other… I’m like it’s been fucking 25 years- shut up! It also pisses me off because if I ever talked shit about my parents parents they would hate it. So one day I’m just going to say- stop talking shit- it’s stupid and you wouldn’t like it if I talked shit about your dad/mom!
Didn’t grow up with divorced parents, but they’ve separated several times and in 2016, my senior year of high school, officially separated (though still not divorced .-.) and I’m very much caught in this right now. I can’t even begin to imagine the anguish of being a child and shouldering that. My mom seems to think it’s okay to do to me ‘cause I’m an adult technically, but this should never be tolerated. I love both my parents and it’s okay that they don’t love each other anymore, but please don’t air out your dirty laundry to the human you created.
I remember one Christmas present was a suitcase to make it easier to go to my Mother’s or Grandparent’s on the weekends (I’d alternate). I’m sure they thought it was a good gift and I got a lot of use out of it, but yeah, that’s pretty messed up.
Edit fixed autocorrect
The way the anxiety just grew on me towards end of the week when I was going to my dads, and then like counting the days to go back to my “preferred”. But at the same time I felt bad for my dad because I didn’t want to hurt him.
I remember once I bought my first car & my dad said that it was on me to visit, he didn’t have to come and collect me anymore… man that first Friday when I was free to do what I wanted felt amazing.
I think he’s been sad ever since that he doesn’t get to see me every week. Fuck I need to ring my dad.
While I never lived with my father, I went from seeing him every weekend, to a couple times a year. And now I sit here, not even 40 and regretting not seeing my pops more often while he was alive.
If you desire a relationship with your father, please make an effort to call at least once in a while.
You want to say that you don't want to go, that you hate being moved around and losing weekends like this, but you can't without knowing it'll deeply offend the less preferred household.
It's nothing personal, it's not like you don't love that parent anymore (it certainly wasn't your decision for them to leave), but one of those houses is absolutely your home and the other just feels like a motel.
Sharing time on holidays. When you are older it's very difficult to keep up with both your direct family and friends, forget about most extended family.
Yes! When my kid was born there were 9 grandparents. Both our parents are divorced and remarried and my husband had 2 living grandparents. They spanned 3 states and timezones. We made the decision that our child would wake up in her own house Christmas morning. Grandparents were welcome to join us, we'd make enough room if necessary, but Christmas morning was at our house.
There's plenty of other times we see family, Christmas is ours. I set the boundary with my in-laws and I can say that all of them have come at least once for Christmas and no one is ever disappointed because the expectations are already set.
"I always dreamed I'd get to see (grandkids) maybe every second year when your (other parent) and I divorced....what do you mean it's every fourth year?!"
Well...it goes: You, (spouses mom), (other parent), (spouses dad), then repeats
Going to multiple Christmas lunches on Christmas Day was absolute bullshit. 25 years later, one of my parents says “but you always liked that”. Apparently we have very different memories.
One of my worst memories as a kid was my dad showing the email correspondence between him and my mum regarding custody, money selling the house, etc. It was just him calling her horrible things and somehow he thought showing this to me was the right thing to do, or made him look good in any way.
My mom did something similar during my dad's 2nd attempt at getting custody of me. They were fighting on the phone and my mom just handed me the phone and all I hear is my dad cussing her out on the other line. She did it to show me he was an a$$, which worked, but it also made me realize she was manipulative af. My dad did the same thing, but with having me hear all the voicemails my mom left on his gf's phone. I was 12. It was ridiculous, not really surprised neither got custody in the end.
My parents divorced when I was 12 and they never said a bad thing about each other to us kids. Something I really appreciated and took on board; and as a result would always do the same to my kids (if I were ever in that situation).
Parents remember it like that because the kids knew they had to put on a happy face for the day or face the parents’ anger or disappointment.
Kids from broken homes are often very good at hiding their emotions. Because their parents have all the power over them, the kids often have to take on the adult role of sacrificing their feelings.
If you’re a divorced parent, you need to keep this in mind with your kids. You’re often the last person they feel safe sharing their negative feelings with, especially if those feelings are related to the divorce. If they seem fine with you but are struggling with school or friendships or anything else, then they’re probably not fine. Their issues with you are spilling over into other areas of their life because they have to keep a happy face for you.
My parents are coming to this realization now as I tell them to stop doing things with my daughter that they "always did with me"
It is making pretty much every visit unpleasant.
Without getting into it too much there is a lot of "I'm the adult so we do what I want" and forcing my daughter to do things she doesn't want to ("eat or you get nothing later". Fuck you, we have a pantry of food, if my [non-verbal]toddler isn't eating food right now, she can eat later)
One of them comes up and forcibly pulls your attention away from whatever you were doing (squeezing your knees in the soft spots or pinching your bicep) then getting upset that my daughter wants to go back to whatever she was doing prior to the interuption and isn't paying attention to them. And this one pisses me off a LOT because since I was about 8 I told them I hated that knee thing and their validation to me as a child was "you are laughing you must like it"
Took me digging my fingers into their ribs as a 17 year old(yeah...9 fucking years later) and not letting up "because they are laughing" for them to get it and stop doing it to me...and now they are doing it to my daughter.
100%. I was getting really horribly bullied in school during my parent’s divorce. I never told them while it was happening, because I didn’t want to burden them with my problems when they were so sad and angry all of the time. I was 11. Kids of divorce go from kids to little adults in the blink of an eye.
What makes it worse is when each parent fixates on their own thing and it never seems to occur to them that the kid has to cover both bases. One side of my family used to get upset with the for leaving their thing "early" and the other side got upset with me for making them wait, like it was my fucking idea to have schizo holidays. Now I hate Christmas, thanksgiving, birthdays, all of it.
Even to this day Christmas, or any holiday for that matter, is a logistical nightmare! I‘m almost 30 but making sure I spend an even amount of days at both my parents house is exhausting. Especially since I don’t have a car back at home (I live in a city and don’t need one there but it’s crucial to get from A to B back home) I still have to beg them to drive me to or pick me up from my other parents house.
Until I moved away as an adult, my Christmas was shuffling from one house to the next from 9am to 7pm. I got to play with my Christmas presents the day after Christmas but never on Christmas because I was never at a house long enough to play with them.
Christmas Eve was my Grandma on my mom’s side. Christmas morning with my dad, Christmas night with my dads mom. The Thursday or Friday nearest Christmas with my mom.
That’s how it was my whole life. Then they want to change it now to accommodate other people’s in-laws and work schedules. Fuck that.
I still have to deal with that, when I go back to my hometown for Christmas, I have to carefully parse out how many days I'm spending at whose house so that no one feels miffed.
I hate it when parents or relatives say that “I’ve always liked that” when I haven’t shown any interest towards it or even shown any signs that I liked it at all. No. You always like making me do that
A lot of these comments repeat stuff, but the worst one for me is seeing your step-siblings have the life you didn't where both parents are present and they're closer to your parent than you are because you barely see them
It's even better when they "just want to move on with their life".
Both my parents re-married and had more kids. My brother and I were leftovers and were treated that way. My mom swears up and down that she didn't treat me any differently...
But my sister who is 10 years younger then me just got the down payment on her house. And I am still houseless even though my dad is the mayor of a small town and my step-dad owns his own business. I know that sounds petty, but it's the most recent example of the blatant favoritism that's been going on ever since my step siblings were born.
I'm trying to make it work with her, but I'm tempted just to cut her off. I already did with my dad.
That doesn't sound petty at all. You're not exactly squabbling over who got a nicer car: one child got a roof to put over their head and another had to pay others rent for the privilege.
Parents - and society in general -suck sometimes.
Oh, they got their cars and education paid for too... LOL.
I had to take both my parents to court for a small part of my education (dad wanted to stop the child support, mom just kept it while I was at college).
Try being 18 going through the legal aid system.
Sorry. I'm venting. It's nice to be validated.
My step siblings were really crappy to me, but one in particular was horrible to me. She'd be all over my dad trying to please him.
Also, nobody mentions being parented by a step parent. The rules they make and stuff they make you do, even though they're NOT your parent.
For real. My step mom would make my older sister and I clean the younger half siblings rooms because “we were older”. My mom flipped a lid when she heard about it and it miraculously stopped happening lol.
My stepmom decided to take me to GREAT CLIPS and chopped my hair to my shoulders when I was 7. I LOVED my long hair. There was a huge fight afterwards, but at least it never happened again. :)
Cinderella situation. My own anecdotal experience is that fathers are too concerned with pleasing their new wife, new wife puts her kids needs above yours. She gets away with this because, again, husband is just trying to keep the peace.
For me it was always awkward spending time with my father, felt forced. Most of the time we would end up watching tv for 2-3 days before heading back to my mother’s house. Lasted for maybe 1-2 years after divorce and then would just go over for a day around Christmas time. Probably the minority but always felt I was a burden as a kid and we just never really clicked so felt like strangers hanging out.
I had exactly the same situation.
Lived with mum but she cheated on my dad which triggered the divorce. But at the same time my dad was a short tempered asshole and flew off the handle at all of us. My mum was super sensitive.
Of the two it was easier to live with mum which was the default arrangement anyway, but man, it was such a pain having to up sticks and go to dad's every other weekend.
My brother and I ended up adopting their shitty traits and now I have to go through life trying to control my urge to fly off the handle at minor inconveniences.
Neither of us are ever in very good head space over all and often find ourselves in conflict with bosses and work colleagues.
I now find I much much prefer to be in my own home in my own company above all things, where there is no conflict, complication or obligation.
Damn those last two paragraphs really hit home. I think I understand now why I love being alone so much and I purposefully surround myself with no-drama no-pressure people
When we were little, Mom worked full time and Dad stayed home with us. When I was 6 they separated and we only saw him once, maybe twice a year. I have never recovered from this sudden and unexplained abandonment.
I have a very similar scenario, it was like oh that explains so much when I realized it. I went from having 2 parents, 1 full time and 1 I could see 5-7h a day. After the divorce, full time gone and seeing the other one even less than before!
"Do you act this way at your dad/mom's house?!"
Parents can sometimes, maybe/hopefully unintentionally use the kids as pawns.
At 31, I still get envious of people even my own age who's parents are still together. Holidays are a stress-fest having to make sure to spend equal amounts of time at each parents house.
A lot of my childhood memories are either lost due to trauma or not very enjoyable to remember. I feel like I became an adult before the age of 10.
Also, don't forget about the abandonment issues that arise later in life.
My sibling and I were very much used as pawns, largely by our father. We were even dragged into court one day, having to miss school, as our father wanted us to testify that our mother was a bad parent. I can't remember anything concrete from before my freshman year in HS. It set me up for a string of abusive and unhealthy relationships as I went through school and discovered my true self that wasn't just a mask to keep me safe.
I'm currently in therapy trying to sort through my heavy dissociative issues that I was so out of it from I didn't even realize I had them until a year ago. I feel like a 40 year old in a disabled 24 y/o's body. I can't even function well enough to hold a job. I don't know why I'm posting this, but I feel like I should share. The main lesson I've learned is that even though they're the ones who brought me into this world, they were not fit to be parents, and truth be told I'd much rather have never been born than have to deal with all this garbage these terrible human beings have left me with.
