Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak

by Leila Miller

Seventy now-adult children of divorce give their candid and often heart-wrenching answers to eight questions (arranged in eight chapters, by question), What were the main effects of your parents' divorce on your life? What do you say to those who claim that "children are resilient" and "children are happy when their parents are happy"? What would you like to tell your parents then and now? What do you want adults in our culture to know about divorce? What role has your faith played in your healing?

Their simple and poignant responses are difficult to read and yet not without hope. Most of the contributors--women and men, young and old, single and married--have never spoken of the pain and consequences of their parents' divorce until now. They have often never been asked, and they believe that no one really wants to know. Despite vastly different circumstances and details, the similarities in their testimonies are striking; as the reader will discover, the death of a child's family impacts the human heart in universal ways.

Genres: Nonfiction, Parenting, Marriage, Catholic, Religion, Biography, Self Help

327 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 21, 2017

About the author

Leila Miller is a wife and mother of eight children who has a penchant for writing and a passion for teaching the Catholic Faith in simple ways. This summa cum laude Boston College graduate also enjoys debating secularists, and in her spare time she fancies herself a bit of a Catholic matchmaker. She manages two blogs that accommodate those hobbies well: Little Catholic Bubble, and the invite-only Catholic Moms Matchmaking.

Reviews

[Meredith Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Offers a countercultural viewpoint on divorce

As a divorced former Catholic parent, this was an uncomfortable read but offered a lot of insight into what my daughter experienced from my divorce. This is a valuable read for any parent or person considering entering a marriage.
I wish the Kindle version allowed me to click on the contributors number and sort through the bios

[David Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me deal with own past as a child of divorce. The author asked a set of questions about surviving divorce, and this book consists of some of the answers.

What is divorce like for a child? Well, what was the Enola Gay like for Hiroshima? What were B-52's like for the city of Dresden? For the child, divorce is apocalyptic: the end of the world.

So anyway, I recognized myself in many of the answers. Especially the comment recorded in the foreword: one of the author's friends shrugged her shoulders, half-smiled, and asked who would care about our experiences? A common theme is the refusal to see the harm done.

As I said, the book helped me a lot. The last part of the book is stories from families that survived: wives that forgave cheating husbands, husbands and wives that changed and grew together and just decided to do what it takes to keep their vows. Among the many lies people tell is the false dichotomy: either divorce and be happy, or stay together and be miserable. The missing third way is the true secret of marriage: commit to each other; grow as a couple; become better people.

If a few hundred pages is too much for you to read on this subject, then just read one very excellent essay by Anthony Esolen. I remember well reading this article the day Esolen posted it, and this link appears in the resource list at the end of the book: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015...

[Leila Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a heartbreaking book, but so necessary. If everyone read this book, there would be less broken families.
It also has encouraging stories of hope at the end, with examples of heroic virtue and selfless love.
Thank-you, Leila Miller, for writing this book.

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazingly crushingly difficult book to read. But as important, if not more important to read than any other "self help" book out there or book by Brene Brown or whatever. I am motivated to pray for these poor hurt adults (little children), that they will be stronger in their faith to reject the lies that "children are resilient" and "children are happy when their parents are happy". And motivated that the intact family can become again the stable norm for families.

No one has ever asked the now adult children of divorce anything about their own personal experience with the divorce of their parents. Until now. And the answers are searing. Dear Lord, protect us from inflicting this type of evil on our children that we claim to love. Such devastation and torture should not be visited on our most avowed enemy. Yet we do this to our children.... because we can... and because they cannot speak to defend themselves. How evil.

Well read this book to find out what they think. Divorce is never the answer. Divorce crushes / damages / destroys the children. Do not remarry until your children are grown. Navigating the many households and step-parents and step-grandparents and pretending that children can do this and love people they've just been introduced to is a universe-flattinging burden to put on your children.

pg 99 "Divorce is a life sentence for the child."

pg 131 "Divorce is simply a bloodless form of child sacrifice, nothing more, nothing less. My grandparents' generation had to deal with alot -- war, undiagnosed PTSD, and alcoholism -- but they had a noble idea: That you sacrificed your own happiness for your children's well-being. you took on all of the heartache so that they didn't have to. Certainly bad marriages also hurt children of that era, but at least they had a noble concept of selflessness at the heart of family life.

