Thoughts of the holidays transport us to images from songs, movies, poems, short stories, and novels with smiling family members amid tables replete with delicious food and drink and children of all ages playing gleefully. It’s a time for family and friends to connect and celebrate. Merriment and joyfulness abound.
What if your images of the holidays are painfully different?
American novelist Pat Conroy wrote, “Each divorce is the death of a small civilization.” Death means grieving. The losses arising from divorce are painful. Images of grieving parents, children, and family members crying assault us. Grieving is the constant companion of those affected by divorce—family, extended family, friends, and community members. It’s inevitable.
Researchers Wallerstein and Blakeslee said, “Divorce is deceptive. Legally, it is a single event, but psychologically, it is a chain—sometimes a never-ending chain—of events, relocations, and radically shifting relationships strung through time, a process that forever changes the lives of the people involved.”
Gray divorce couple discussing how to preserve holiday traditions for their family and friends
Source: Dall.e/Open.A.I
Acknowledging reality is crucial for healing.
Some divorcing couples and their families find ways to incorporate the reality of divorce into successful holiday activities. Client names and details are changed to protect confidentiality.
Warren, 54, and Talia, 52, ended their 30-year marriage in a bitter, adversarial divorce, which caused excruciating divisiveness and unrest between their nuclear and extended family members and family friends, who felt loyal to and loved them both. Their acrimonious divorce had a stranglehold on four holiday seasons. They share how acknowledging the reality of the effects of their divorce on their family and friends helped everyone enjoy the holidays as much as possible.
Talia: “Early in our divorce, we recognized how our animosity for each other was permeating all our family relationships. We agreed that the holidays were about a ‘higher good’ than us and our divorce, and we wanted to prevent our hostility toward each other from ruining the holiday celebrations for those we cared about.”
Warren: “We took the time to ask everyone their vision of the holidays. Some thought celebrating together would be too difficult for them. Our teenage and adult children said they preferred to spend time with their peers away from the family conflict. Our parents said they wanted to spend time with us as a couple. We did our best to honor their wishes. We told them it was our holiday gift because we loved and cared about them. This open communication empowered us to make the best decisions for our family and friends.”
Talia and Warren: “We are grateful we could think ‘outside the box’ and do what our loved ones wanted. We are also grateful that our marriage therapist opened our eyes early on to the fact that divorce happens to family members, and it would be our gift to them to do our best to minimize the effects our divorce had on their lives. All of them told us they appreciated what we did to preserve the celebratory spirit of the holidays.”
Annie, the 25-year-old daughter of Joshua and Madeline, describes her experience: “My dad and mother had been married for 31 years. I knew they weren’t the happiest couple because I heard them fight sometimes. I often thought they should divorce. However, when they told me they were divorcing, I was still shocked. At that moment, my life changed forever. I wondered how that could happen when my parents were married for over three decades and what we would do for the holidays.
“Even though my parents couldn’t resolve their conflicts and stay married, they did an excellent job minimizing the adverse effects of their divorce on our family members, friends, and me. Together, they wrote something called a ‘We Statement’ and shared it with everyone who was important to them. Mom and Dad wrote they intended to be amicable during and after their divorce, and they believed all family members and friends deserved to have relationships with whomever they wanted, so they didn’t want us to feel we had to take sides. They intended to keep holiday gatherings cheerful and about the celebration, not the conflicts they had.
“I doubt many parents can do what Mom and Dad did for us. While we did not deny the losses we felt because they were no longer together as a couple, they gave all of us the gift of continuing to celebrate the holidays together as we had always done throughout the years. I am grateful for their caring gift.”
Parental divorce touches everyone in the couple’s circle and can create added stress and painful experiences that ruin the holidays. However, it’s important to remember that families are resilient. Divorcing parents can create more positive times amid the inevitable losses that arise from divorce.
© 2024 Carol R. Hughes, Ph.D.
