This is a hard question to answer without knowing all of your details. My own parents’ divorces tells me that it’s not that my parents didn’t love me. The truth is they didn’t always choose my best interest. The pain and fear in their lives clouded the way they interacted with me. I think the walls they built to block out my other their spouse changed the way they were able to love me and my siblings. Taking sides and wanting to win often means dividing the affection of the children. We, children, get stuck in the middle.
I have witnessed parents grieving over the way a separation or divorce happened after the fact realizing that they have divided the children by wanting to gain the affection of one at the expense of the relationship with another child. It doesn’t mean that the parent didn’t love the other child. But fear and pain often keep us from doing the things that are necessary to show love to the people around us.
Here is a specific example from my perspective.
My Dad loved both of my brothers. The first 9 and 6 years of their lives I witnessed my dad loving each of them greatly and equally. When my dad and first stepmom separated they decided to each take one boy the majority of the time. I was across the states in college and I was dumbfounded. Who thought that would be a good idea? But guess what – it is the new norm. “Let’s divide our family. You get half the kids and I will take the other half or just as bad – I’ll take the kids half the week and you can have them the other half of the week. Let’s give them two homes and two sets of rules, two places to figure out who they are instead of one”
Now I understand that both parents want to be involved in their kids’ lives and that is why they say they are dividing the time or placement. And it is good for both parents to continue to have a relationship with their children, but often it is at the expense of what is best for the child and what fits better into the parents budget and time.
This infuriated me as I watched it unfold for my brothers. My first stepmom made an effort to show my eldest brother that she held no priority with the younger brother that lived with her the majority of the time. And though my dad tried, he missed the boat and didn’t realize it until it was too late. He tried to get my youngest brother to do the same activities that he and my eldest brother enjoyed, like boy scouts. It was short lived and when the younger brother showed interest in other things, my dad didn’t plug in to the same degree. He missed the opportunity to give the same amount of attention to my younger brother at a crucial time in their lives and unfortunately my dad is still paying for it. It damaged their relationship and my younger brother has yet to forgive him. It has been 25 plus years. They were civil with each other through high school and shortly after. My dad tried to make amends and say he was sorry but the rejection was reversed and now my brother refuses to even acknowledge my dad. Did my dad love him? Yes! Did he ever stop? No. But once the fear of rejection slipped into their relationship it played the winning card to keep them divided.
1 Corinthians 13 is a beautiful chapter about love but it is not easy. We often think of a gooey feeling when we think of loving someone. Remember the question about did my parents love each other? This is what we think of when we hear “love”. Falling in love with a soul mate or even the way we aahh and oohh over a baby or small child. Those are natural and beautiful feelings and should be celebrated in the right setting. But Paul is talking about expressing love in the light of working with the people around you, specifically the church body, to glorify God through the Holy Spirit with the gifts He has given you.
Look at the things he says,
Love is
+ is patient
+ is kind
Love
-does not envy
-does not boast
-is not proud
-does not dishonor others
-is not self-seeking
-is not easily angered
-keeps no record of wrongs
-does not delight in wrongdoing
+rejoices with the truth
+always protects
+always trusts
+always hopes
+always perseveres.
Love never fails.
If you try to hold this checklist up to your parent they will fail, as will anyone else in your life. Divorced or married or single or widowed – they will fail. Because God is Love – 1 John 4:8 and only He can hold up this list. We have this picture of a relationship of what a creator and their creation should look like in the way children are born into families. Children are “created” by their father and mother. It takes part of a man and woman to create that child and so there is a natural desire for that parent that created you to LOVE you. To be all the things on this list above. But remember we live in a fallen world. Our parents are not God. They cannot fulfill this list for us. Oh I wish I could do all these things for my kids. I honestly think that my parents wish they could do all these things for me and my siblings. But I can’t. They can’t. When Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment he says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and Love your neighbor as yourself.” We are called to try our best with the help of the Holy Spirit to practice love as it is shown to us through this list in Christ. But we fail.
As children of divorce, I think, we see and experience this failure in our parents at a heightened level. It doesn’t mean that they don’t or didn’t love us when we were born or that they don’t still want to do these things for us. They are probably fearful of losing more than they have already lost. But they are not God so we have to adjust our expectations of them being able to do all things for us. They might be loving us in the best way they know how.
Letting go of the expectation for our parents to be the perfect mom or dad is one of the best things we, as children going through the divorce as well, can do. Only God can stand up to the way we desire to be loved. We just get to learn this early through the disappointment of divorce.