My parents' generation inverted that. They decided that it was better a child should have her world torn apart than an adult should bear any suffering."

pg 204 "No amount of justification will change the fact that divorce does irreparable and grave damage to the psyche of a child and fundamentally changes the course of the child's life -- and almost never for the better. Divorce fosters and underlying feeling of mistrust and self-blame that will last a very long time, possibly forever. It makes a child feel unimportant and cast aside. Honestly my parents' choice to break up our family made me feel inconsequential; that more than anything else, is why I became so angry at my parents when I had my own children. I couldn't understand how anyone could do anything that would make their child feel that way."

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives adult children of divorce the chance to share what they truly experienced in life because of their parents' divorce. Many of these contributors would not have written had that not been promised anonymity, and others would have contributed but were afraid they'd be identifiable even if their name wasn't listed. They have gone their whole lives not wanting to hurt their parents, not wanting their feelings to be denied and shot down, and not realizing how common their feelings were. The quote that stayed with me the most is that when a parent decides to leave the marriage, it's like being on a plane that's going to crash, the parent takes the only parachute, and as he leaves the plane, tells you you'll be just fine. I wish all parents considering divorce would read this book first. I understand that safety is a reason to leave a spouse, but the truth is, physical violence is not in the top reasons given for divorce. As a divorced mother raised in an intact family, I had no idea what my children were going to go through. They have suffered a great deal and we see the negative effects on our children that research says is common in children whose parents divorce. May this book help now-adult children of divorce know their feelings are not unusual, and even more so, may this book encourage some parents to make the effort to stay together and overcome their differences.

[Bridget Nowicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an eye-opening and heartbreaking read. Though my own nuclear family has not been touched by divorce, so many of my extended family and friends have been. This book and the stories it contains would benefit a wide variety of readers - those about to marry, those contemplating divorce, and more. How many other children of divorce feel like they don't have a voice with regard to their parents' breakup?

[The author and many (most?) of the respondents are Catholic. Their faith is addressed specifically in one of the eight questions, but is also sometimes brought into their answers individually as they saw fit to answer the questions. The author does address the Catholic Church's teaching on divorce in a separate chapter. All that said, the stories of these now-adult children of divorce need to be heard, Catholic or not.]

[Toni V Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank You

What comfort this book brought. I am not alone. I am not unreasonable. I am not evil. My feelings are normal or at least common. My heart breaks for every voice in this book. My heart breaks for them, because we all felt the same things. After a lifetime of being expected to act like everything is just fine, I can finally feel at peace with the knowledge that what the adults did, hurt. If you've ever wondered if you're alone in feeling like your parents' divorce was the worst thing that ever happened to you, buy this book.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Such an interesting look at a plague that has consumed this generation and the generation before. The unseen emotions that so many are walking around with day to day. Makes me much more aware and empathetic towards children of divorces, no matter their age. It’s a wound that never really heals.

[Stephanie Freybler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is powerful. I was able to see a lot of my own story in what these contributors said.

If you do read it, especially if you are divorced, know that it is written from a Catholic point of view. So a lot of the contributors do not think that divorce was the right option for their parents.

Overall, I found it enlightening. I had to put it down after a bit before picking it back up, because the content is so emotionally heavy.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Divorce is contagious...I've seen this in my own family as well as in others. I am thankful that the children of divorce are finally being given a platform to express how devastating the breaking up of the family is. Everyone should read this book.

[Theresa Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a thought provoking book. Anyone considering divorce should read this first. It really hit me how much divorce impacts generations, not just a single family. Thanks to all who shared their stories.

[Jillian]

12 years ago my parents got divorced and for many years, I did not handle it well, even though I was struggling so hard to do the right thing.

My conversion to Orthodoxy 7 years ago set me on a different course and my relationship with my mother in particular has dramatically improved over that time.