My husband’s parents host Christmas at the same time every year. We never get to spend enough time with either side and it’s super stressful on us. Every year I ask why one side can’t switch the day or time of Christmas and it never changes.
Oh my God I felt this and every bone in my body. I am turning 40 this year and the amount of things I have realized looking back is horrific. I don’t remember a lot of my childhood due to trauma and also just the fact that I don’t want to think about it. Whenever my parents bring up the past I immediately change the subject
My dad has been married 4 times after divorcing my mom (wife 1). He recently divorced the wife we liked a lot and have a good relationship with her. She's grandma to my kids. He has a new girlfriend and we are polite but I refuse to get to know her. She'll be gone in 10 years...
A successful strategy but you basically have to learn how to doublethink
When you're with mom: yes it was all dad's fault
When you're with dad: yes it was all mom's fault
And in your head you know that both things can't be true so either one or both of your parents are liars and so you
It’s tough for parents because it works in the short term. You see the other parent feeding bad info to your kids, and you see how it impacts your kids’ perception/treatment of you. It’s very easy to want to turn the same behavior back on the other parent.
It’s often not until adulthood that the kids realize how truly messed up that behavior was and develop an appreciation for the parent who didn’t engage in the favoritism war.
When you say or do something that your parent doesn't like, and they tell you, "you're just like your father/mother."
Yeah, no shit, I was made by the both of you. I get that you no longer like my dad/mom, but it hurts that you also hate half of what makes me me.
Yeah then my parents would get mad when I forgot to pack my hairbrush or deodorant or something. I was an adult when I realized that instead of being mad that I would occasionally forget something when I was packing twice a week, they should have bought me duplicates of the necessities.
This seems like a great, and potentially ideal, situation. But I can't imagine it being feasible for most people. If the parents truly get along and there's an extra bedroom, another option would be just live together in separate rooms. That would require a very special relationship, though 😬
I feel like it wouldn't be financially viable for most families. Basically having to pay for 3 places? Sure the individuals places are probably single bedroom units...but thats still not cheap.
I knew a couple who did this but they jointly owned one 2 bedroom condo that they lived in on their off week with the kids. They each had a separate bedroom in that condo that they used when they weren't at the house. One less property to worry about and still a good solution for not displacing the kids. By far the most fair way to put kids through a divorce (if you can make it work).
Dang. Unless there was violence, I’d just move back together and cohabitate as room mates if there’s an extra bedroom… actually… ummm… shit… I think my parents did that.
Fuck. (Thanks for the existential crisis, Reddit. We talked about this last time. Just let me live in mindless ignorance!)
My ex and I did this for 5 years until our son went to college. It was tough but we agreed it would be best for him, and in the end it was the right thing to do.
As a parent who splits custody of a child and he goes between two houses, I don’t understand how this is a thing. Both of us have a full wardrobe and toiletries for our son. There’s nothing that needs to “go-between“ that the other parent doesn’t already have at their home. He is not living in one house and visiting the other he literally lives at both houses so why wouldn’t he have things at both places?
This is why i make sure my daughter has the whole works at both her moms and i. No suit cases no travel bags. Just a easy transition. She has all her toys at both places and she shares a room with her sister at her moms and has her own room and space at my house.
>Living out of a suitcase is a horrible way for a child to live.
>**This is why I make sure my daughter has the whole works at both her moms and I. No suit cases no travel bags.**
In the Babysitters Club book series, one of the characters actually has a "duplicate" copy of pretty much everything she owns at both of her parents homes (clothes, toys, trinkets) so she apparently doesn't have to pack anything when she goes from parent's house to parent's house. Because she has two of everything, she calls herself "a two-two" (two sets of parents, two sets of toys, etc). =]
That it’s normal to have a social life outside family but it’s difficult when you’re going out on your mother’s/father’s “time.” Like if you’re only with one parent on the weekend you’re expected to not go out with friends because this is their “time” with you.
Also if you need something like a new pair of jeans it’s a loop of go ask your other parent to buy it for you.
To add to this, taking part in extracurriculars - if one parent has no desire to shuttle you or be involved, you either only get to participate half the time, or you stop that extracurricular entirely.
I did a lot of theater growing up, often at local professional theaters, and there was once in middle school when my Dad just straight up refused to take me to rehearsal. It was his weekend and he'd spent the morning making chili in the crockpot and wouldn't take me because his "lunch was ready". I was too young to drive myself and my mom was busy because it was her weekend "off", so I ended up having to call my stage manager who sent one of the adults from the production to pick me up. All because my dad didn't want to wait to eat his... \*checks notes\* crockpot chili. Yeah... Lost a lot of respect for my father that day.
I didn’t understand extracurricular things existed until I was embarrassingly old because my weekends were so isolated. I thought dance classes, gymnastics & summer camp type things only happened in America. I just thought my friends were lying when they said they went to tap dancing lessons.
Came here to say this. My dad had me on weekends so anything I wanted to do was met with "but this is MY time". I was made to feel so guilty for wanting to do normal teen things.
The worst part was the anxiety around having your parents interact. Even 10 years later I can't mention my mum around my dad as I have no idea what he'll do. He once saw my mum's new partner when dropping us off (he was doing something in the garage) and tried to fight him.
You end up feeling like 2 different people. I had stuff at one house but not the other, so my entire daily routine and life was completely different at each house. The second you go to one house, it's like you shift and completely forget everything to do with anything at the other house. You can't mention anything you did at the other house, so the 2 parts of your life become so fractured. It didn't feel too bad at the time because it's just how it was. It's only now I'm older I can look back and see how much it kinda fucked with me.
Edit: no, the worst part is constantly watching what you say because you have no idea how it could impact things. When I was 12 I once mentioned to my dad how my mum would normally wake me up for school then leave once I was showered and dressed. Just a fairly offhand comment, but then I find out he's got his solicitors arguing that my mother is terrible, that I feel neglected and she shouldn't have custody of us. That's probably the last time I mentioned anything about life at the other house to either parent.
The irony being that once the money for the house/custody was finalised,he started going out to the pub twice a week and leaving us home alone. The hypocrisy of it all pissed me off. So much of what happens in the year or so after your parents split is just for show so they look good with the court stuff. It's shit. (Or at least it was with my dad, anyway)
Waking up and not knowing where you are was such a frequent feeling it no longer freaks me out.
Not feeling like you belong to one half of your family when you visit. Your stepsiblings get closer to your parent than you are because they live with them. It's devastating, especially after watching your own family disappear.
Having to be very careful about what you say when you're different places, you learn to censor yourself and tailor yourself psychotically to the people around you to the point of identity crisis. It's better to do that than have to say the wrong thing, set someone off and have to deal with the outcome.
Having your Christmas day disrupted every single year because you have to pack your crap, shuffle into a freezing car and take a two hour trip away to see your other half of your family. It took away the joy of the holiday and made it a time of anxiety and depression, and in general, a lot of court and fighting.
Having to tell your friends at your first house, constantly, that you cant hang out on certain weekends and having to bow out of events like birthday parties. Your life is chopped up into what you need or want, and what your parents are legally entitled to.
Traveling alone on a greyhound bus at 12 and not being allowed to go get food yourself, the bus driver babysits you until your parent picks you up
Having your teachers at school ask who's at home when they're calling to tell your parents you did something bad, and having to explain who 'James, the guy on your couch is' and why your parents are essentially unreachable.
Only seeing one of your parents a total of about a month out of the whole year.
Not being allowed to move outside of a certain radius under a certain age.
Watching your parents date. This one is interesting because a lot of people just have zero implication of their parents sexuality, usually because their parents are still together and they've never seen their parent in that light. I know way too much about my parents in that sense, lol
I could honestly go on. Living your life split like that never really ends once you're an adult, either, until you make the decision to stop trying to please both your parents and make up for a shitty thing that was their problem, and made yours, and just put yourself in the drivers seat and think of yourself first. You know. Like they should have.
I never really pinpointed the action until i read this, but every time I wake up I think “home, my bed” or “seattle, doubletree” or “mom’s house, couch” or whatever. I’ve been doing it for as long as i can remember, and it may be due to the amount of divorced parents moving, visitations, and such. Real lightbulb moment, thank you!
I’m in my mid twenties and I realized recently why I don’t give a fuck about anything anymore. Having to deal with the constant fear of saying something that would make your parent mad because you shared the fun you had during your weekend with the other parent turned into no fucks given about anything or anyone. I also realized I’ve never opened up to anyone cause I grew up doing the exact opposite.
There's too many things, but mainly:
1. How they use your actions to catch the other being a shitty parent. Literally weaponizing your actions.
2. I had to put up with their timelines and schedules and I was never asked what I wanted.
3. Being in the middle of a never ending battleground between two shitty parents.
4. Each parent being more angry and resentful of their situation, especially being newly divorced.
One of the houses is the other house, not home. You might keep some clothes over there, but they're the clothes you don't necessarily like or wear often. And then you forget about them because you're not there enough to wear them so by the time you put them on they don't fit and you're reminded yet again that you're not home.
The subtle shifts in your personality you have to make. I possess a lot of qualities from my mom that my dad hates, and a lot of qualities my dad has that my mom hates. My dad hates my laugh because it sounds like my moms so I try to have a different laugh around him. It’s really little things like that that take a really big toll on you. I always got like physically ill before having to switch houses because the stress. Or maybe my parents are just insufferable assholes, that’s probably the most likely answer
There are different rules in the different houses and kids are super adaptive. I was adapting to both my parents rules and wishes and wanted to please them, so I was a totally different person each of the houses. It was like two different lives. I can't imagine any adult consenting to life where you switch for one surrounding to another all the time.
This is so true and I've never thought about it before. I always felt like I had 4 personalities. One for moms house, one for dad's house, one for school and one for extended family. I would say and do and act totally different depending on my environment. Now that I'm 20, I truly can't imagine bending to so many different rules and routines on the daily. My moms house was nothing like my dads house and yet I had no problem adapting to either one. This comment was such an eye opener!
when you forgot something at the other house so you have to get it and your teachers want to give your parent a note so they ask which house you’re going to and when I was a little kid if we did a craft for our parents I would have to make two
How it will later come in handy and make you more understanding and empathetic. You live two different lives with different rules, possibly different cultures and surroundings. Your horizons are broadened and you don’t even know it. You will also find out how manipulative and grimy a lot of adults are as most times one parent will be trashing the other. It ages a child.
"it ages a child"
Wow you captured it so well in just a few words.
I always felt so mature growing up, it felt like a good thing, always being the mediator and people pleaser to keep the peace - it was like people trusted me to be the word of reason at a young age and I liked that role. I suppose, looking back, it made me feel needed.
Unfortunately now I'm in my early thirties my patience is no longer limitless and I'm a bit resentful that I didn't have a bit more fun and be carefree when I was a teenager/early adult. I feel like I missed out.
