Look man, all kids are different. I never met my father. And if it's better to have loved and lost than to have never to have loved at all, well, your kids are going to have a better time than I did. Aswell, time heals all wounds. Don't worry. The time you spend wondering about whether your kids will be emotionally fullfilled could be spent playing with them, educating them, loving them.

Relax. Have a cookie.

I never blamed my parents in the first place.

My parents divorced when I was 13. I knew, even then, that it was the right thing to do. When it comes to forgiveness... I don't think I will ever really forgive my father, but mostly for disappearing from my life after the divorce. As for my Mom, she did the best she could. She was great, but for the mistakes she made anyway, I have forgiven her.

I think the best thing you can do is show your kids how important they are to you and model a stable and fulfilled life to them.

Good luck!

Brine,

You wrote,

"One of my most painful memories revolves around telling our children that their mother and I were separating. Some things we did well - "not your fault" we kept saying; some things not."

It is a tough road to hoe. I remember whenmy folks separated roughly 35 years ago. They kept telling me that it was nothing about me and that they still loved me. I remember thinking in my childlike state that if moms and dads could decide they didn't love each other after telling us that they did love each other how could I be certain they really did love me when they said they loved me.

Was I mad at mom and dad. Probably not at the moment. I think shock pretty well sucks most emotion out of you.

In the years that followed they made some decisions that did not sit well and to be honest I did get angry more than once.

Did I forgive them? Usually only for things they apologized for. The stuff they didn't I didn't. Not till much later and I became a parent myself.

You also wrote,

"Over the years everything seemed to "work out" but sometimes I wonder if they have come to a place not only of understanding and acceptance but also forgiveness."

Parents make mistakes. Maybe not the same mistakes as our parents but we make them all the same. You sound like you tried your best. Maybe the kids didn't think your best was good enough. You can't go back and do it all again.

And your kids, if they are smart and think about things half as much as you appear to, make peace with the past and live in the present.

John

Rev Grant wrote: "forgiveness takes them completely off the hook. I think time has a great deal to do with healing wounds."
I have noticed in other discussions (offline) that people often tend to use a variety of words around divorce. Healing and forgiveness are but two. Can one be forgiven but not healed? Or even healed but not forgiven?
Or maybe it is because the word "healing"now is easily used to cover a multitude of feelings or experiences?

Yes. We must forgive all the hurt that has been done to us. It's part of the deal. God forgives us, we forgive others. Freely I recieve, freely I give...blahblahblah. It's hard but ya gotta do it.

Do the children ever forgive or perhaps it's more "do we ever forgives ourselves" in terms of the impact on our children.

I ended my marriage of 19 years almost 10 years ago. I do not regret leaving my husband in terms of our relationship but am sad to see the effect that it's had on my children. He has pretty much closed the door to them completely and that has had severe emotional repercussions for them.

Do I wish I had stayed so that they wouldn't have had to go through that? Well, to be honest, there are times when I am so sad for what they have lost but I did not choose to remove him from their lives, he did.

I do feel guilty. Mostly that's because I went off the rails for awhile after we separated but am back on course now. I think that my daughters have forgiven me but my son still resents my decision and is quite closed in terms of relationship with his step-father. As he's the youngest, it's rather baffling in one sense but as he was really close to his dad, it's not a surprise.

The kids and I are doing OK now but it's taken some time and really, I think that only when they are adults and perhaps parents themselves that they will be able to come to a deeper understanding.

I think that for the most part, children bounce back. It all depends on when in the child's life you divorced as well. My parents seperated when I was in grade 10, and it was for the better all around. It was a little hard to deal with at first for me, but then I saw how much happier they both were, and how much happier me and my brothers were, less tension and less fighting, and I saw it was for the better. Kids, even babies, see and hear more than most parents realize, so the fights that parents think the kids don't know about...they do. If this is a concern of yours, talk to your kids about it. Instead of wondering, sit down and have a good talk about their thoughts and feeling of it. Encourage the communication and it may not only help you, but your children as well.

Ive never heard of a divorce that went well. I think it impacts the kids mostly because its so completely out of their control.

God is clear in his word that He hates it, and if youve been through one or seen you parents go through one I think its obvious why God hates it.

Its hard to forgive something like that, but I think its a good idea becasue (1) a God who loves you wouldn't initiate something thats bad for you and (2) it can give you a sense of release when it happens.

But bottom line it is what it is ... a divorce ... and thankfully its not something that has to permanently define who you are if you dont want it to.

I agree with Sachyreil that there is no point in worrying about the outcome ... God is more than able to see us through

If my parents split up, I would never forgive them. It's a weird thought to acknowledge that your parents don't love each other anymore. It makes you doubt if there ever was love, or if they even love you.

Forgiveness will only go so far. I can forgive my mother to a point but I will never forgive my father.

Imagine what it is like seeing your dad chase your mom around the house with a butchers knife at 5 years old.

Now imagine you having to live with him and him using you to get back at his ex-wife (your mother).

Now imagine him kicking you out of the house at 18 just when your getting into university when he has kept promising that he will pay your tuition.

Imagine nearly 9 years of hell from that.

Now imagine him trying to insert himself back into your life after those 9 years because you are now making money because he squandered the millions of dollars he had (or is hiding from his current wife) and trying to bully you into paying for your half-sister(s) tuition all without even attempting to apoligize.

Imagine the above happening just as you were getting to know new people (prospective dates / girlfriends, new social groups), then it affecting you so that you come off needy (when all you want to do is vent a bit) and you losing them because of it.

Forgive him? I would rather go to hell than forgive such a person, at least there I maybe able to take revenge on him.

