Reactions to the news of former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper’s separation have pretty much fallen into 3 categories of commentary: 1) “For crying out loud, after 40 years, they should have just stuck it out!”; 2) macro-level consideration and trendspotting along the lines of “Separation as an Iconic Baby Boom Act” and “The Rise of the Silver Divorce”; and 3) wisecracks about who’ll get possession of the Internet in the subsequent divorce settlement.  What I haven’t read is commentary devoted solely to the question that’s often asked about a millisecond after a couple announces a divorce or separation: “What about the children?”

In the Gores’ case, because the children in question are ages 36 (Karenna*), 33 (Kristin), Sarah (31), and Albert (27), there’s less public attention given to how the divorce will impact them, than there would be if they were still minors.  Recently, I reached out to some folks whose parents divorced after they (the offspring) were adults, and I asked them to reflect on their experiences.  I found that the impact of divorce on this cohort should not be overlooked or underestimated.  Here’s what three of these “adult children” of divorce, now in their 30s and 40s, had to say:

On the logistics…

My parents broke up over a period of years on and off, starting when I was 13.  They didn’t get officially or legally divorced or even separated, however, for ten years. Neither one of them wanted to pay for it. Partially or wholly. They pretty much can’t stand each other to this day. They legally divorced when I was 28.–S.C.

~

My parents separated at the end of my junior year in college.  They told me when I got home for the summer.  I’m still a little salty about that, because if they’d told me before I got home, I would have found a way to spend the summer elsewhere, for sure.  They had been unhappy for most of my life, so it wasn’t a big surprise.

My reaction that summer was dismay (totally selfish) and one of the things I did to just avoid the situation was to work two jobs that summer. And I prayed for more hours at work and counted the days until school started.  One of the things that was difficult, even at that age, was choosing who I would live with.  I stayed with my father in the house where all my things were and spent many nights at my mother’s.  The nights with my mother were wonderful - like a girl’s sleepover.

My parents didn’t divorce until 4 - 5 years later.  By then, I was on my own, living in a nearby town and working out things with my fiancé and future husband.  The divorce was finalized, I think, a few months before my wedding.  I tried to steer as clear as possible of the divorce details.–K.B.

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My mother and stepfather decided to get a divorce when I was 17.  They had been married for 7 years.  The divorce was not final until I was 21.   My mother broke the news the day they dropped me off at college.  After moving all my things into the dormitory, my dad said his goodbye and my mom stayed to “have a talk”.  I thought it was going to be a THE talk about sex, drinking, drugs and college, etc. but instead she dropped the bomb that they were splitting up.  Not a nice way to start off your college experience.  I was devastated, but my stepbrothers and I all saw it coming.  Their marriage had been a mess from the moment it started.  In the last few years, my stepfather had been very blatantly cheating on my mother, and my mother was a suffering from depression and alcoholism.  It was a lethal combination.–BioStepMom, who writes In the Blender, a blog about her experiences as both a stepmother and biological mother

On life after the divorce…

My dad pretty much disappeared from my life for all intents and purposes. He just wasn’t around anymore.  This was a MAJOR change because despite the fact that he might not have been good at being a provider, he did take care of us physically and emotionally. I was always very close to my dad, and I am actually a lot like him. I’ve come to realize that this has had a huge impact upon my life in many ways. I get along with him fine, just rarely hear from him. My relationship with my mom became, over time, more and more tense. She went downhill in a lot of ways.  She and I clashed; she tended to treat me more like a peer than a daughter and dumped a lot of her personal stuff on me. I also took on a caretaker role for my little sister even from afar and too much responsibility in my family which I resent (I don’t resent my sister at all, but my mom).–S.C.

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My memory of that time is of being very annoyed about it - like, “Enough already. I am trying to build my own life - and do not want this to be the center of attention.”
I don’t know if my relationship with my parents changed so much as it was amplified. I was always closer to my mother, and the divorce made us even closer in some ways. And I really started to think more about her as a woman, and about the decisions she had made for herself and me.–K.B.

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The relationship with my stepfather was never the same after that.  There were too many times that he would say things like “You remind me of your mother”.  I took that as my cue that he didn’t like me so much.  We hardly ever speak now.  When we do speak, it’s fine, but we’re definitely not as close as we used to be when I was a teenager.  He’s not the first person that I call when there’s news.  In fact, sometimes I forget to call him. He’s just not on my radar.–BioStepMom

I wish my parents would have…

…prepared us for it, but neither of my parents are very well-adjusted people or think about these kinds of things, so I think that would be too much to ask for.–S.C.

