The Older I Get, The More I Wish My Parents Had Gotten Divorced
I spent my childhood terrified my parents would split. Now I realize I grew up in a marriage that should have ended.
I must have been about 5 years old the first time I remember my parents having a really bad fight. Despite not being old enough to really understand what was happening, the screaming and tension in the room were more than enough for me to catch on to knowing it wasn’t anything good. Just a few minutes in, I burst into tears and ran out of the room.
I remember my parents’ attitudes immediately changed as they came into my room to talk with me. When they asked me what was wrong, I told them I didn’t want them to fight and get divorced, a new concept I had begun hearing about as friends’ parents went through separations. I was met with reassurances, repeated mantras of “we love each other” and “we’re a family, and that’s not going to change.” As a 5-year-old, that was enough for me to feel secure and move on from the event (though the fact that I still remember it so vividly three decades later says something about the absorbent mind of a child).
At the time, the idea that my parents could get divorced was the worst thing I could think of, bringing forth images of separate houses, shuffling back and forth for weeks and weekends.
Now, in my early 30s and having been married for nearly a decade, the entire concept has been reframed. That fight, which was one of *many* I’ve seen throughout the years (they became more and more frequent over time), was a level of toxicity that I cannot imagine being a part of my own marriage, certainly not in front of children.
And, while my parents are still married all this time later, the truth has gotten louder and louder in my head the older I’ve gotten: They shouldn’t be.
My angry dad (what a cliche)
While I can remember plenty of fights between my parents at a young age, when it all really changed was in high school. At a risk of boring you with a major cliche, the financial recession of 2018 completely changed my family. They lost the house, finances were tough, my dad became insecure and angry at the world (I’m sure you can take a guess at his politics) — especially my mom.
What began as once-in-a-while blowout fights came to a head almost nightly. It became so toxic that I couldn’t wait to move out of the house post-college, desperate to get away from the tension of a relationship I no longer understood.
The dichotomy of being in a happy marriage when your parents aren’t
I ended up getting married pretty early, tying the knot with my college boyfriend in my mid-20s. And while I always understood my parents' marriage was tumultuous, I don’t think it was until I was married myself that the extent of just how toxic it was became clear.
We’ve been married nearly a decade now, and we’re no strangers to fights. With life, kids, finances, and living together, it’s impossible not to disagree from time to time. But when I really think about it, compared to my parents, I realize it’s just that: We’ve had disagreements and arguments. We have never had a big, blowout fight that ended in cruel words and screaming, especially in front of our kids. Our arguments have been passive-aggressive moments, pointing out the dirty dishes left overnight in the sink, or bickering about whose turn it is to get up for a midnight feeding with our newborn.
Even if they result in a few hours of anger at the other person, they end with apologies as calmer heads prevail.
What’s most notable about all of this is how much it makes me realize that this has never been what I’ve seen from my own parents. At no point has that been more noticeable than a particular fight from a family Thanksgiving a few years back, when my dad unloaded with cruelty on my mom, resulting in a fight that made me feel like I was 5 years old again and witnessing the two most important people in my life in a terrible situation. The big difference this time was that instead of crying about the possibility of divorce, I ended up crying in the hopes that they would.
I’ve asked her to leave him
My mom was a stay-at-home parent my entire childhood, only beginning to fill up her resume with jobs after all her kids had graduated from school. I had that front of mind the first time I asked if she’d consider leaving my dad, assuring her that she could live with my family and me while finding a new job and place to live.
It’s a conversation I’ve had with her time and time again over the years, wondering after each fight how she could stay with him. All I can think is that if it were me, I wouldn’t stay, that I wouldn’t let my husband treat me the way my dad treats her.
And while I think she has really considered it, I keep getting the same response. She’ll tell me she promised to stay for better or worse, and she takes that vow seriously.
That’s where I’m left: loving my mother deeply, resenting the way she’s been treated, and feeling powerless in the space between. I understand vows. I understand commitment. I even understand fear — the fear of starting over, fear of being alone, fear of discovering that the life you built was never what it should have been.
What I don’t understand anymore is the idea that staying is always the more noble choice.
Because what I’ve learned, watching my parents and then building a marriage of my own, is that love doesn’t have to sound like yelling. It doesn’t have to feel like walking on eggshells or bracing yourself for the next explosion. “For better or worse” was never meant to mean enduring cruelty indefinitely, or shrinking yourself to keep the peace.
I don’t know if my parents will ever divorce. I don’t know if my mom will ever leave. What I do know is that the version of marriage I once feared losing as a child is not the version I want my own kids to grow up believing is normal. If they ever find themselves crying because the people they love most are hurting each other, I hope they won’t wish for the fighting to stop at any cost.
I hope they’ll wish for something better and believe they’re allowed to have it.