Now I find myself with new challenges stemming from the divorce and I'm so frustrated that I'm not "over it" yet.

So I picked up this book.

In many ways, this book deserves a poor rating. The forward is written with abundant sweeping generalizations about how modern society views divorce. The Catholic perspective is written about with very little depth of theology. I looked up the woman who wrote the forward since she proudly displayed her PhD credentials and discovered she has a doctorate in ECONOMICS, not psychology, marriage and family therapy, childhood development, or theology. I'm not impressed.

The book itself reads like a internet forum. At least the author/compiler makes no pretension that she has credentials in the fields related to this topic.

BUT in this book I was able to find some solidarity. Knowing that I'm not the only one is really helpful. It felt like getting a little room to breathe.

Like many contributors in the book, I do wish my parents could read it, but I don't feel like I can ask them to without them thinking I'm accusing them.

I still have issues to work out relating to my parents' divorce. I probably always will. But I did feel some comfort in knowing that others feel as I do.

[Hayley Oliverio · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a now adult child of divorce, I can relate to many of the contributors. This book centers around countercultural claim that divorce is trauma for children. The destabilizing of our foundation has many long lasting and negative impacts.

It was refreshing to not have my feelings minimized for once. The way that children feel devastated is often not considered doesn’t fit the “divorce culture” narrative that the culture is pushing. This book has given words to so many feelings that I have suffered silently with throughout my life. The solidarity I felt brought healing and peace. I found myself underlining and marking up this entire book. It will sit on my shelf as a resource to go back to for self reflection. It has given me so much to think about and work through in my mind, within my relationships, and with my parents.

[Amy Slifka · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Children of divorce are not, as a rule, asked how they feel about their parents’ divorce—not as a child and not in the decades that follow.”

As a child of divorce, I can attest to the fact that you are pretty much expected to accept it, and no one ever questions how profoundly it affects every aspect of your life. I’ve always struggled with pain from my parents divorce and have seen (with the help of a few therapists) some ways their divorce negatively impacted my family and myself, but because I was raised in a secular society where divorce is promoted, I never really questioned how deeply and far those threads of disfunction run. This book finally gives a voice to adult children of divorce who are usually stifled by society from sharing their hurts and I found it to be extremely comforting and relatable (I had 92 highlights!).

I highly recommend this book to anyone with divorced parents, anyone who is divorced themselves, anyone considering divorce, and even anyone currently happily married. It is extremely eye opening. Children of divorce may learn to cope, but they never really get over it.

I firmly believe that marriage is the foundation to the family and that family is the foundation to society and should not be broken (except in the most extreme of circumstances). I’ll share a few of my favorite quotes from contributors below.

“The Divorce Ideology is one of the linchpins of the Sexual Revolution. Kids are resilient. Parents who don’t get along do their kids no favor by staying married. Everyone has a right to be happy, which means the right to change sex partners more or less at will. TV sitcoms, movies, academic studies, public policies, “style” sections of newspapers, women’s magazines, therapists, and even some clergy claim divorce is harmless to children and beneficial to adults. Unfortunately, these claims are false.”

“In the Divorce Fantasy World, there are only two choices. Unhappy parents stay miserably married and fight for the rest of their lives, or they get divorced and everyone lives happily ever after. The idea that one or both parents should change their behavior doesn’t register as an option, nor does the idea that the divorce might seriously wound the kids.”

“The kids are socially invisible. If they have a problem, we take them to therapy. We put them on medication. But we never admit that maybe the adults should have worked as hard on their marriages as they seem to work on managing their divorce. And we certainly never tell the adults not to remarry.”

“To paraphrase one contributor: As a parent, you are surely willing to die for your children, but are you willing to live for them? Their lives, their futures, and their souls are in your hands.”

“Divorce creates its own language for a child. Much of it is unspoken, and the child is the only one who achieves fluency. It might be the voice of doubt in the back of my head one day, or the voice of indecision where I should be resolute another day. This perpetually dysfunctional language replaces the language of family love that otherwise forms a child's internal dialogue. So, in a way, divorce becomes the “everlasting gift” to the child that the child can't overcome. The dysfunction replaces the permanence and security of an intact family.”

