The Unhealed Wound: The Damage of Divorce to Children

In looking for the Letter that Fr Rutler was referring to, I also found another that urged me on to find the source of HER Letter (entitled Triumph Over Divorce) to the Editor in the April 2003 Crisis Magazine.

While her letter admits "his tremendous witness to his children and grandchildren, and me through this article", she also immediately asks the question, calling it his "one critical error"... "Would Omicinski be as powerful an advocate for marriage if he hadn’t had such a painful childhood?"

The article itself is long and compelling. It is something that people today just do not like to hear, much like Elizabeth Marquardt's work. It is something therefore that draws all sorts of comments attempting to explain away the words that force us to take another look at what society accepts and justifies.

One of the TYPICAL answers is that those of us who have gone through the pain could not/would not be able to help others if we had not gone through it in the way we can because we did.

OK, it is VERY TRUE: "We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28 RSV)

What bothers me is that people take this verse, and fly with it to excuse a myriads of Evil, and in the process do not hear or listen to what the person was SAYING.

God is quite capable of using any of us in any way without having to go through Divorce, Cancer, etc. He is quite capable of helping others to reconcile without putting our kids through the Hell of Divorce that this man describes. Why do we have to MINIMIZE what he is saying by using placebo words that do nothing to aid and comfort the afflicted?

Should we now encourage more to Divorce so that someday they can minister to others as they themselves have been ministered to?? (That is another Biblical verse often given to us to live by...)

Or should we call those comtemplating it to LISTEN and HEAR from those who are most affected, and PERHAPS give up the selfish persuit of personal happiness and self-fulfilment of the "I" and the 'soul mate" by reconciling and honoring the committment made with the Vows spoken?? Another verse often FORGOTTEN by those 'helping us' with placebo words... 1Cor 7:10-11"To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband)"-- with the same applying to the husband....

The author has so much for people to HEAR, not just explain away that it saddens me that the ONLY RESPONSE this woman could give to him was essentially.... your pain doesn't count.

She may not agree with me. Many who want to justify no fault forced unilateral divorce and today's relative easy Nullity decrees do not want to hear this man's pain.

Divorce is evil, not good. Divorce hurts the kids. Divorce today, especially, because it is so easily justified, accepted, rationalized, even ENCOURAGED.... drowns out the voices of the children.

Well, those children are now becoming adults. And they ARE speaking out. And as I have said before... those of us who justified our actions had better begin to LISTEN.

Why continue to excuse and justify something that has such long-lasting effects on the ones we claim to love when Forgiveness and Love and Reconciliation are what God Himself calls us all to? I CHALLENGE you to read his words without trying to minimize what it is that he is saying! I challenge you to HEED his words as well.

YOUR 'wound' may 'heal' by choosing to abandon vows, etc... but this man's and so many other children of divorce have not.




From an email Diane Sollee had sent to me:

- BECAUSE OF YOU
> Diane,
> I found it on aol music.
>http://music.aol.com/artist/main.adp?artistid=542180&#
> Carolyn Jackson-King


Thank you Carolyn. I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face. Powerful stuff. Mother in middle of fight with husband. Freeze frame and flashback to her own childhood. She takes the hand of "herself" as a little girl and together they watch scenes of her parents' marriage falling apart. Feels like it's music to illustrate Marquardt's "Between Two Worlds". I think it deserves a Smart Marriages Impact Award. It looks like it was released in 2004. Wish someone had brought it to our attention earlier, but it's never too late. Lyrics below. The "you" in "because of you" are her parents that divorced. - diane





Related Tags: Divorce, Children of Divorce, Elizabeth Marquardt