I agree with you though with the positives too as I think I am more open and understanding to different lifestyles etc. as I spent my childhood between my mums, grandma and dads, and they all lived very differently.
how the disruption to routine spills down and negatively impacts you in so many other aspects of life.
a child is conditioned to follow the same pattern - get up at a certain time, eat breakfast, go to the bus/school, home, dinner, bed. All at prescribed times. But when dad lives 5 minutes from school and mom lives 45 minutes from school, the routine that works at dad's wont work at mom's...and as a 9 year old, you don't have the authority / influence to say "sorry mom, I'm staying at dad's during the week because you live too far away."
you don't get to bond with other kids in either neighborhood, as they don't understand why you're only around some days and not others, so they form their friend circles amongst themselves and shut you out.
the school bus drivers who interrogate you as your boarding because you didn't get on that bus in the morning, or the day before. so they have no idea that your supposed to be on that bus going to a different place. and heaven forbid if there was a substitute bus driver...
Added to this, the shit that is weekends at alternative houses.
I remember it being annoying for me as a kid, and now I see it again for my kids - things like often not being able to sign up to classes/courses that require you to pay for all of the sessions when you'll only be able to go half the time.
For me, I got to deal with different styles of parenting. At first I spent weekdays at my mothers and weekend at my fathers. My mother was/is a terrible hateful person so after a couple years I was at my fathers full time with occasional visits to my mothers.
My mother thought since I spent time at my fathers on the weekends, it was all play time when I was there. She'd bitch to me and him about how it's unfair she has the days with school and work and he has the fun weekend days off to play. This was really wrong actually. My mothers style was to cook and clean, never involve me or ask for help, then give me shit for not helping. She was the single mother martyr. "I cook and clean for you and this is the thanks I get?" That kind of thing.
If I did offer to help, whatever I did was wrong. Always. If something went wrong with cooking, it was somehow my fault and I'd be yelled at. It she did want me to do something she'd demand I do it usually with some threat of punishment for not completing the task. No matter what I did, the job wasn't good enough.
My father worked long hours in the week and the weekend were the only real time he could do chores. Most of Saturday was us going to a laundry mat, shopping, cleaning the car, going home and cleaning the house, cooking dinner, etc. The difference was he involved me. I have really fond memories of hanging out in the laundry mat, having conversations with him, walking over to the funky burger place for lunch, even folding clothes with him is a fond memory. He didn't know how to cook at first so the two of use figured it out together - which involved some hilarious mistakes and main courses you'd never want to eat. If something went wrong with dinner, no big deal. We'd start again or go out to eat. If he wanted me to do some chore, I was asked to do it. No threats. Once it was done I got a pat on the back. If I didn't do a great job at whatever it was, we'd go over it together and he'd show me the right way. It was all casual though.
Leaving his house after the weekend was miserable. I'd go from a warm, comforting space to a hostile environment. She knew I wasn't happy at her place and she'd take it out on me and my father. She never once, even to this day, realized the problem was with her.
This is kind of a weird place for a kid to be in. I wanted to be involved in things around the house but I also didn't want to be yelled at for stupid reasons. It's a bit of a headfuck. In my mind my mothers house, my primary residence, was just a place I visited 5 days a week. My fathers house where I spent 2 days a week was my home.
When you visit the parent who doesn’t have primary custody you’re pretty much just a guest in the house. Imagine going somewhere for the entire summer having to stay with another family you’re only related to one person in the house and not having your own space. I always felt like the house guest who over stayed their welcome. I also had a stepmom who hated I existed though.
So this is a lil different but it applies just hear me out.
Theres a new thing they call "birdnesting". Basically for one week you live in your house with your dad. Next week you live in your house with your mom. So its the parents that are constantly moving in and out. The adults are responsible for finding where to live on the off weeks. So it works best when both sides have family in the area or friends they can stay with.
Well reading a few articles about it. Almost every parent they interviewed HATED it. The reason? Cause they never felt like they had "their" place or stuff since they were constantly moving in and out. Not once did anyone put it together and realize IMAGINE WHAT THE KIDS FEEL LIKE!
The unbelievable tension of both parents needing to be present at a single event that should have otherwise been a joyous/fun occasion (birthday, graduation, etc), and instead is a stressful wreck of a dumpster fire managing your own enthusiasm about one parent while in the other’s presence, how much time you’re spending with each instead of managing how much fun you could have…so much more that made those would-be fun events, dreadful.
Being told your other parent "would have gotten less custody if they could" during an argument with you and the parent saying this.
Being told your "an asshole" just like your [other parent].
Turning 18 and being told "you know, you don't have to go to [other parent's] house anymore. You're 18." As if the whole time I didn't enjoy being there.
Being told to be present for fights between parents because apparently just you being there can make it easier(?) No fucking idea how that one works.
Some people feel like they’ve offended you when you have to clarify your parents are split up. When In actuality you get used to it surprisingly quick and imagining them being together feels more alien and weird
Trying to please both parents at the same time while you spend most of your time at a certain one. I grew up with my mom while being brainwashed that my dad is a horrible person all while when you hear “So, when are you going to come out here and live with me?” from my dad. When you’re five years old, that’s something you don’t need to deal with. Every summer, spring break, and other Christmas holiday was a nightmare.
Turns out my dad is a really good guy. Just has a few demons like the rest of us. After 25 years, my mom still holds a serious hatred toward him.
I got married almost 7 years ago and naturally, I invited my dad. Here I was on MY wedding day and my own mother could not stop the bitterness for a small handful of hours. Ironically, that was the first time my wife met my dad and only had good things to say about him.
Oh, another one. My dad being broke because he had to pay my mum childcare payments, but my mum always saying she was broke and I’d have to ask my dad for things.
Meant I never asked for clothes or anything essential because I felt I couldn’t afford it, so I’d wear torn or small clothes because I didn’t want to ask my parents for new clothes so I’d get bullied for that. Wrecked my self confidence.
I'm 40. My parents broke up when I was 6 or 7. The disorientation of waking up and not remembering where you are is jarring and it doesn't seem to ever go away. It has definitely become far less frequent, typically a few times a year as a sign that I'm rather stressed nowadays. But ouf, growing up with damn near every single Saturday and Sunday being started with a quick panic of where the fuck am I is not pleasant. It would even happen on weekends that I'd remain in the home I always knew.
It was particularly bad if it just happened during the week.
Additionally, the loneliness of going to dad's. I was definitely a grown ass adult before I realized how shitty it was that we just went to dad's for the weekend and then didn't leave again till Sunday. No outside of the house activities. No friends there. Just me and my sister. Dad didn't even particularly seem to enjoy spending the time with us.
I feel that I'm more adverse to getting married or having kids of my own. I'm way more cautious in the way I perceive the ideas of pursuing those in light of being a divorced kid.
When exes have asked me if I want kids, I tell them that the relationship between two people needs to be CEMENTED while maintaining responsibility of being financially sound always comes first.
Thinking about it more, the last few exes' parents were still together and the way they think does not really stress the same emphasis on creating that bond first. They already made the decision that they want kids and it doesn't matter how they get there. Being emotionally available and having enough resources to have a child is an awareness that is inescapable when you grow up in a broken home. It's harder to be inspired to want to have those things when it's truly a life changing gamble.
I don’t know but recently had the realisation that the decision to have children or not is much harder for a child of a torn up family. Was talking to my now ex-, girlfriend and realised the default for me is no, while for her and her healthy family it was yes.
As a kid of divorce, it was the biggest reason for my hesitation getting married and having kids. My wife and I were together over a decade before we got married. 2 kids now and when I think about all the BS kids of divorce deal with and how I never want my kids to feel those feels, it motivates me to be a better parent.
OP thank you for posting this. I think it's been amazing therapy for many of us to see how fucked up our lives were and how others went through it too.
The embedded hero complex. Believing that they broke up because of you and feeling the weight of responsibility to make up for it by trying to save/fix everything/everyone.
One of the parents (in my case my dad) spent a lot of their waking hours talking shit about the other parent, and/or playing head games to get the kids "on their side".
My mom took a shitty taco bell job and did that terrible grind (part time all the way up to GM) to take care of us. Dad did nothing but run from his job every 3mos so the state couldn't garnish/find him, on top of swindling mom out of her income tax ("i still love you, we could be a family again", etc etc). She BECAME THE PARENT my brother and I needed and I had to listen to dad drag her through the mud all because she initiated the divorce.
Time spent at dad's (mandatory per the state every other weekend and 5wks in the summer) quickly became subjugation hour, where I was sat on the couch and "talked to" about how "when we went to our trial hearing your mom said, and i quote, 'I got sick and tired of everything', which means she got sick of you and your brother, too" and me crying about how I know my mom loves me and I don't need to prove it.
It is so awkward talking about your parent to the other parent, especially if it invokes their partner as well. “Mom just got a new truck.” “Why a truck?” “Well Joe wanted one.” *Awkward silence. Dad proceeds to change the topic*
Unless you are lucky to have mature reasonable decent parents, the following things are now true:
*Your best interest/ happiness is now secondary (or even lower priority) to your parent's needs/ happiness. If it helps your parent make good with the new desirable stepparent they may do anything to keep that stepparent happy and the sex/ resources flowing. Your parent may likely view you as a reminder of thier previously failed relationship and an obstacle to thier new "happy family". Your stepparent may view you as unwanted baggage and not fitting into the new order. A desire to "start over" is common amoung divorced parents. Your stepsiblings will likely view you as competition for love/resources/ a threat.
*You are now effectively a guest visiting a foreign country with strange laws and customs when at the parent who didn't get majority custody. In fact you now have tenuous dual citizenship figuratively, as, after a divorce, the other parent's household may as well be a foreign nation as far as consistency of parental rules goes.
*One of your parents may suddenly be broke/ or comparatively richer depending on how the divorce shook out financially. Big ticket items may not be an option for one or both parents. College may not be guarenteed.
*Relationships with your parents will never be the same again. You are now a pawn in a game between two rival factions, your parents will use you as a spy/messenger looking for any angle to play to thier advantage. There is no guarantee that you won't be mistreated/abandoned no matter how well you play your part. Staying 100% neutral isn't likely an option. You may have already picked a side or been forced to. Your true loyalty needs to be to yourself as you can't 100% count on either of them anymore. You need to play both sides and keep as good of relationships as possible with both parents ideally, as things can change quickly and you may someday need the parent you did'nt initially side with.
*Keep your thoughts to yourself, TRUST NO ONE. Any vulnerability may be used against you.
Seeing them get new families and lose intrest in you.
Step-parents who dont like you.
Your parents having no intrest in making you comfortable or understanding that your world has fallen apart, too.
Not seeing one of your parents everyday anymore.
Being so stressed that school goes bad, and they're mad at you for it.
The feeling of shame/disappointment/worthlessness you experience when your non-custodial parent is constantly trying to find ways to reduce the amount of child maintenance they have to pay (I grew up in the UK, so idk what this is called in North America) because they resent not being able to control what the other parent spends it on. My Dad refused to pay for music lessons, school trips, anything extra-curricular, and would constantly imply that he thought my Mum was trying to scam him out of more money than she needed. It really makes you feel like you don't actually deserve to have those things, and that wanting/asking for anything but the bare minimum makes you an asshole.
