How to Break It to the (Grown) Kids

The worst thing you can do when you tell your grown kids about your divorce is to expect them not to feel strong emotions, not to feel grief and pain just as you do. Adult children struggle with divorce the same way young children do. Parents expect them to shrug off their split, as if the breakup of the family should no longer concern their grown kids because pieces of their adult lives are in place. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your kids may try to appear stronger than they are, they may appear as if they know what's best. But they're kids and they want to be able to call their mom or dad when they're hurting. You always want to go home again no matter what.

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Give them the news in a compassionate way

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College students even have a name for it: "The Freshman Call." Parents wait until their child has finished high school and is off to college before getting a divorce, which they, or at least one of them, may have been planning for a long time. Their son or daughter is already going through the disorientation of being away from home for the first time, adjusting to being on his or her own, and hearing that her family is disintegrating can be profoundly disorienting. Don't announce the divorce on the phone. "The hardest thing is when you're away from home and the entire divorce plays out over the phone and email," says Brooke Lea Foster, author of The Way They Were; Dealing With Your Parents Divorce After Lifetime of Marriage, who went through her parents divorce herself over the phone. "It's horrible. You get snippets and constantly feel like you should be there. You feel guilty, embarrassed. You're just getting to know people at college and are too embarrassed to be crying about mom and dad when you're being an adult for the first time. When you leave home you rely on home to ground you, when home has an earthquake rumbling under it you're thrown for a loop" Don't announce it at Christmas dinner either. Your children will feel blindsided if they come home for the holidays only to find out their parents are getting divorced. Actually the best way to tell adult children about your divorce is the same way the experts recommend telling small children. If at all possible, you and your spouse should sit down with them together when they have some time to digest the news and talk to them about it together. If your children are in college, wait until they're home for a long break. Adult children bitterly resent it when the feel that the news has been communicated in a sneaky, indirect, dishonest, humiliating or unnecessarily brutal way. They especially resent it when they are left to break the news to the other parent.

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College students even have a name for it: "The Freshman Call." Parents wait until their child has finished high school and is off to college before getting a divorce, which they, or at least one of them, may have been planning for a long time. Their son or daughter is already going through the disorientation of being away from home for the first time, adjusting to being on his or her own, and hearing that her family is disintegrating can be profoundly disorienting.

Don't announce the divorce on the phone. "The hardest thing is when you're away from home and the entire divorce plays out over the phone and email," says Brooke Lea Foster, author of The Way They Were; Dealing With Your Parents Divorce After Lifetime of Marriage, who went through her parents divorce herself over the phone. "It's horrible. You get snippets and constantly feel like you should be there. You feel guilty, embarrassed. You're just getting to know people at college and are too embarrassed to be crying about mom and dad when you're being an adult for the first time. When you leave home you rely on home to ground you, when home has an earthquake rumbling under it you're thrown for a loop"

Don't announce it at Christmas dinner either. Your children will feel blindsided if they come home for the holidays only to find out their parents are getting divorced.

Actually the best way to tell adult children about your divorce is the same way the experts recommend telling small children. If at all possible, you and your spouse should sit down with them together when they have some time to digest the news and talk to them about it together. If your children are in college, wait until they're home for a long break. Adult children bitterly resent it when the feel that the news has been communicated in a sneaky, indirect, dishonest, humiliating or unnecessarily brutal way. They especially resent it when they are left to break the news to the other parent.

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Comments

[Michelle L Vroom]

10:09 PM on 06/13/2011

So true! My parents handled everything poorly and were never on the same page, even about how to tell us they were getting divorced. It made things so much harder. I was shocked by their behavior and have recently started blogging about my experiences. I encourage all others going through similar situations to check it out: http://lifeasavroom.blogspot.com/

[tbmeyers]

08:15 AM on 06/11/2011

My ex husband announced to our kids he was leaving by asking our 20 year old daughter how his shirt looked, he had a date. He then moved in with someone he met in a bar & 5 months later moved in with his old girlfriend from high school, who was married & had a 2 year old. Wonder where that behavior falls under what not to do? Did I mention at the time we had a 14, 17 & 10 year old as well? Or that before he left he stopped paying for our house of 20 years & our cars without letting anyone know? The only good thing about how he did it is that in ensures that he will not be around for milestone occasions, will not see his grandchildren & that we will not have to see him anywhere. He has a new family now, this old one was boring him.

[littlefairy]

02:28 PM on 06/16/2011

Painful, hideous, callous, and so on and so forth. I hope you (and your children) can surpass the bitterness that would be a natural result and see this is a liberation, although it may take some time and a LOT of emotional work.

[LadyMorganDA]

11:32 PM on 06/06/2011

Hmm...I guess I have a unique perspective here. I was a small child (5 years old) when my dad and biological mother separated. My dad and my step-mother raised me (my bio-mom hasn't lived in the same country as me since I was 5), which meant that my step-mother WAS the mother that raised me. Then my parents divorced when I was in my early 20's. So I have experience with parental divorce at both the young child and young adult stages. Both divorces affected me profoundly.
I don't remember any particular trauma from the parental divorce when I was a young child, but I do remember the confusion I felt every time I spent time with my bio-mom and heard her side of the story. Naturally, being essentially abandoned by my mother had an affect on me and all my future relationships.
The pain I felt when my parents divorced when I was in my 20's is still memorable. Even though I was self-sufficient, I felt adrift...my family was literally falling apart. I was afraid that I would lose this mother too. I was also relieved when both my parents went on to find partners that suited them better. This time my mother did not abandon me, and we are now closer than ever.

[LadyMorganDA]

11:38 PM on 06/06/2011

My conclusions? There is no "ideal time" from a kid's perspective, for their parents to divorce. The long term effects on the kid will be largely dictated by how well the adults can respect the kid's needs thru the transition. Most of all, the kids need to know that their parents love them are will be there for them, no matter how old the kids are!

[cdnbystander]

01:30 PM on 06/08/2011

I come from another perspective. I was sick of the fighting and I was thrilled when they went their separate ways. I think it was the drama leading up to it that caused the most damage.

[LJO 22]

03:39 PM on 06/06/2011

Very interesting article.
IMHO the last advice "Warn your partner not to act parental with your adult kids. There's nothing more annoying to an adult child than someone trying to be her mom or dad when she's grown up and barely knows him." is totally applicable to young children. Why would a kid care about the person one of his/her parents hooks up to? Kids already have too parents, unless there has been abuse of any kind, they don't need extra ones.

[PowerPridePinstripes]

02:24 PM on 06/06/2011

Meh... my parents divorced 30 years ago and they are still fighting to this durn day! It's exhausting and as an adult my sister, brother and I are just sick of it.

[Guest211]

01:24 PM on 06/06/2011

Erica,

I'd still like to see the US CENSUS data you claim you have stating a mans income goes UP after a divorce.

[craftycrow]

12:45 PM on 06/06/2011

My parents SHOULD get a divorce. Their relationship has been on the brink since my brother and I left the house. I hope that when they do get divorced, they just call me. My brother and I just want them to be happy, and they're definitely not happy now. It's to the point where the 4 of us can't really be together anyway.

[CrankyGal]

12:38 PM on 06/06/2011

I disagree with the author's premise.

Young children are frightened that their parents will stop taking care of them.

Adult children do not have to deal with this very visceral fear.

My parents divorced after a long rancorous marriage. I was frightened by the prospect of divorce as a child. Didn't care at all when they finally did divorce when I was an adult.