No More Wire Hangers!

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

In this episode of Momversation, Mindy Roberts from The Mommy Blog asks the question, “How has divorce effected you?”

Since you and I can’t sit and sip on a bottle of bourbon and chat all day about this, here’s the short version answer to that question:

My father has been married four times. FOUR TIMES. How can that not mess you up?

Of the four marriages, wife #2 was by far the worst. I can unapologetically say that being around her was worse than being around my own mother, who was a paranoid schizophrenic. If that ain’t saying something, then I don’t know what else does.

To sum it all up – wife # 2 was incredibly abusive, both verbally and physically. I can trace most of my neurosis as an adult from the seven years that she spent casting an ominous cloud over me. That woman completely terrorized me in a “Mommy Dearest” kind of way (“NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!!!”).  And to make matters worse, she treated my older sister like she was her pet. I, on the other hand, was called “dae-jee” (or “piggy” in Korean) and was ridiculed for being less than perfect. When my father and she finally got a divorce, I was doing a little happy dance inside. I was just so relieved to not walk on eggshells all the time or be yelled at for things like not folding the laundry correctly. It was a complete relief to me, but my sister was completely devastated.

After living through 3 divorces as a child and watching a zillion fights – my views relationships are completely skewed. As a result, I’ve had three major relationships in my life and none of them panned out. I did the best that I could with the dysfunctional toolbox that I had, but I really think my past relationships have been a diversion to avoid dealing with who I was. I fell into a trap that was hard to climb out of.

Nowadays, I think I have moved passed all that. I am a champion for love. I don’t necessarily believe that marriage is important, but love – love is something that I would go to the mat for. I give all the credit to Heather, Rebecca and Daphne for making their marriages work. From my experience, it’s not easy to maintain a relationship for the long haul. And as for Mindy, I think sometimes it’s harder to walk away … and choose happiness and self preservation.

When giving relationship advice, I always tell people to choose happiness. If you are happier together, even though things are sometimes bad, then it’s worth holding out for the times when things are good. If you spend your days fantasizing about being solo (I did this alot) then get out – get out fast.

And for goodness sakes, be gentle with your kids. They are no reason to “stay together” but there’s no good reason to tear them up while your relationship is falling apart.

PS. Check out the comment section of this Momversation episode. These ladies have a lot to say on the topic of divorce and are quite frank about their own experiences. I think it’s great to hear the whole spectrum of stories.

Tags: daphne brogdon, divorce, dooce, mindy, momversation, rebecca woolf
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