An open letter to parents harboring thoughts of divorce

ANONYMOUS

"Please, Please don't sign them! 0 Daddy, don't sign those papers!"My pleading must have added greatly to my father's burden but the pen held firmly in him hand continued to write his name on the final papers. Thus was my world destroyed and I with it, for on that day something died in the heart of a child. A child? In years, yes; but the child pleading in the divorce court that day would never again be a carefree little girl. Now my mommy and daddy were divorced. It was a big word and a  hateful one! What it meant to grown‑ups, I did not know; but what it meant to me is a story that can never be told.  Right then it meant that the home we had known existed no longer. To us children, our home was our world, with Mother and Daddy essential parts of it; but that world had suddenly crumbled…like a storm that strikes suddenly and leaves one to pick tip the pieces, so life had suddenly turned our home inside out, upside down. Much of the shock lay in the fact that the ones destroying it were the two who had been our very security and life. From now on the family must he divided. I was told to choose between my mother and my father....I could not have both though I loved them both and wanted both to love me. Each was so necessary to me. How could I turn my back on one and say that I wanted the other more!  I remembered nights when I was sick and how my mother kept vigil....how she had fed me and tended to my needs. Surely she loved me! When things trou­bled me, I had always gone to her; and her explana­tions had banished my childish fears. I had great faith in my mother.  Nor could I doubt my father's love or the close place I had in his heart.  Often my brothers had sent me to him when they wanted some favor, knowing that he seldom refused me. This special place I had with Daddy was perhaps because I was so like him, and we understand each other so well, I had deep respect for my father...but how could I compare it with what I felt for my mother'? And how could I make a decision I hat would separate me from either? This was the downpayment in the price of divorce...and we children had to pay! To parents who still count the cost, I plead the cause of your children! You subject them to the agony of choos­ing between the parents whom they love, something wonderful has to die in their hearts during the unnatural struggle that choice entails. Years have passed but I still shudder at the memory of the day I left our home...with in my mother. Daddy cried like a child, and then Just stood and stared into space. I have wondered what went through his mind then. Was part of his grief due to the fact that missing from the circle of his motherless children was his only daugther? Was he thinking of what might have been? In my mind there is no doubt of what might have been: theirs could have been a successful marriage had they determined to keep the home intact…had both or even one been willing to sacrifice personal feelings. As far back as my memory goes, I remember my parents quarreling.  Like all quarrels, these were born of selfishness and stubborness, with neither willing to give in to the other.  Foolish advice was: Separate If you can’t get along: it will be better for the children. [Is it better to crush young hearts than for one or two to bear small hurts?  Better the blow should fall on six lives, young and tender, not old enough to know why they must be separated from each other?] Bitter protests and tears were vain, for divorce courts do not consider human hearts when they collect their dues!  Mother and Daddy were to be ‘free’…but we children were not.  I became a slave to despair.  The quarrels? They ceased, to be sure: but the cries of heartbroken children took their place; and I, for one, longed to hear those quarrels again if only it meant that I could have my mother and daddy back! This story is my own.  The plea I make is that of my own heart, though my brothers and sisters, too, could write their stories; and neighbors in our small town could add to them.  Perhaps it is just a familiar story…Daddy too busy to do the little things that count for so much, and having to neglect his six and eight year old boys.  My little brother longed for his mother, but his loss and grief gave expression to meanness; so he became involved with the law, so he became a problem child in school.  My teenage brothers became involved with the law, to the extent that they spent a night in jail. I realized even then that this, too, was part of the price of divorce which children pay! Perhaps a girl needs her mother even more than do the boys.  I seemed to be cut the deepest and to suffer the most. The shock of that day in court was indelibly printed on my memory, but I had only begun to taste the bitter portion dealt to a child of divorced parents. I wish I could take the hand of every parent harboring the thought of divorce, and lead them back with me into the valley through which I have come.  If the hurt of an innocent child’s heart, the bitter shock of a tender life, the tears of the unwanted, misplaced child, if the horror and gloom could be called to witness in the divorce courts, no child would ever again have to walk the dreadful road that starts with the signing of those final papers in the divorce courts.  Instead, the tears would become your own; and in the valley, you would realize that the ones who suffer in a divorce court, and remarriage, are the innocent children.Thank God, in my struggle through that darkness I met the Saviour; and lowly…very slowly…I began to live again.  Since that time, I have married; and at one time it seemed that I would fail as my parents had; but through sacrifice and love,, I was able to prove that marriage can be made to last. My wonderful husband and lovely children are my reward after having (as Job) drunk “scourging” like water. Many will say, “But MY case is different.”  I content that every marriage can be made to last if either husband or wife will fight to that end.  Mine did not succeed overnight, but every effort proved worthwhile; for through the sacrifice of my own feeliings, I brought out qualities in my husband which I had not known existed.  Only God knows the joys I now reap from every battle I fought (with myself instead of with my husband).  I had to learn to give when I rather would have taken, to smile when my heart rebelled, and to hold my tongue and let God speak for me.  But it was worth all it cost when compared with the reward..one of the happiest marriages in the world! From that experience, I know that divorce is NOT the answer: sacrifice is. You who contemplate divorce, I beg of you, remember ME. Hold that child of yours in your arms more closely, and in pity spare him (or her) that which I had to endure and can never forget.