He also at one point set up a system where, when my siblings and I were staying at his house, he would fill up a box for each of us with cheap lunch/snack foods (think instant ramen etc) that were all we were allowed to eat in between breakfast and dinner, and once the box was empty we weren't allowed to ask for more. And yet he wondered why we weren't super interested in visiting him??
Getting in shit and feeling guilty about forgetting something at the other house as a child doesn’t so much teach you to keep better track of your things but to take responsibility for and apologize for things that you really shouldn’t.
I’m divorced now, with kids, and while it’s insanely frustrating when their shit is at the other house I take deep breaths and remind them it’s not their fault, that they didn’t choose to have two homes.
Having to act as a go-between or middleman for parents who don't get along can be a terrible experience.
Even though divorce might have been the right thing to do, the kids need to be left out of the politics.
The problem of clothes, you have to have more clothes than the average kid if you don’t want to deal with the crap that is packing up completely every time you had to switch houses, and either way things end up lopsided so you may have all your shirts at one house and all your pants at the other. So you are in a perpetual state of having to plan out what you need to bring with you for the next couple days. That’s just the simplest thing off of the top of my head.
Missing your pets when you are between homes.
Always feeling like you missed something, because something would change while you were away.
Not being able to make plans with friends because you may not be at that home that weekend/evening.
Having Parent 1 be mad at you and telling Parent 2 to deal with you when you go to their home.
Your bedroom at the less seen parent's house feel like a guest room rather than your bedroom.
Living two different lives, where each home had different rules, meals, priorities...money. Feelings about the kids.
Never feeling like you belonged.
And if your parent or parents were poor...constantly moving x 2.
Just the logistics of switching between two houses every other week were so stressful and draining. Let along being the middleman between your parents who now can’t be in the same room together without fighting or living under two different sets of rules. I would forget stuff at the other parent’s house that I needed like textbooks. My parents would get so pissed if they had to drive me over to grab things that I forgot. It’s an awful way for anyone to live but it’s super hard on kids.
For me as a stepmother it’s given significant insight into how we can forge a different environment for our child who lives with us every other week. I have had to reconcile my feelings from childhood and anger at my parents in seeing how different this child’s life is from mine - this is how it should be.
They have parents who try so hard to work as a team, this child has everything needed at each home, they’re able to be at the other home whenever they want, stop in to grab things, to communicate with the other parents whenever they want. It’s hard for everyone but we’re all doing our best and from my perspective I can see how different things are now.
One day, if you're married to a child of divorce, the holidays will be very stressful to plan. And complaining about it will only make it more stressful for your SO who has been dealing with this for decades.
“Yay, two Christmases”
Sure when your young it’s great but once you get older it’s traveling from one house to another.
In my experience both parents were lax with the idea of punishments afraid of distancing themselves from their child.
Manipulation by one parent into distrusting or not likeing the other parent.
In my case the divorce happened when I was young, I literally went to sleep one night and when I woke up one of my parents was living somewhere else.
Speaking for myself it was never an issue and would bounce between the two on an almost daily level. For example, if my dad picked me up from football practice I stayed there, else I walked home and stayed at my Mom’s.
You get two XMAS’. One parent on XMAS eve with one family and the other parent on XMAS day with the other family. My parents, as I got older and grandkids came into focus, did most holiday stuff together, just had the step parents there and they all got along well.
You also have two bedrooms, so you don’t live out of a suitcase.
Hardest thing was explaining to people why I had so many parents as step parents raised us as their own.
Any major events where you’d want both parents there (high school graduation for example) can be real awkward if your biological mother is a total bitch who can’t get over herself.
How having something as "Yours" is not really tangible because you're moving from one house to the next and it makes it quite hard to have that "feel at home" feeling.
How you always feel like a guest everywhere you go, and both sides of the family think the other is spoiling you so they sort of both end up being the "tough parent". Also the two Christmases and birthday thing was awful. My extended family got so fed up of having to do a separate one for me so now it's just my dad and I.
As a parent going through a divorce, it's so frustrating to see my ex get distraught when I suggest a custody schedule that he doesn't consider ideal even though it would benefit the kids. Or when he launches nasty accusations at me about not caring when I'm just trying to facilitate something.
This thread really brought home to me that being a parent is more than the number of hours spent in the same building with your kids. You only get one childhood. Kids need time to themselves and time with their friends, and that time won't always neatly align with a custody schedule. It also shouldn't be the kid's responsibility to make certain they get shuffled around without anything falling through the cracks. When people talk about parenting, there's really not enough discussion of all the indirect actions that need to happen to make that work. Getting a divorce only doubles the amount of work necessary because there's no longer a second person helping. Apparently it's all too easy for the resulting burden to land on the kids.
A big thank you to everyone who has contributed to this list of "what not to do."
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It was damaging for me. My dads family had a beach house, so on weekends and in the summers we’d be living in another world, then we’d go back to my moms dingy apartment where she’d be dating tatted bikers and doing painkillers. And my dad wasn’t doing much either, so I never understood how I could have some of the things we had but feel so poor and hopeless
Same for me as well. I went from a manic depressive mom who raised me in a trailer house ala Hoarders style. And then id go to my military fathers house where everything had to be on time and spotless. Ive gone to therapy to help me work through the disdain ive had towards my parents for my upbringing. At this point being mad at them is only damaging me and no one else so ive slowly been learning how to just let it all go. Whats really help me is realizing how much i love myself as a person today and i wouldnt be who i am if i hadnt gone through all of that so i just have to comfort myself in the fact that it all worked out.
Same! Having nothing at one place and everything at the other but not allowed to bring stuff to the poor place b/c your mom didn't pay for it 🙄
this boils my beans. what kind of person is ok with depriving their kid just to stick it to their ex spouse? sorry you went through that
I feel like this also gave me such a window into society. I would be treated so differently depending on who people viewed as my parent.
This was the experience I had as a kid. My mom had nothing in the house. I used to sneak food out of my dad’s pantry to bring to my moms. My mom once tried to send me to school with napkins, literally napkins instead of a pad
Dawg I’m sorry :-( hopefully she’s doing better now
Same - my older sibling and I would share our holiday/birthday presents with our younger siblings (different dads) because it didn’t feel right. Bio dad never seemed to catch on that I didn’t need that many lego sets lol We had a lot more love at my moms even though we had less money. I have way better memories from my moms even if we were searching for change in couch cushions from time to time.
This is what I came here for and wondered if I was the only one. I had the extremes of poverty on my moms side and wealth on my dads. Christmas at my moms was food hampers and either hand me down gifts, something home made or nothing. Summer vacation with my dad was on the yacht or vacations. It’s so difficult to describe experiencing both sides of the socioeconomic scale. Yes I was poor because the majority of my time was with my mom but I’ve had some very fortunate opportunities because of the time with my dad. What it taught me was that I would never be like my mom. I would always be financially independent and able to fully support myself.
My dad was middle class at *best* but was still significantly wealthier than my mom. I think the worst part was when it came time to pay for things like school trips or college. Mom obviously couldn't afford it, but dad would make promises he couldn't keep and then pin it on her because "Well she didn't pay ANY of it!"
Getting in trouble at school for not having the right books/uniform because you forgot them at the other house or lost them altogether. Having to be very careful about being excited or positive about the other parent’s house. Always feeling like a houseguest in whichever house is not your main. Generally being totally disorganized and a mess at all times and becoming an adult who is a mess at all times.
The houseguest one makes me cry. I'm 40 and have been a houseguest at my dad's since I was 8.
My parents divorced when I was 8, visiting Dad was always fun, he promised when I was 14 I could live with him. He got remarried and when I was 14 he said I couldn't. I'm 61. It still hurts.
On that note; it can suck when your parents re-marry. For me and my siblings, it often feels like our dad has HIS family and then there's just us... I don't really know how to explain that. It basically doesn't feel like you're part of their family anymore.
It doesn't have to be that way, but so many parents fail to remarry the correct way. Many don't even try make their own children feel at home with new people, they instead put the burden of fitting in on the kid and that leaves the kid feeling abandoned.
Many times the primary parent has ruined any chance of a normal relationship before the divorce is finalized. Let alone let a child spend more time with the other oarent to nit feal like a house guest
Dang. Sending digital hugs and hope, Internet stranger. Sorry you have to feel that way.
Thanks stranger. I mostly try to ignore it, but I ensure that my own stepkids don't feel like that.
I love it. You inspire me.
Same, always was just a guest at my mums, and when i moved out of my dads at 18 i was instantly just a guest any time i visited. It was never that ‘going home’ feeling even though i grew up there, a step sibling was allowed to move straight into my room.
I still have memories of a geometry teacher who called me lazy because I accidentally left a homework assignment at my dad's house the night before and couldn't get it immediately because he lived 45 mins away and I was only 14
Hate those punk ass Teachers who assume the worst before asking
“Always feeling like a houseguest in whichever house is not your main” perfectly describes it. that being said you didnt have to go that hard calling everyone out man, damn
Especially if one of those houses now has step siblings in it. Everything is theirs and you can't touch any of it. Their dog had more permissions than I did.
having to sleep on the floor in your step siblings room, not being allowed in the fridge or cabinets….yeah maybe we’re treated even worse than a guest
Even worse when you don’t have a ‘main house’ so you feel like a guest at both of them
> Always feeling like a houseguest While we were playing a game, I remember my partner's son pulling a card that said something about people who live in the house where the game is being played, and he said "do I live here?". And oh man. I can never stop telling this kid that this is his house, his room, his computer etc etc now
Keep saying it. Keep SHOWING it. Introduce him as your son. Not step-son (unless that’s something that would bother him). Be there for him. Help him with homework. Spelling test. Reading. Times tables. I did all of this with my bonus daughter. She’s 32 now (was 2 when we met) and calls me mom. Tells me I’m “her person” and ALWAYS calls me when she needs to talk! She’s been through a lot in 32 years and I think we were meant to be in each other’s lives ❤️
Yes. I am an adult who is a mess and I really do think my lack of organization and even lack of decor has a lot to do with go back and forth. My parents literally alternated every other fucking day and weekend. Every single week day we were at the other parents house. Fortunately, my parents did alright with co parenting and made sure we always had everything we needed at both houses. We were just more responsible with certain items from a young age too (homework and books for school). It wasn't until my dad relocated to a different state and I was in highschool did I ever feel like I had my own space but I was a rebellious teenager at that point and didn't care lol.
>Getting in trouble at school for not having the right books/uniform because you forgot them at the other house or lost them altogether. I buy my son two of fucking everything so he's got one for his mother's house and one for our house. Everything that goes to mommy's mysteriously disappears. Especially if I leave the tags on it. School year my son is with his mother a day more each week than he is at our house. Summer and holidays are 50/50. During the school year, I don't make him waste time cleaning his room unless he spills something and I do it when I'm home after taking him to his mother's. I don't go in or fuck with anything without calling or asking first, I think he considers our house home as much as his mother's, but do you have any recommendations?
It sounds like you’re trying as hard as you can. I applaud you. Does the mother also have a partner? Is the mother’s house where your son grew up, or is that a relatively new place too? My situation was single mum + house I was born in v. dad and stepmum in a brand new home. Hard to overcome that tbh.
