A child is born with DNA inherited from their father and mother, a mix of both of their parents. So, what happens when your parents divorce and end up hating one another? Do they hate half of who you are?
I am a child of divorce. It was messy and a very hard few years for me to see my parents separate. To have a family, and then suddenly not. What made it harder was to see how much my parents ended up hating each other. To this day, over a decade later they struggle to even be in the same room as one another if something comes up where they have to be.
The complaints about the other make my head and heart hurt.
There's always this nagging feeling in the back of my mind. I'm a mixture of my parents. I have qualities and DNA of both of them. Do they hate half of who I am? When they see parts of me that belong to the other do they get annoyed? They claim to love me and who I am, but how do I know that's actually true?
I'm always jealous when I see other kids whose parents are divorced but still either get along or know who to just live with the other. When one says to have fun when they drop them off somewhere else or talk to each other. Mine say nothing to each other. It's as if they want to pretend the other no longer exists.
I don't want to have to choose between the two. If there is an event we all attend I don't want to have to say who I'd prefer to sit with. Nor do I want to hear them talk about how the other is there is what they're doing that the other one doesn't like. I'd like to pretend that for just a little while, I could sit with my family and be happy.
All I want is for them to get along enough to make their children happy.
They're divorced now and remarried. There is barely any time they have to even see each other. Can't they find peace in that? Sit in the same area together and be fine knowing that they are happy with their lives now?
I've learned to generally live and accept how things are. I try my best to ignore it. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt though. Especially when one says that I do something like the other. It brings back that fear that they don't like that part of me. I feel like I have to hide part of who I am when I'm with them in hopes that they don't have to think anything bad about me.
I really want to believe that they don't hate half of me.
I'm sorry Mom and Dad. I don't wish to make either of you feel bad. I don't think either of you are bad parents or bad in any way for that matter. I love both of you and everything that makes you, well, you. Even parts that may annoy me, it's still who you are. I just hope that you love me for all of who I am, even the parents you secretly may not like.
