Marriage and Divorce

Today, twenty-six years ago, my parents got married. Two weeks ago my mother filed for divorce. Honestly, I don’t know how she lasted so long being married to my father. I love my parents but my dad is an a**hole sometimes.


When I was a child, I always knew that this day would come, and I had many years to prepare for it. Surely it wouldn’t affect me. It shouldn’t affect me as I myself am now married and living in a house of my own. It’s not like their divorce would mean having my father move out or having to move and change schools as I’m already done with that part of my life. However, it does affect me. It didn’t truly bother me until today. I’ve been keeping myself busy so I wouldn’t have to think about it, but looking at the calendar and seeing the date literally brought tears to my eyes. Today is their 26th wedding anniversary. For many people that’s forever. How can you call it quits after forever?

I was used to the way things were. I liked going over to my parents’ house and hearing my mother complain; “I just cleaned the kitchen and he already made a mess of it.” “Bill, put your shoes away.” “Bill, don’t smoke inside the house.” I got used to my dad going to bed at nine, even on New Years Eve and my mother complaining that they never went out, not even on holidays. In the twenty-six years they’ve been married, they’ve never had a date with just the two of them going out. I can understand why my mother called it quits. What I don’t understand is why now? Why with the holiday’s upon us, would she rather be alone then with the people she spend a quarter century with?

My whole life I’ve spent the holiday’s with my parents. Even after I got married, we made a tradition of spending Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with my husband’s. Now my mother will be spending both days with a few single friends, and my dad with my grandma and uncle. Am I selfish for wanting my family back together for the holidays?

I know my parents could work it out, if only my dad could learn that his routine (work, home, bed, every single day) is dragging my mother down. And if my mom could figure out that her constant nagging and complaining isn’t healthy for a marriage either.

I wish I could turn back time and relive the Christmas’s of the past. I had a lifetime to prepare for this and still I find myself heartbroken. It’s strange not calling my father to remind him of what today is. I always thought that divorce only affects the couple and their non-adult children. Boy, was I wrong.