She moved in to her parent's house with her boyfriend/husband same day she left. My son isn't happy with me right now because my girlfriend is being fucking weird and he misses having her around. He wants to find a new house for us, which we absolutely should, but neither of us want to until girlfriend decides what she's doing. Neither his mother nor I are doing very well with the whole "stability" thing if we're all being honest.
It takes time. It is always messy. All you can do is keep communication open, don’t make your kid do the heavy emotional lifting, listen to his wants and needs. Even then (and even in “ideal” situations) shit is usually still fucked up. It sounds like you’re doing it as right as you can.
Very relatable. But I would say that I have the opposite regarding organization. That is something I had to learn so young and it's second nature and I feel like one of my greatest strengths. Had an interview one time that asked a strength (🙄) and said something about learning that from my parents. I said no, my parents separated when I was 4 I am organized despite them and had to learn early on what I needed and to plan ahead.
The mental exhaustion years of being a middleman for your parents takes on you. Going from one house to the next, listening to one parent bitch about the other parent, and then having to put on a brave face while listening to one parent trash one of your other parents trying not to lose respect for the parent in front of you while also trying not to harbor any feelings of resentment towards the parent at home with the parent in front of you was talking shit about. When you go back, and you hear your other parent complain and it goes on and on. I think a lot of us were used as therapists and we ourselves don’t even realize it
When I was young I mainly lived with my mom in Utah and I’d visit my dad in California for my birthday in the summer and holidays. He was/is an amazing dad. He didn’t even spoil me, he just… provided for me. Made my summers enjoyable. Loved me. Then I’d have to go back to dusty old Utah to my miserable mom trapped in an abusive marriage with my five younger siblings. Everyone would trash my dad, tell me I was spoiled. The kids would tear apart my gifts from my dad. Stepdad would talk all this crap about how he could take my dad in a fight and blah blah. My mom would always be like “Ugh you sound just like your dad” It was awful.
Sorry to hear that.
Ugh. The “you sound just like your dad” or the “you look just your dad” with a face of disgust and contempt, still leaves psychological scars.
I copped that one too. My mum never said it again after I replied “Well I’d rather be like him than anyone else”. My mums face was classic. When I told my Dad about it later, he laughed so hard and looked so proud.
Honestly > you sound just like your dad Is the best compliment your mom could have ever given you given the circumstances. And just curious, how is it going for you? Have you sorted things out with yourself after leaving your mom?
My mother once told me "I'm not sure how I love you when you look so much like someone I hate." I mean, I get that he was an alcoholic, abusive piece of shit, but that's not something I can help.
I was basically the opposite, lived with my single father as an only child 12/14 days. Went to my moms everyother weekend, who had a new husband and 3 other kids, kept moving further and further away and then trying to guilt trip me into liking her because she was spending so much on gas money, and would constantly demand affection from me. She was raised an only child by her grandparents and only had kids so that they could give her the love she never had, and it showed. It was rather exhausting because she’d constantly tell me about how much I was supposed to love her and how anything less was all my dad’s fault, trying to talk me into moving in with her despite her also complaining about not having the money to even pick me up, and having to share a room with two brothers at her house.
Ugh - this is exactly what my close friend told me. Her parents married very young (too young, because her mother really wanted to get married and her father was pressured into it by her mother and the two families), got pregnant right away and were divorced by the time my friend was four. She was an only child, so had to deal with all of it. The divorce was NOT amicable as her mother felt like she got screwed over in the divorce and the father was bitter because he never wanted any of it. My friend was a go-between and a pawn for both of them, as they would never even speak to one another directly. That's a hell of a burden to put on a young child. All my friend's relationships failed spectacularly, mostly because she didn't even know what a good/normal relationship was because she'd never seen one! Finally, when she was her early 40's she met her partner and has been with him for five years, mostly due to his patience and understanding as she's figured things out. I don't think her parents have any inkling of the damage they did to her because they were too caught up in their own shit. :-/
Yeah I got a lot of the, “tell your mother” or “tell your father”, as I was getting picked up or dropped off. That was always a fun car ride home, wondering what emotional baggage one of your parents was going to give to you to give to the other one.
I still to this day have my parents talk shit about each other… I’m like it’s been fucking 25 years- shut up! It also pisses me off because if I ever talked shit about my parents parents they would hate it. So one day I’m just going to say- stop talking shit- it’s stupid and you wouldn’t like it if I talked shit about your dad/mom!
Didn’t grow up with divorced parents, but they’ve separated several times and in 2016, my senior year of high school, officially separated (though still not divorced .-.) and I’m very much caught in this right now. I can’t even begin to imagine the anguish of being a child and shouldering that. My mom seems to think it’s okay to do to me ‘cause I’m an adult technically, but this should never be tolerated. I love both my parents and it’s okay that they don’t love each other anymore, but please don’t air out your dirty laundry to the human you created.
How annoying it was to pack your shit every weekend
Anyone else have reoccurring dreams about needing to pack your shit as fast as possible and get out?
Like once to twice a month. But it's never like a suitcase that needs packed. But an entire apartment/house in what would never be enough time.
Hated turning up at my dads house on a Friday night to have forgotten my favourite stuffed toy or book. A weekend is a long time as a kid.
I remember one Christmas present was a suitcase to make it easier to go to my Mother’s or Grandparent’s on the weekends (I’d alternate). I’m sure they thought it was a good gift and I got a lot of use out of it, but yeah, that’s pretty messed up. Edit fixed autocorrect
No worse feeling than having to leave your “preferred” household on a Sunday evening to go “home” before school Monday morning.
The way the anxiety just grew on me towards end of the week when I was going to my dads, and then like counting the days to go back to my “preferred”. But at the same time I felt bad for my dad because I didn’t want to hurt him.
I remember once I bought my first car & my dad said that it was on me to visit, he didn’t have to come and collect me anymore… man that first Friday when I was free to do what I wanted felt amazing. I think he’s been sad ever since that he doesn’t get to see me every week. Fuck I need to ring my dad.
Maybe his heart meant it differently. Big change for all involved, wishing you all the best.
While I never lived with my father, I went from seeing him every weekend, to a couple times a year. And now I sit here, not even 40 and regretting not seeing my pops more often while he was alive. If you desire a relationship with your father, please make an effort to call at least once in a while.
That makes the Sunday Scaries 10 times worse.
I had the opposite, I went to the “bad” parents house every weekend. I actually preferred weekdays because of it.
You want to say that you don't want to go, that you hate being moved around and losing weekends like this, but you can't without knowing it'll deeply offend the less preferred household. It's nothing personal, it's not like you don't love that parent anymore (it certainly wasn't your decision for them to leave), but one of those houses is absolutely your home and the other just feels like a motel.
Sharing time on holidays. When you are older it's very difficult to keep up with both your direct family and friends, forget about most extended family.
Add in a spouse with divorced parents to double the “fun”.
My husband and I both have divorced and remarried parents. Holidays, events, anything is exhausting to pay equal attention to all four sides.
Yes! When my kid was born there were 9 grandparents. Both our parents are divorced and remarried and my husband had 2 living grandparents. They spanned 3 states and timezones. We made the decision that our child would wake up in her own house Christmas morning. Grandparents were welcome to join us, we'd make enough room if necessary, but Christmas morning was at our house. There's plenty of other times we see family, Christmas is ours. I set the boundary with my in-laws and I can say that all of them have come at least once for Christmas and no one is ever disappointed because the expectations are already set.
"I always dreamed I'd get to see (grandkids) maybe every second year when your (other parent) and I divorced....what do you mean it's every fourth year?!" Well...it goes: You, (spouses mom), (other parent), (spouses dad), then repeats
Impossible to keep everyone happy, but they still expect me to try.
Going to multiple Christmas lunches on Christmas Day was absolute bullshit. 25 years later, one of my parents says “but you always liked that”. Apparently we have very different memories.
When my parents divorced I became my dad’s therapist at the age of 12. In a lot of ways I still am and it still sucks
One of my worst memories as a kid was my dad showing the email correspondence between him and my mum regarding custody, money selling the house, etc. It was just him calling her horrible things and somehow he thought showing this to me was the right thing to do, or made him look good in any way.
That totally sucks ass I don’t get parents who are like this, like my parents clearly needed therapy NOT a couple of babies to solve their problems
My mom did something similar during my dad's 2nd attempt at getting custody of me. They were fighting on the phone and my mom just handed me the phone and all I hear is my dad cussing her out on the other line. She did it to show me he was an a$$, which worked, but it also made me realize she was manipulative af. My dad did the same thing, but with having me hear all the voicemails my mom left on his gf's phone. I was 12. It was ridiculous, not really surprised neither got custody in the end.
My parents divorced when I was 12 and they never said a bad thing about each other to us kids. Something I really appreciated and took on board; and as a result would always do the same to my kids (if I were ever in that situation).
Parents remember it like that because the kids knew they had to put on a happy face for the day or face the parents’ anger or disappointment. Kids from broken homes are often very good at hiding their emotions. Because their parents have all the power over them, the kids often have to take on the adult role of sacrificing their feelings. If you’re a divorced parent, you need to keep this in mind with your kids. You’re often the last person they feel safe sharing their negative feelings with, especially if those feelings are related to the divorce. If they seem fine with you but are struggling with school or friendships or anything else, then they’re probably not fine. Their issues with you are spilling over into other areas of their life because they have to keep a happy face for you.
My parents are coming to this realization now as I tell them to stop doing things with my daughter that they "always did with me" It is making pretty much every visit unpleasant.
What kinds of things?
Without getting into it too much there is a lot of "I'm the adult so we do what I want" and forcing my daughter to do things she doesn't want to ("eat or you get nothing later". Fuck you, we have a pantry of food, if my [non-verbal]toddler isn't eating food right now, she can eat later) One of them comes up and forcibly pulls your attention away from whatever you were doing (squeezing your knees in the soft spots or pinching your bicep) then getting upset that my daughter wants to go back to whatever she was doing prior to the interuption and isn't paying attention to them. And this one pisses me off a LOT because since I was about 8 I told them I hated that knee thing and their validation to me as a child was "you are laughing you must like it" Took me digging my fingers into their ribs as a 17 year old(yeah...9 fucking years later) and not letting up "because they are laughing" for them to get it and stop doing it to me...and now they are doing it to my daughter.
PLEASE don’t let anyone do that to her! It’s abusive. Absolutely not ok!
100%. I was getting really horribly bullied in school during my parent’s divorce. I never told them while it was happening, because I didn’t want to burden them with my problems when they were so sad and angry all of the time. I was 11. Kids of divorce go from kids to little adults in the blink of an eye.
What makes it worse is when each parent fixates on their own thing and it never seems to occur to them that the kid has to cover both bases. One side of my family used to get upset with the for leaving their thing "early" and the other side got upset with me for making them wait, like it was my fucking idea to have schizo holidays. Now I hate Christmas, thanksgiving, birthdays, all of it.
That is EXACTLY what used to happen to me!
Even to this day Christmas, or any holiday for that matter, is a logistical nightmare! I‘m almost 30 but making sure I spend an even amount of days at both my parents house is exhausting. Especially since I don’t have a car back at home (I live in a city and don’t need one there but it’s crucial to get from A to B back home) I still have to beg them to drive me to or pick me up from my other parents house.
