In America during this past year the divorce rate was estimated at 41%. This means approximately four out of every ten marriages are doomed to fail. This means eight of the classmates I’m currently sitting with are going to end up fighting custody battles, and spending hundreds of dollars on lawyers while wondering what happened to their happy marriage. This means I am going to have to stand by and watch at least three of my eight brothers and sisters go through the same situation we watched our parents go through. But, maybe, hopefully, I won’t have to. Hopefully, we will be the lucky ones because we are different from others. We, as children of divorce, are different from those who grew up in a two-parent household for many reasons.
We are not afraid to love like many have come to believe, rather we are afraid to not be in love. We fear that we will make the same mistakes our parents made. We fear we will become another statistic, another child of divorce who was “too broken to have a happy marriage.” We fear people will blame our solitude on our parent’s divorce when in reality we are making the conscious choice to choose unwavering devotion over fleeting infatuation. We know what it looks like when someone is not truly in love, for we know more about love than anyone else.
We know how to love someone who has been hurt, who was angry, because we loved our parents. We know how to love someone who is scared, who is confused, who is devoid of hope, because we loved our siblings. We know how to love someone who wants to take the blame for something that is not at all their fault, because we loved ourselves. We loved people during a time which many people cannot even imagine going through. And we will continue to love them for as long as we live because a parent’s divorce is not the end of your happiness and love. However, it becomes the cornerstone for your own marriage.
As children of divorce we know what to look for in a partner and we know never to settle for a mediocre love. We want passionate, dedicated, beautiful, can’t-live-without-you, love. We want the love our parents deserved on their first marriage instead of their second or third. We understand love is hard, and commitment is scary because only change is constant. But that’s okay. Because love is scary, it should be. You should be afraid to have your happiness depend on someone else, but it’s worth it. You should be afraid to marry someone only to realize you actually don’t want to spend your life with them. Which is why we refuse to let it happen.
Love is a choice. A choice you make based on intuition and faith and hope. We know this. We embrace this. We are fueled with the desire to provide our own children with one happy home and two loving parents.
We as children of divorce are not fearful of marriage, we are eager to be the generation who proves statistics wrong. We are stronger because pain has taught us how to love. And we have more love to give than anyone else.
