When Children of Divorce Take Sides

[christina-rowe]

It is a well known fact that divorce not only hurts children, it can also sever relationships between parents and grown children. When a teenager or adult child decides to side with one parent during the divorce, it can damage the parent-child relationship forever.

My own 22 year old daughter has not spoken to her father in almost 5 years. Because of my ex's actions and behaviors during our divorce, she chooses not to have him in her life. I have encouraged her to try and forgive her father, but she is not ready to make amends. She feels that until he expresses true remorse over his behavior during the divorce and stops placing blame on others, she does not want a relationship with him. Of course it makes me feel horrible that my ex and her father, who were once very close do not have a father-daughter relationship anymore. But what drove my daughter to cut off ties with her dad were some horrible comments he made during the divorce about her grandfather who then passed away months later.

At her age, I must respect her decision to not speak to her father, but it is still makes me sad to hear my ex tell people he has 3 children when he has 4 and I feel bad that my daughter will not have a father to walk her down the aisle someday. Maybe they will eventually reconcile, but until then there is little I can do to help repair their relationship.

I think divorcing couples need to be careful about confiding in teenage or adult children during a divorce. You may have the best intentions and want to be honest with your adult child about the divorce, but letting adult children in on the ugly details of the divorce can backfire and cause the child to take sides. It is bad enough that friends and family often take sides, but when a child chooses end a relationship with a parent because of a divorce, it can be devastating. Click here to read a free chapter of Seven Secrets to a Successful Divorce...

[klas]

I truly agree that when a family splits it should be between the two married, not the children being divorced from one of their parents. .We have four children, two who make an effort to keep in contact with their dad and two who don't and won't despite my urgings. But it is a two way street and he makes no effort to contact them either. I just think it is so sad.

[megg_45]

My husband left last Aug. 08 and moved across the country to be with his 22 year old girlfriend (after 20 years of marriage). He never said goodbye to our children (or me)and has never told them why he left. We found out he was in OR (we're in Me) with a return address on a birthday card to my 11 yo daughter (no present) . We have 4 children from 11-19. He hasn't made any effort to call them or get in touch with them. They have been very angry (understandably). He never called them on Thanksgiving, so they decided to call him on Christmas. He never said he was sorry, just he missed them and loved them. I find myself so angry that they are so afraid of telling him how angry they are because they are afraid to lose him. He thinks what he did is fine and they will get over it.His gf is getting ready to have another man's baby that he will raise as his. I want them to have a relationship with him, but he has never accounted for their feelings in this whole mess. He is the only one who counts!How do I encourage my children to talk to him and forgive him when he has never asked for forgiveness and feels he did nothing wrong? I come from a big family with very strong family values and I don't want the kids to think what my stbx did was ok.

[Jamie1]

Thank you for this post. I have been going through the same sad thing. My 23 yo son hasn't talked with his father since June and will no longer call him dad. He is even talking about changing his last name to his birth name (he was adopted at 7 mos). I tried and tried to get him to forgive his dad - and when he decided to give me one more, two more, three more chances due to my pleading - his dad betrayed him times three.When I tried again to get him to reconcile he told me to leave it alone. He reminded me he is 23 and makes his own choices. He feels that his father's goodness for all those years does not make up for the way he left, how he left and what he did after he left. This Christmas I had to let it go - when all I wanted to do was talk to him again about forgiveness. His father was the dream dad. He adored his father and thought he was the model for all men, husbands and dads. He feels that was wiped away.It will always break my heart. When my dad walked out on all of us when I was 17 I barely spoke to him again. Saw him a smattering of times over the past 31 years. But never missed him. Big difference is that my father was a terrible father and to see him go was a relief. Not the same story for my son.

[ric3]

It is sad when an adult child severs ties with a parent. But it is up to them what they decide to do in their life. My ex didn't speak to her father for over 11 years because of his infidelity and leaving her mother. After she reconciled with him it was about 8 years until she did the same in our marriage, (Not that the events are related). You can only suggest reconciliation and be supportive. Peace.

[Mommyscorned]

I found out today that my daughter gave birth to my fiest grand baby. My daughter has my middle name as her middle name. She gave her daughter the middle name of her stepmother just to hurt me. She was turned against me by this woman who was not a mother although pregnant with their fathers baby when he left me and they hit it off from the start and she had them call her mom. It has been 4 years, I am minus 3 lives of my life and it never geta easier. This woman openly calls me terible names online, and must be borderline personality because she lies and just completely fabricates every single word that comes out of her mouth. This took 8 yrs after divorce but they seemingly easily took my kids after I followed the rules to not speak ill of him and he and mainly his wife did nothing of the sort. They did it underhandedly because they were completely the wrong choice for my kids and never notified me of the hearing for custody, and I had 2 terrible lawyersm ruin my chance to throw it out, but not from fault of my own at all. My oldest is 19, she is mildly autistic and apparently that means they turned her into a mini stepmom. She is so evil step mom and believe it or not every article on the internet is negating the theory of evil step mom. She took over my life and left me and my daughter that has a different father homeless, sisterless:(, destitute and they want to throw me in jail for child support. He left me for her. This is nuts.