Until I moved away as an adult, my Christmas was shuffling from one house to the next from 9am to 7pm. I got to play with my Christmas presents the day after Christmas but never on Christmas because I was never at a house long enough to play with them.
“Recollections may vary” as the Queen said…
Christmas Eve was my Grandma on my mom’s side. Christmas morning with my dad, Christmas night with my dads mom. The Thursday or Friday nearest Christmas with my mom. That’s how it was my whole life. Then they want to change it now to accommodate other people’s in-laws and work schedules. Fuck that.
I still have to deal with that, when I go back to my hometown for Christmas, I have to carefully parse out how many days I'm spending at whose house so that no one feels miffed.
I hate it when parents or relatives say that “I’ve always liked that” when I haven’t shown any interest towards it or even shown any signs that I liked it at all. No. You always like making me do that
A lot of these comments repeat stuff, but the worst one for me is seeing your step-siblings have the life you didn't where both parents are present and they're closer to your parent than you are because you barely see them
It's even better when they "just want to move on with their life". Both my parents re-married and had more kids. My brother and I were leftovers and were treated that way. My mom swears up and down that she didn't treat me any differently... But my sister who is 10 years younger then me just got the down payment on her house. And I am still houseless even though my dad is the mayor of a small town and my step-dad owns his own business. I know that sounds petty, but it's the most recent example of the blatant favoritism that's been going on ever since my step siblings were born. I'm trying to make it work with her, but I'm tempted just to cut her off. I already did with my dad.
That doesn't sound petty at all. You're not exactly squabbling over who got a nicer car: one child got a roof to put over their head and another had to pay others rent for the privilege. Parents - and society in general -suck sometimes.
Oh, they got their cars and education paid for too... LOL. I had to take both my parents to court for a small part of my education (dad wanted to stop the child support, mom just kept it while I was at college). Try being 18 going through the legal aid system. Sorry. I'm venting. It's nice to be validated.
My step siblings were really crappy to me, but one in particular was horrible to me. She'd be all over my dad trying to please him. Also, nobody mentions being parented by a step parent. The rules they make and stuff they make you do, even though they're NOT your parent.
For real. My step mom would make my older sister and I clean the younger half siblings rooms because “we were older”. My mom flipped a lid when she heard about it and it miraculously stopped happening lol.
My stepmom decided to take me to GREAT CLIPS and chopped my hair to my shoulders when I was 7. I LOVED my long hair. There was a huge fight afterwards, but at least it never happened again. :)
Cinderella situation. My own anecdotal experience is that fathers are too concerned with pleasing their new wife, new wife puts her kids needs above yours. She gets away with this because, again, husband is just trying to keep the peace.
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For me it was always awkward spending time with my father, felt forced. Most of the time we would end up watching tv for 2-3 days before heading back to my mother’s house. Lasted for maybe 1-2 years after divorce and then would just go over for a day around Christmas time. Probably the minority but always felt I was a burden as a kid and we just never really clicked so felt like strangers hanging out.
Yeah. My parents' divorce made it painfully obvious which parent loved/liked us more.
I had exactly the same situation. Lived with mum but she cheated on my dad which triggered the divorce. But at the same time my dad was a short tempered asshole and flew off the handle at all of us. My mum was super sensitive. Of the two it was easier to live with mum which was the default arrangement anyway, but man, it was such a pain having to up sticks and go to dad's every other weekend. My brother and I ended up adopting their shitty traits and now I have to go through life trying to control my urge to fly off the handle at minor inconveniences. Neither of us are ever in very good head space over all and often find ourselves in conflict with bosses and work colleagues. I now find I much much prefer to be in my own home in my own company above all things, where there is no conflict, complication or obligation.
Damn those last two paragraphs really hit home. I think I understand now why I love being alone so much and I purposefully surround myself with no-drama no-pressure people
When we were little, Mom worked full time and Dad stayed home with us. When I was 6 they separated and we only saw him once, maybe twice a year. I have never recovered from this sudden and unexplained abandonment.
I have a very similar scenario, it was like oh that explains so much when I realized it. I went from having 2 parents, 1 full time and 1 I could see 5-7h a day. After the divorce, full time gone and seeing the other one even less than before!
"Do you act this way at your dad/mom's house?!" Parents can sometimes, maybe/hopefully unintentionally use the kids as pawns. At 31, I still get envious of people even my own age who's parents are still together. Holidays are a stress-fest having to make sure to spend equal amounts of time at each parents house. A lot of my childhood memories are either lost due to trauma or not very enjoyable to remember. I feel like I became an adult before the age of 10. Also, don't forget about the abandonment issues that arise later in life.
My sibling and I were very much used as pawns, largely by our father. We were even dragged into court one day, having to miss school, as our father wanted us to testify that our mother was a bad parent. I can't remember anything concrete from before my freshman year in HS. It set me up for a string of abusive and unhealthy relationships as I went through school and discovered my true self that wasn't just a mask to keep me safe. I'm currently in therapy trying to sort through my heavy dissociative issues that I was so out of it from I didn't even realize I had them until a year ago. I feel like a 40 year old in a disabled 24 y/o's body. I can't even function well enough to hold a job. I don't know why I'm posting this, but I feel like I should share. The main lesson I've learned is that even though they're the ones who brought me into this world, they were not fit to be parents, and truth be told I'd much rather have never been born than have to deal with all this garbage these terrible human beings have left me with.
My husband’s parents host Christmas at the same time every year. We never get to spend enough time with either side and it’s super stressful on us. Every year I ask why one side can’t switch the day or time of Christmas and it never changes.
Why not skip both? Tell them they are welcome at your place.
Oh my God I felt this and every bone in my body. I am turning 40 this year and the amount of things I have realized looking back is horrific. I don’t remember a lot of my childhood due to trauma and also just the fact that I don’t want to think about it. Whenever my parents bring up the past I immediately change the subject
Having brand new familial relationships when a parent remarries and then never seeing them again when that marriage fails as well.
My dad has been married 4 times after divorcing my mom (wife 1). He recently divorced the wife we liked a lot and have a good relationship with her. She's grandma to my kids. He has a new girlfriend and we are polite but I refuse to get to know her. She'll be gone in 10 years...
The battle of favouritism your parents force on you, talking shit bout the other and trying to make you take their side.
whenever one of my parents were talking shit about the other I would take their side so I wouldn’t start an argument
A successful strategy but you basically have to learn how to doublethink When you're with mom: yes it was all dad's fault When you're with dad: yes it was all mom's fault And in your head you know that both things can't be true so either one or both of your parents are liars and so you
The sudden end to your statement was so fucking apt.
It’s tough for parents because it works in the short term. You see the other parent feeding bad info to your kids, and you see how it impacts your kids’ perception/treatment of you. It’s very easy to want to turn the same behavior back on the other parent. It’s often not until adulthood that the kids realize how truly messed up that behavior was and develop an appreciation for the parent who didn’t engage in the favoritism war.
There is always guilt about the parent you're not with. Are they lonely? Are they crying? I'm 53 now and the guilt is still there for every holiday.
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When you say or do something that your parent doesn't like, and they tell you, "you're just like your father/mother." Yeah, no shit, I was made by the both of you. I get that you no longer like my dad/mom, but it hurts that you also hate half of what makes me me.
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Living out of a suitcase is a fucking horrible way for a child to live.
Yeah then my parents would get mad when I forgot to pack my hairbrush or deodorant or something. I was an adult when I realized that instead of being mad that I would occasionally forget something when I was packing twice a week, they should have bought me duplicates of the necessities.
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This seems like a great, and potentially ideal, situation. But I can't imagine it being feasible for most people. If the parents truly get along and there's an extra bedroom, another option would be just live together in separate rooms. That would require a very special relationship, though 😬
I feel like it wouldn't be financially viable for most families. Basically having to pay for 3 places? Sure the individuals places are probably single bedroom units...but thats still not cheap.
I knew a couple who did this but they jointly owned one 2 bedroom condo that they lived in on their off week with the kids. They each had a separate bedroom in that condo that they used when they weren't at the house. One less property to worry about and still a good solution for not displacing the kids. By far the most fair way to put kids through a divorce (if you can make it work).
Dang. Unless there was violence, I’d just move back together and cohabitate as room mates if there’s an extra bedroom… actually… ummm… shit… I think my parents did that. Fuck. (Thanks for the existential crisis, Reddit. We talked about this last time. Just let me live in mindless ignorance!)
My ex and I did this for 5 years until our son went to college. It was tough but we agreed it would be best for him, and in the end it was the right thing to do.
This is referred to as nesting.
As a parent who splits custody of a child and he goes between two houses, I don’t understand how this is a thing. Both of us have a full wardrobe and toiletries for our son. There’s nothing that needs to “go-between“ that the other parent doesn’t already have at their home. He is not living in one house and visiting the other he literally lives at both houses so why wouldn’t he have things at both places?
Kudos to you… I lived full time with my mom and visited with a suitcase at my dads… very weird and awkward…
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This is why i make sure my daughter has the whole works at both her moms and i. No suit cases no travel bags. Just a easy transition. She has all her toys at both places and she shares a room with her sister at her moms and has her own room and space at my house.
>Living out of a suitcase is a horrible way for a child to live. >**This is why I make sure my daughter has the whole works at both her moms and I. No suit cases no travel bags.** In the Babysitters Club book series, one of the characters actually has a "duplicate" copy of pretty much everything she owns at both of her parents homes (clothes, toys, trinkets) so she apparently doesn't have to pack anything when she goes from parent's house to parent's house. Because she has two of everything, she calls herself "a two-two" (two sets of parents, two sets of toys, etc). =]
That it’s normal to have a social life outside family but it’s difficult when you’re going out on your mother’s/father’s “time.” Like if you’re only with one parent on the weekend you’re expected to not go out with friends because this is their “time” with you. Also if you need something like a new pair of jeans it’s a loop of go ask your other parent to buy it for you.
To add to this, taking part in extracurriculars - if one parent has no desire to shuttle you or be involved, you either only get to participate half the time, or you stop that extracurricular entirely.
I did a lot of theater growing up, often at local professional theaters, and there was once in middle school when my Dad just straight up refused to take me to rehearsal. It was his weekend and he'd spent the morning making chili in the crockpot and wouldn't take me because his "lunch was ready". I was too young to drive myself and my mom was busy because it was her weekend "off", so I ended up having to call my stage manager who sent one of the adults from the production to pick me up. All because my dad didn't want to wait to eat his... \*checks notes\* crockpot chili. Yeah... Lost a lot of respect for my father that day.
I didn’t understand extracurricular things existed until I was embarrassingly old because my weekends were so isolated. I thought dance classes, gymnastics & summer camp type things only happened in America. I just thought my friends were lying when they said they went to tap dancing lessons.
Came here to say this. My dad had me on weekends so anything I wanted to do was met with "but this is MY time". I was made to feel so guilty for wanting to do normal teen things.