What I wish I could say to my parents…

Tell me the truth. It’s not fair to put me in a situation where I have to choose without knowing what’s really happening.  (As a young adult at the time of the divorce, I still needed a place to live sometimes, and I would have made a different choice if I’d known the truth right away).

Get help. There were clearly mental issues with my father - all along.  I wish I had said then or felt up to it now to say - “You need help; it will make your life better.  It will make it easier to be your child.” For my mother I would have told her to get help and not try to cover for my father like a good Christian woman.

Don’t try to drag me into bullshit. A quote from my father while they were working out the financials: “I had really hoped to give you a really nice wedding, but it seems like your mother is trying to take all my money.”  That’s really low and stupid to say while your daughter is planning her wedding.

Tell the truth about your life. Don’t pretend everything is hunky dory when it isn’t.  Don’t try to keep in touch with your in-laws when it’s been bad all along.  Your adult children deserve to have some peace.  Be a grown up and know when to step out of a family gathering and let your children enjoy it.–K.B.

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I’ve never been one to hold back, so I voiced my opinion about their marriage and its demise.  About three years after they got married, my stepbrothers and I suggested that they split up.  Living in the house was not fun.–BioStepMom

Advice to divorcing parents…

I’m not sure, even at 40, that I feel grown enough to say this for publication…Make how you will tell your adult children part of your discussion.  Try to have a discussion in which all of you are present.  Ask your children how much information they want - they may not want any part of it, or they may want to be involved deeply.

Recognize that, whether your children say it or not, your marriage fate weighs heavily on their fears/hopes for their own relationships.  Don’t make it worse by over-identifying what happened to you with what may / may not happen to them. Understand that all marriages aren’t bad, and don’t try to convince them of that.  If you had trouble in your marriage, they already can see that.–K.B.

~

I don’t know if I can even give any advice because I’m still in therapy for it, and I think that the whole experience pretty much messed me up for relationships. What’s interesting is that my sister, who was a baby when they first split up, seems to do better with it all. But she doesn’t even really know my dad and has no conception of my family as a “family” while my brother was REALLY shaken up by not having my dad around.

I guess what I’d say is: Communicate about what is coming down the line and don’t treat your adult kids like your peers, because they aren’t; they’re still your children and it’s too much pressure to have to take on your parent’s relationship problems, especially with the other parent.–S.C.

Advice to adults whose parents are divorcing…

I’ve seen a lot of adult children take sides either because one parent has been wronged or because a parent has engaged in team-building.  As an adult child, it’s best to stay neutral and try to maintain a relationship with both parents. It’s better for you and better for YOUR children.

Don’t voice your opinion of the marriage. As much as you think you do, you have no idea what goes on between your parents.

Don’t become a confidant to either parent. If they have issues with the other parent and attempt to discuss them with you, be firm and let them know that they should talk to their friends or a therapist, NOT YOU.  You don’t need to hear the other parent’s faults (aka “dirty laundry”).–BioStepMom

Try to be an adult - more adult than their “child.” Don’t be disrespectful, but do ask what you want to know.  Do tell them to stop telling you things you don’t want to know.  Speak up for yourself.  Don’t settle into a pattern that you don’t want to be in for the rest of your adult life with your parents.

Get help for yourself if you need it. We kind of pooh-pooh the adult child in divorce because the process doesn’t seem to have much to do with the adult child.  And I agree that it has to be much harder on [minor] children.  It still affects us, though - who will we visit or have over for dinner or have over to our home and when.  Who we call and when, and the side conversations - “How is your mother doing?”  Loaded conversations.  (I haven’t done all of these things - but I wish I’d had this conversation when I was in it).–K.B.

The bottom line…

Interestingly, I didn’t really blame either one of them for the breakup.  In fact, I realized that they probably shouldn’t have been together in the first place. I had figured out that I was a shotgun baby a LOOOONG time before, like when I was 8 or 9 so.. *shrug*. It was actually better in my view that they weren’t together.–S.C.

~

I was relieved to see it end, but also sad that they couldn’t work through their issues.–BioStepMom

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*As I was drafting this entry, Karenna Gore Schiff announced that she and her husband of 12 years are also separating.

Did your parents divorce when you were an adult?  I’m still receiving responses to my original query, and I may write a follow-up to this entry.  I invite your comments below or via email: deesha [at] deeshaphilyaw [dot] com

image by kangotraveler