Next time he contacts me, I'm pulling out a restraining order.

Even further, I can't forgive my mother to be so weak that she does not want me to go after him (legally) to shut him up and get him out of my life for good.

She does not want to be caught up in the eventual mess but no matter what she thinks she does not realize that unless I hurt him where it hurts (the only place is his wallet as he has no heart), he'll never leave me alone. He'll do the same crap again when he thinks he can get away with it.

I guess the only lesson I can give is to protect your child against abusive ex-spouses and don't be a wuss and let ex-spouses bully your kid.

My father is abusive, my mother is a wuss and all I get is depression, sadness, lonliness, etc.

Tolstoy said, "All happy marriages are the same, but unhappy ones are each different". I think that the same could be said for divorces, too.

It seems to me that a big problem that people run into in divorce, which then leads to the issues for which the kids will have to forgive, is that they treat the divorce like a carte blanche for all kinds of unrestrained, ego-driven behaviour. You know the stories: Buddy does wrong by his wife, so she spends the next 5-10 years extracting revenge via the kids and his bank account. Mrs. had an affair, so buddy runs her down in front of the kids and brings home a series of fly-by-night girlfriends and the kids are on a roller-coaster of serial breakups. Everyone knows situations like this, where it's almost like the people involved are acting from a bad tv movie script as if this were the only possible way they could behave in the circumstances.

I tend to think the extent that we can stay out of these kinds of ego traps with regard to our ex, the less there will be to forgive. Also, it seems really helpful to let kids know that despite the separate living arrangements, their parents are a team when it comes to raising them (if that's at all viable).

I care for and respect my ex-husband, even love him in a brotherly way. He was my first serious boyfriend. We're from the same hometown. I'm glad he's my daughter's father. However, our marriage did not work out despite what I believe to be our best efforts over many years. I continue to be sorry for that, but I'm not going to be ruled by it. And if my daughter feels that we have done something irreparable to her, I would like it to be limited to the fact of the breakup and not to some ongoing drama that we have imposed on the situation. But I guess only time will tell.

Forgiveness probably depends on the nature of the child.

But I would say there would be a deep down problem of trusting anything fully in life that appears to have stability.

That's actually one reason a lot of people have trouble trusting God. Not divorce, necessarily, but being betrayed by a situation that you had full confidence in and it blew apart by no fault of your own.

I think some kids blame themselves silently.

Statistically, most children do forgive and do move on fairly well. We should note that children of widowhood do a lot better than children of divorce, they have less baggage.

The ones who do the best are the ones where both parents work at keeping a solid parent child relationship with both parents AND who do not "trash" the other parent, that is, those who do not talk nasty about the other parent.

There are some sub-types of divorced children who do not do well:

- parental alienations, those wherein the custodial parent blocks the non-custodial parent and/or talks so severely bad about the non-custodial parent that it warps the child. These children do quite badly and usually for the rest of their life. although there are exceptions to that.

- children who are bounced from parent to parent and to grandparent and to relatives. One bounce seems to work and work well, two aren't too bad, go over two and the child will have problems. For example, a child who at age 12 decides to go live with dad will, based on the odds, have no more nor less problems than any other.

- children of totally-absent parents who do not pick up a substitute for that parent.

I didn't forgive. Actually I never thought about it. My parent's divorce didn't affect me in any negative way that I could forgive, or think about forgiving.

I divorced many years ago. My ex-wife, with whom I always remained on good terms, died almost ten years ago. i have been in constant contact with my children of that marriage. We are good friends. They would never, I am sure, feel they have not forgiven me.

Yet I am quite sure I did damage.

Divorce is a tragedy. We should not kid ourselves otherwise.
graeme

My parents seperation wasn't a tragedy. It was sad, necesasry even, but not a tragedy.

Too much to read above for me right now.

Do children ever forgive their parents for divorcing? I don't think I did or will until I am divorced. Then I can appreciate my parents more.

heh douglas, and welcome to wc.

you know, that is an interesting point...being a parent, puts a whole different light on such things

Thanks for the welcome Pinga.

At some point I am looking to see if there is some Christian divorce group local that I can partake in. I know divorce is the right thing for me however the pain can be great. And I need to stay close to my children.

My parents did not go to church. It was uplifting for me to take my children to the LDS church the other day. To be a family of no Mom with us but a family all the same. My children showed an interest in bible study. I was elated but perplexed since LDS has some key things that I disagree with. This got me looking at my roots (and had been also reading on John Shelby Spong's views of Christianity & was enthused with him being Anglican and my having been baptised Anglican).

My children can not necessarily understand the work I will go through and their forgiveness of me might be beyond what I can request or expect. But I can do the best I feel is possible & not isolate. By feeling I am doing the best possible for my children & myself, I can forgive myself.

I'm not sure...

If they would have stayed together, proverty would have been avoided... The lack of knowing where your next meal is coming from, or one of your parents pressuring you to go to college (back to college) just so they can get child support money, always left a bad taste in my mouth...

*In my opinion* it is easier to forgive your parents for getting a divorce than to forgive the way the behaved before, during or afterwards.
If they display their anger, bitterness or any negative emotions towards their ex-spouse infront of their children, then it will be much harder for the child to 'bounce back'.
If the parents are civil, and show their children they're still working as a team in the parenting, it will take a load off their shoulders.
Lack of information is a mistake in any parent-child relationship, one - it makes the child feel unimportant enough to know what is happening in their lives, two - it weakness the child's trust for their parent(s).
The only thing that children can never forgive their parents for is taking away the ideal family every child dreams of having; loving parents in one household, together.
In conclusion, yes, it is POSSIBLE to forgive, but there is no certain answer for this question.