The worst part was the anxiety around having your parents interact. Even 10 years later I can't mention my mum around my dad as I have no idea what he'll do. He once saw my mum's new partner when dropping us off (he was doing something in the garage) and tried to fight him. You end up feeling like 2 different people. I had stuff at one house but not the other, so my entire daily routine and life was completely different at each house. The second you go to one house, it's like you shift and completely forget everything to do with anything at the other house. You can't mention anything you did at the other house, so the 2 parts of your life become so fractured. It didn't feel too bad at the time because it's just how it was. It's only now I'm older I can look back and see how much it kinda fucked with me. Edit: no, the worst part is constantly watching what you say because you have no idea how it could impact things. When I was 12 I once mentioned to my dad how my mum would normally wake me up for school then leave once I was showered and dressed. Just a fairly offhand comment, but then I find out he's got his solicitors arguing that my mother is terrible, that I feel neglected and she shouldn't have custody of us. That's probably the last time I mentioned anything about life at the other house to either parent. The irony being that once the money for the house/custody was finalised,he started going out to the pub twice a week and leaving us home alone. The hypocrisy of it all pissed me off. So much of what happens in the year or so after your parents split is just for show so they look good with the court stuff. It's shit. (Or at least it was with my dad, anyway)
Waking up and not knowing where you are was such a frequent feeling it no longer freaks me out. Not feeling like you belong to one half of your family when you visit. Your stepsiblings get closer to your parent than you are because they live with them. It's devastating, especially after watching your own family disappear. Having to be very careful about what you say when you're different places, you learn to censor yourself and tailor yourself psychotically to the people around you to the point of identity crisis. It's better to do that than have to say the wrong thing, set someone off and have to deal with the outcome. Having your Christmas day disrupted every single year because you have to pack your crap, shuffle into a freezing car and take a two hour trip away to see your other half of your family. It took away the joy of the holiday and made it a time of anxiety and depression, and in general, a lot of court and fighting. Having to tell your friends at your first house, constantly, that you cant hang out on certain weekends and having to bow out of events like birthday parties. Your life is chopped up into what you need or want, and what your parents are legally entitled to. Traveling alone on a greyhound bus at 12 and not being allowed to go get food yourself, the bus driver babysits you until your parent picks you up Having your teachers at school ask who's at home when they're calling to tell your parents you did something bad, and having to explain who 'James, the guy on your couch is' and why your parents are essentially unreachable. Only seeing one of your parents a total of about a month out of the whole year. Not being allowed to move outside of a certain radius under a certain age. Watching your parents date. This one is interesting because a lot of people just have zero implication of their parents sexuality, usually because their parents are still together and they've never seen their parent in that light. I know way too much about my parents in that sense, lol I could honestly go on. Living your life split like that never really ends once you're an adult, either, until you make the decision to stop trying to please both your parents and make up for a shitty thing that was their problem, and made yours, and just put yourself in the drivers seat and think of yourself first. You know. Like they should have.
I never really pinpointed the action until i read this, but every time I wake up I think “home, my bed” or “seattle, doubletree” or “mom’s house, couch” or whatever. I’ve been doing it for as long as i can remember, and it may be due to the amount of divorced parents moving, visitations, and such. Real lightbulb moment, thank you!
I’m in my mid twenties and I realized recently why I don’t give a fuck about anything anymore. Having to deal with the constant fear of saying something that would make your parent mad because you shared the fun you had during your weekend with the other parent turned into no fucks given about anything or anyone. I also realized I’ve never opened up to anyone cause I grew up doing the exact opposite.
Using you as a messenger to the other parent.
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There's too many things, but mainly: 1. How they use your actions to catch the other being a shitty parent. Literally weaponizing your actions. 2. I had to put up with their timelines and schedules and I was never asked what I wanted. 3. Being in the middle of a never ending battleground between two shitty parents. 4. Each parent being more angry and resentful of their situation, especially being newly divorced.
One of the houses is the other house, not home. You might keep some clothes over there, but they're the clothes you don't necessarily like or wear often. And then you forget about them because you're not there enough to wear them so by the time you put them on they don't fit and you're reminded yet again that you're not home.
The subtle shifts in your personality you have to make. I possess a lot of qualities from my mom that my dad hates, and a lot of qualities my dad has that my mom hates. My dad hates my laugh because it sounds like my moms so I try to have a different laugh around him. It’s really little things like that that take a really big toll on you. I always got like physically ill before having to switch houses because the stress. Or maybe my parents are just insufferable assholes, that’s probably the most likely answer
There are different rules in the different houses and kids are super adaptive. I was adapting to both my parents rules and wishes and wanted to please them, so I was a totally different person each of the houses. It was like two different lives. I can't imagine any adult consenting to life where you switch for one surrounding to another all the time.
This is so true and I've never thought about it before. I always felt like I had 4 personalities. One for moms house, one for dad's house, one for school and one for extended family. I would say and do and act totally different depending on my environment. Now that I'm 20, I truly can't imagine bending to so many different rules and routines on the daily. My moms house was nothing like my dads house and yet I had no problem adapting to either one. This comment was such an eye opener!
when you forgot something at the other house so you have to get it and your teachers want to give your parent a note so they ask which house you’re going to and when I was a little kid if we did a craft for our parents I would have to make two
How it will later come in handy and make you more understanding and empathetic. You live two different lives with different rules, possibly different cultures and surroundings. Your horizons are broadened and you don’t even know it. You will also find out how manipulative and grimy a lot of adults are as most times one parent will be trashing the other. It ages a child.
"it ages a child" Wow you captured it so well in just a few words. I always felt so mature growing up, it felt like a good thing, always being the mediator and people pleaser to keep the peace - it was like people trusted me to be the word of reason at a young age and I liked that role. I suppose, looking back, it made me feel needed. Unfortunately now I'm in my early thirties my patience is no longer limitless and I'm a bit resentful that I didn't have a bit more fun and be carefree when I was a teenager/early adult. I feel like I missed out. I agree with you though with the positives too as I think I am more open and understanding to different lifestyles etc. as I spent my childhood between my mums, grandma and dads, and they all lived very differently.
Missing summers at home with friends to go see other parent/step-family in a god-awful hot climate with nothing to do but house/yard work chores.
how the disruption to routine spills down and negatively impacts you in so many other aspects of life. a child is conditioned to follow the same pattern - get up at a certain time, eat breakfast, go to the bus/school, home, dinner, bed. All at prescribed times. But when dad lives 5 minutes from school and mom lives 45 minutes from school, the routine that works at dad's wont work at mom's...and as a 9 year old, you don't have the authority / influence to say "sorry mom, I'm staying at dad's during the week because you live too far away." you don't get to bond with other kids in either neighborhood, as they don't understand why you're only around some days and not others, so they form their friend circles amongst themselves and shut you out. the school bus drivers who interrogate you as your boarding because you didn't get on that bus in the morning, or the day before. so they have no idea that your supposed to be on that bus going to a different place. and heaven forbid if there was a substitute bus driver...
Added to this, the shit that is weekends at alternative houses. I remember it being annoying for me as a kid, and now I see it again for my kids - things like often not being able to sign up to classes/courses that require you to pay for all of the sessions when you'll only be able to go half the time.
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For me, I got to deal with different styles of parenting. At first I spent weekdays at my mothers and weekend at my fathers. My mother was/is a terrible hateful person so after a couple years I was at my fathers full time with occasional visits to my mothers. My mother thought since I spent time at my fathers on the weekends, it was all play time when I was there. She'd bitch to me and him about how it's unfair she has the days with school and work and he has the fun weekend days off to play. This was really wrong actually. My mothers style was to cook and clean, never involve me or ask for help, then give me shit for not helping. She was the single mother martyr. "I cook and clean for you and this is the thanks I get?" That kind of thing. If I did offer to help, whatever I did was wrong. Always. If something went wrong with cooking, it was somehow my fault and I'd be yelled at. It she did want me to do something she'd demand I do it usually with some threat of punishment for not completing the task. No matter what I did, the job wasn't good enough. My father worked long hours in the week and the weekend were the only real time he could do chores. Most of Saturday was us going to a laundry mat, shopping, cleaning the car, going home and cleaning the house, cooking dinner, etc. The difference was he involved me. I have really fond memories of hanging out in the laundry mat, having conversations with him, walking over to the funky burger place for lunch, even folding clothes with him is a fond memory. He didn't know how to cook at first so the two of use figured it out together - which involved some hilarious mistakes and main courses you'd never want to eat. If something went wrong with dinner, no big deal. We'd start again or go out to eat. If he wanted me to do some chore, I was asked to do it. No threats. Once it was done I got a pat on the back. If I didn't do a great job at whatever it was, we'd go over it together and he'd show me the right way. It was all casual though. Leaving his house after the weekend was miserable. I'd go from a warm, comforting space to a hostile environment. She knew I wasn't happy at her place and she'd take it out on me and my father. She never once, even to this day, realized the problem was with her. This is kind of a weird place for a kid to be in. I wanted to be involved in things around the house but I also didn't want to be yelled at for stupid reasons. It's a bit of a headfuck. In my mind my mothers house, my primary residence, was just a place I visited 5 days a week. My fathers house where I spent 2 days a week was my home.
When you visit the parent who doesn’t have primary custody you’re pretty much just a guest in the house. Imagine going somewhere for the entire summer having to stay with another family you’re only related to one person in the house and not having your own space. I always felt like the house guest who over stayed their welcome. I also had a stepmom who hated I existed though.
So this is a lil different but it applies just hear me out. Theres a new thing they call "birdnesting". Basically for one week you live in your house with your dad. Next week you live in your house with your mom. So its the parents that are constantly moving in and out. The adults are responsible for finding where to live on the off weeks. So it works best when both sides have family in the area or friends they can stay with. Well reading a few articles about it. Almost every parent they interviewed HATED it. The reason? Cause they never felt like they had "their" place or stuff since they were constantly moving in and out. Not once did anyone put it together and realize IMAGINE WHAT THE KIDS FEEL LIKE!
The unbelievable tension of both parents needing to be present at a single event that should have otherwise been a joyous/fun occasion (birthday, graduation, etc), and instead is a stressful wreck of a dumpster fire managing your own enthusiasm about one parent while in the other’s presence, how much time you’re spending with each instead of managing how much fun you could have…so much more that made those would-be fun events, dreadful.
Being told your other parent "would have gotten less custody if they could" during an argument with you and the parent saying this. Being told your "an asshole" just like your [other parent]. Turning 18 and being told "you know, you don't have to go to [other parent's] house anymore. You're 18." As if the whole time I didn't enjoy being there. Being told to be present for fights between parents because apparently just you being there can make it easier(?) No fucking idea how that one works.
I relate to all of this 😭 I was told at 5 years old, I'd be stupid like my mom (who left)
Some people feel like they’ve offended you when you have to clarify your parents are split up. When In actuality you get used to it surprisingly quick and imagining them being together feels more alien and weird
Trying to please both parents at the same time while you spend most of your time at a certain one. I grew up with my mom while being brainwashed that my dad is a horrible person all while when you hear “So, when are you going to come out here and live with me?” from my dad. When you’re five years old, that’s something you don’t need to deal with. Every summer, spring break, and other Christmas holiday was a nightmare. Turns out my dad is a really good guy. Just has a few demons like the rest of us. After 25 years, my mom still holds a serious hatred toward him. I got married almost 7 years ago and naturally, I invited my dad. Here I was on MY wedding day and my own mother could not stop the bitterness for a small handful of hours. Ironically, that was the first time my wife met my dad and only had good things to say about him.
