It's time for a bit of honesty. The type of honesty that makes some people uncomfortable. I'm going there, don’t shoot the messenger. Here goes… divorce hurts children. It hurts young children, it hurts teenagers and it hurts adult children whose parents break-up after decades of marriage. Divorce hurts children.
No one questions the fact that divorce hurts the adult men and women who go through it. Suggesting otherwise would get one drawn and quartered. Lawyers, therapists, pharmaceutical companies, and the families of divorcing individuals can all attest to the pain and suffering involved with the divorcing adults. So if the adults are in pain, why on earth would we buy into the “kids are resilient” and the “kids are ok” divorce happy talk? Divorce is not just about adults, it’s the end of a child’s family. Divorce hurts children.
Recently, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute featured Dr. Daniel and Bethany Meola of Life-giving Wounds Ministry on her podcast, the Dr. J. Show. The couple discussed their healing ministry for adult children of divorced or separated parents and their upcoming three part series Beyond the Wounds, presented by Stella Maris Center beginning on March 8.
During their interview, the Meolas discussed two core “wounds” they address in their programs, the wound of silence, and the wound to identity.
“In my experience,” noted Dr. Morse, “adult children of divorce feel invisible and they feel like they’re the only one who have that experience.” “Helping people realize they are not alone in feeling the way they do is a huge part of our ministry,” responded Daniel.
“Our society… has really minimized the suffering… so we begin in our ministry talking about the wound of silence. This phenomenon that despite a million children a year that’s estimated experience their parent’s divorce, they feel so alone,” explained Dr. Meola.
“They can’t talk to their parents because they are afraid to upset them, they’re caught between anger and love too, so they don’t know how to talk about it,” Daniel continued. “There’s also a lot of “happy divorce” talk in society that says this is no big deal, children are resilient, they get over it quickly. So you feel like you’re going crazy because you’re still dealing with these problems,” he explained. Adult children of divorce, he said, are not given the opportunity to express their pain or talk about the wound they experienced when their parents divorced.
The pain and suffering felt by the people going through a divorce, or the children who are experiencing the break-up of their family, is a reminder, said Dr. Meola, of the way marriage is supposed to be. “That suffering you face is pointing you to the truth of love in marriage; that marriage is indissoluble and lasts for the life of the marriage. It was born from my personal experience, this truth the Church teaches…it is not just an abstract, academic thing. It goes to the heart of our experience, it explains the desire and the healing that we seek,” he said.
“The wound to the identity,” continued Bethany, “comes from being split between your mother and your father. These are the two people who are your identity reference point as a child, and now they are in different houses and may not have anything to do with each other. That sense of going between those two worlds is very evocative, and taps into that sense of homelessness that a lot of adult children of divorce experience. Whether that is literally, losing your childhood home, and all those repercussions, or that sense of ‘I don’t know where I belong anymore. I don’t know where my place is in my family now that my parents have split’,” explained Bethany.
“We know from a Christian stand point, that our parents are supposed to be an image of God’s love to us, so when that is off, our image of God is going to be de-facto off. So we don’t believe, we don’t accept we are in the image of God, and if we don’t accept we are made in the image of God, we are not God’s beloved, and we doubt our capability to love,” added Dan.
“The pain stems from the parents not being together, and that endures long after. It is not just one moment in time. It endures through all the milestones of life, so that pain never truly goes away, but healing is possible,” he said.
Healing from the wounds of parental divorce is an essential aspect of helping men and women prepare for their own marriages. Dr. Meola noted that very often, a divorce in one or in both of a premarital couple’s family is often just addressed briefly and not given the attention it needs for healing to occur.
If you are an adult child of divorce or parental break-up, or someone you love is a child of divorce, please join Dr. Dan and Bethany Meola and Stella Maris Center on March 8, 15, and 22 from 7:30-8:30 pm (central) for Beyond the Wounds a reflection and healing series designed to start the conversation about the importance of healing, because, divorce hurts children.
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If you’d like to watch the entire interview with Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, and Dr. Dan and Bethany Meola, go to http://www.ruthinstitute.org/dr-j-show The show was released on February 5.
To register for Beyond the Wounds go to www.ilovestellamaris.org/family-healing
To connect with Dr. Dan and Bethany Meola’s ministry, Life-giving Wounds go to
www.lifegivingwounds.org