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06/18/2015
Dear Dr. Laura,
You say divorce has a long-lasting effect on children, and I am living proof. I am 62 years old and have been married for 40 years. My parents divorced when I was 8 years old. My father disappeared and we didn't re-connect until I was 16.
When I was 19, I married a boy I had been sneaking around with since I was 11 and he was 15. The marriage was annulled after 8 months when he found a new girlfriend. It's a miracle I never got pregnant.
My now-husband is of Sicilian descent and has ADHD and one of our inside jokes is he thanks me for not killing him and we laugh. But at our last anniversary celebration, when he thanked me for not killing him, I told him tearfully, "You always say that, but the truth is, in MY world men leave. So thank you for not leaving me." Until that point, I had never voiced my fear that I felt it was inevitable he would leave because that's what men do. Forty years of a good, strong relationship, and I was still that 8-year-old child waiting to be abandoned.
Thank you for your continual affirmation that kids need their dads and that kids don't just bounce back from divorce. The effects of divorce last a lifetime.
Anne
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