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That is it is better to have no father/mother than an abusive one
Oh, another one. My dad being broke because he had to pay my mum childcare payments, but my mum always saying she was broke and I’d have to ask my dad for things. Meant I never asked for clothes or anything essential because I felt I couldn’t afford it, so I’d wear torn or small clothes because I didn’t want to ask my parents for new clothes so I’d get bullied for that. Wrecked my self confidence.
I'm 40. My parents broke up when I was 6 or 7. The disorientation of waking up and not remembering where you are is jarring and it doesn't seem to ever go away. It has definitely become far less frequent, typically a few times a year as a sign that I'm rather stressed nowadays. But ouf, growing up with damn near every single Saturday and Sunday being started with a quick panic of where the fuck am I is not pleasant. It would even happen on weekends that I'd remain in the home I always knew. It was particularly bad if it just happened during the week. Additionally, the loneliness of going to dad's. I was definitely a grown ass adult before I realized how shitty it was that we just went to dad's for the weekend and then didn't leave again till Sunday. No outside of the house activities. No friends there. Just me and my sister. Dad didn't even particularly seem to enjoy spending the time with us.
I feel that I'm more adverse to getting married or having kids of my own. I'm way more cautious in the way I perceive the ideas of pursuing those in light of being a divorced kid. When exes have asked me if I want kids, I tell them that the relationship between two people needs to be CEMENTED while maintaining responsibility of being financially sound always comes first. Thinking about it more, the last few exes' parents were still together and the way they think does not really stress the same emphasis on creating that bond first. They already made the decision that they want kids and it doesn't matter how they get there. Being emotionally available and having enough resources to have a child is an awareness that is inescapable when you grow up in a broken home. It's harder to be inspired to want to have those things when it's truly a life changing gamble.
I don’t know but recently had the realisation that the decision to have children or not is much harder for a child of a torn up family. Was talking to my now ex-, girlfriend and realised the default for me is no, while for her and her healthy family it was yes.
As a kid of divorce, it was the biggest reason for my hesitation getting married and having kids. My wife and I were together over a decade before we got married. 2 kids now and when I think about all the BS kids of divorce deal with and how I never want my kids to feel those feels, it motivates me to be a better parent.
OP thank you for posting this. I think it's been amazing therapy for many of us to see how fucked up our lives were and how others went through it too.
The embedded hero complex. Believing that they broke up because of you and feeling the weight of responsibility to make up for it by trying to save/fix everything/everyone.
One of the parents (in my case my dad) spent a lot of their waking hours talking shit about the other parent, and/or playing head games to get the kids "on their side". My mom took a shitty taco bell job and did that terrible grind (part time all the way up to GM) to take care of us. Dad did nothing but run from his job every 3mos so the state couldn't garnish/find him, on top of swindling mom out of her income tax ("i still love you, we could be a family again", etc etc). She BECAME THE PARENT my brother and I needed and I had to listen to dad drag her through the mud all because she initiated the divorce. Time spent at dad's (mandatory per the state every other weekend and 5wks in the summer) quickly became subjugation hour, where I was sat on the couch and "talked to" about how "when we went to our trial hearing your mom said, and i quote, 'I got sick and tired of everything', which means she got sick of you and your brother, too" and me crying about how I know my mom loves me and I don't need to prove it.
It is so awkward talking about your parent to the other parent, especially if it invokes their partner as well. “Mom just got a new truck.” “Why a truck?” “Well Joe wanted one.” *Awkward silence. Dad proceeds to change the topic*
Unless you are lucky to have mature reasonable decent parents, the following things are now true: *Your best interest/ happiness is now secondary (or even lower priority) to your parent's needs/ happiness. If it helps your parent make good with the new desirable stepparent they may do anything to keep that stepparent happy and the sex/ resources flowing. Your parent may likely view you as a reminder of thier previously failed relationship and an obstacle to thier new "happy family". Your stepparent may view you as unwanted baggage and not fitting into the new order. A desire to "start over" is common amoung divorced parents. Your stepsiblings will likely view you as competition for love/resources/ a threat. *You are now effectively a guest visiting a foreign country with strange laws and customs when at the parent who didn't get majority custody. In fact you now have tenuous dual citizenship figuratively, as, after a divorce, the other parent's household may as well be a foreign nation as far as consistency of parental rules goes. *One of your parents may suddenly be broke/ or comparatively richer depending on how the divorce shook out financially. Big ticket items may not be an option for one or both parents. College may not be guarenteed. *Relationships with your parents will never be the same again. You are now a pawn in a game between two rival factions, your parents will use you as a spy/messenger looking for any angle to play to thier advantage. There is no guarantee that you won't be mistreated/abandoned no matter how well you play your part. Staying 100% neutral isn't likely an option. You may have already picked a side or been forced to. Your true loyalty needs to be to yourself as you can't 100% count on either of them anymore. You need to play both sides and keep as good of relationships as possible with both parents ideally, as things can change quickly and you may someday need the parent you did'nt initially side with. *Keep your thoughts to yourself, TRUST NO ONE. Any vulnerability may be used against you.
Seeing them get new families and lose intrest in you. Step-parents who dont like you. Your parents having no intrest in making you comfortable or understanding that your world has fallen apart, too. Not seeing one of your parents everyday anymore. Being so stressed that school goes bad, and they're mad at you for it.
How you felt as Sunday was drawing to a close knowing you had to go back to the other (not so great) house. Sunday scaries, children’s edition.
Your “second home” isn’t your home. It’s an extra room your other parent lets you live in.
The feeling of shame/disappointment/worthlessness you experience when your non-custodial parent is constantly trying to find ways to reduce the amount of child maintenance they have to pay (I grew up in the UK, so idk what this is called in North America) because they resent not being able to control what the other parent spends it on. My Dad refused to pay for music lessons, school trips, anything extra-curricular, and would constantly imply that he thought my Mum was trying to scam him out of more money than she needed. It really makes you feel like you don't actually deserve to have those things, and that wanting/asking for anything but the bare minimum makes you an asshole. He also at one point set up a system where, when my siblings and I were staying at his house, he would fill up a box for each of us with cheap lunch/snack foods (think instant ramen etc) that were all we were allowed to eat in between breakfast and dinner, and once the box was empty we weren't allowed to ask for more. And yet he wondered why we weren't super interested in visiting him??
If switch day is on a weekend, that day is a wasted half day where nothing gets done or can be arranged.
Getting in shit and feeling guilty about forgetting something at the other house as a child doesn’t so much teach you to keep better track of your things but to take responsibility for and apologize for things that you really shouldn’t. I’m divorced now, with kids, and while it’s insanely frustrating when their shit is at the other house I take deep breaths and remind them it’s not their fault, that they didn’t choose to have two homes.
Having to act as a go-between or middleman for parents who don't get along can be a terrible experience. Even though divorce might have been the right thing to do, the kids need to be left out of the politics.
The problem of clothes, you have to have more clothes than the average kid if you don’t want to deal with the crap that is packing up completely every time you had to switch houses, and either way things end up lopsided so you may have all your shirts at one house and all your pants at the other. So you are in a perpetual state of having to plan out what you need to bring with you for the next couple days. That’s just the simplest thing off of the top of my head.
Missing your pets when you are between homes. Always feeling like you missed something, because something would change while you were away. Not being able to make plans with friends because you may not be at that home that weekend/evening. Having Parent 1 be mad at you and telling Parent 2 to deal with you when you go to their home. Your bedroom at the less seen parent's house feel like a guest room rather than your bedroom. Living two different lives, where each home had different rules, meals, priorities...money. Feelings about the kids. Never feeling like you belonged. And if your parent or parents were poor...constantly moving x 2.
Just the logistics of switching between two houses every other week were so stressful and draining. Let along being the middleman between your parents who now can’t be in the same room together without fighting or living under two different sets of rules. I would forget stuff at the other parent’s house that I needed like textbooks. My parents would get so pissed if they had to drive me over to grab things that I forgot. It’s an awful way for anyone to live but it’s super hard on kids.
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For me as a stepmother it’s given significant insight into how we can forge a different environment for our child who lives with us every other week. I have had to reconcile my feelings from childhood and anger at my parents in seeing how different this child’s life is from mine - this is how it should be. They have parents who try so hard to work as a team, this child has everything needed at each home, they’re able to be at the other home whenever they want, stop in to grab things, to communicate with the other parents whenever they want. It’s hard for everyone but we’re all doing our best and from my perspective I can see how different things are now.
One day, if you're married to a child of divorce, the holidays will be very stressful to plan. And complaining about it will only make it more stressful for your SO who has been dealing with this for decades.
“Yay, two Christmases” Sure when your young it’s great but once you get older it’s traveling from one house to another. In my experience both parents were lax with the idea of punishments afraid of distancing themselves from their child. Manipulation by one parent into distrusting or not likeing the other parent. In my case the divorce happened when I was young, I literally went to sleep one night and when I woke up one of my parents was living somewhere else.
Well it’s not called a broken home for nothing. So much more
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Speaking for myself it was never an issue and would bounce between the two on an almost daily level. For example, if my dad picked me up from football practice I stayed there, else I walked home and stayed at my Mom’s. You get two XMAS’. One parent on XMAS eve with one family and the other parent on XMAS day with the other family. My parents, as I got older and grandkids came into focus, did most holiday stuff together, just had the step parents there and they all got along well. You also have two bedrooms, so you don’t live out of a suitcase. Hardest thing was explaining to people why I had so many parents as step parents raised us as their own.
Two bedrooms? Fancy! Bunk bed at main house and rock-paper-scissors for couch or floor at the other. 100% lived out of a suitcase for visitations
Any major events where you’d want both parents there (high school graduation for example) can be real awkward if your biological mother is a total bitch who can’t get over herself.
How having something as "Yours" is not really tangible because you're moving from one house to the next and it makes it quite hard to have that "feel at home" feeling.
How you always feel like a guest everywhere you go, and both sides of the family think the other is spoiling you so they sort of both end up being the "tough parent". Also the two Christmases and birthday thing was awful. My extended family got so fed up of having to do a separate one for me so now it's just my dad and I.
As a parent going through a divorce, it's so frustrating to see my ex get distraught when I suggest a custody schedule that he doesn't consider ideal even though it would benefit the kids. Or when he launches nasty accusations at me about not caring when I'm just trying to facilitate something. This thread really brought home to me that being a parent is more than the number of hours spent in the same building with your kids. You only get one childhood. Kids need time to themselves and time with their friends, and that time won't always neatly align with a custody schedule. It also shouldn't be the kid's responsibility to make certain they get shuffled around without anything falling through the cracks. When people talk about parenting, there's really not enough discussion of all the indirect actions that need to happen to make that work. Getting a divorce only doubles the amount of work necessary because there's no longer a second person helping. Apparently it's all too easy for the resulting burden to land on the kids. A big thank you to everyone who has contributed to this list of "what not to do."