“In my opinion, divorce is a loss, almost like losing a family member to death, because you are losing having your family whole. But I don’t think society sees it that way, and children and teens aren’t really given an opportunity to grieve the loss of that close-knit family.”

“As a little kid, I did not understand the concept of being “unmarried.” I still don’t. To me, it’s all pretend. If you marry and you have kids, that’s it. You can’t be “unglued.” And of course, that’s what the Church teaches: Any consummated marriage, validly entered, is indissoluble.”

“The thing about divorce: The effects linger and linger, and actually get worse with time. Time doesn’t make it right.”

“I just feel very passionately that divorce is a selfish move. It is putting yourself above everyone and everything. It is about what you want and it doesn’t even matter how it affects everyone else. I really don’t know what the world has come to when family means nothing anymore. It saddens me greatly.”

“I would say yes, children are resilient when they have to be. But is that what you want? For your child to be “resilient” as a result of your decision to divorce your spouse? I think that parents who are considering divorce are really saying, “My child will pick up the slack on this decision.” It’s just an excuse to make yourself feel better.”

“A parent might be able to totally start over with a new spouse, experiencing freedom from the first marriage and only minimal contact with the first spouse. For the child, however, their worlds will forever be fundamentally split. Forever. There is no starting over with a clean slate; things are now complicated and fractured. Divorce starts a family onto two different paths that, as the years unfold, grow further and further apart. It's not a one-time event, but rather an ever-changing and ever-widening gap that only the children are really tasked with straddling.”

“It may even seem a rational split to the parents, but the child knows. The child knows that everything is now different. Who gets my birthday? Both, I guess. It’s not two birthdays, just two separate halves that don’t add up to a whole. “

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This would have made a good booklet highlighting the pain that divorce causes and the lies that culture feeds us that children are better off if their parents follow their own happiness. But as a book, the length and repetition of similar stories was tedious.

[Emily Sparks · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important books for our time. This displays the true cost of divorce. I am grateful for the insights into the lives of children of divorce that this book gives. I highly recommend it.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to know how divorce affects the children? Read this book. Will it hurt? If you're the spouse who sought divorce, it will hurt like hell if you're honest and self-aware enough to admit your culpability. It will also open your eyes to the fundamental devastation which is wrought on those who have absolutely no control and do not deserve any of the agony that divorce brings. The best way to describe it is this (stated by a contributor): Divorce is when the adults lay down their cross and force their children to pick it up.

Our culture has bought in to the idea that marriage is about nothing but happiness - immediate happiness and self-gratification. Marriage should be about learning to die to oneself and serve another - not to be a doormat, but to live your sacred vows. Ultimately it's about getting your spouse to Heaven. If people began viewing and living the holy sacrament of marriage the way God intended us to, this world would be transformed for the better overnight.

Get the book. Read it. Lend it out - especially to someone with children considering divorce. But most importantly - begin being an advocate among your friends and family for holy marriage.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this is a very important book to get out there. What particularly stuck with me is the message that children of divorce don’t get to “move on” from the divorce; they have to deal with the consequences for the rest of their lives. It’s not a hurt that ever heals as every new life milestone, celebration, or crisis is cause to reopen the wound of divorce again.
That being said, my primary problem with this book and why I had to skim/speed-read through to the end is that nearly every contributor, or all contributors, of this book are born again Christians or Catholics who have found their Faith. Where did I first get an inkling that this might not be a book for me, an agnostic reader? Probably early on, when the author and all the contributors made clear that their only definition of a “real” marriage is between a man and a woman, and that’s it.
A bit of diversity in the contributors would have gone a long way to make this book more
impactful. Unfortunately, it ended up reading like religious propaganda.

[Ally · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book over the course of 1.5 years, starting when my parents divorced when I was 25 years old (after a decade of heartache & fear). During my journey, this book helped to voice nearly all of my feelings and hurts that I never could have voiced myself, even with years of therapy under my belt already. I highlighted anything that particularly stuck out to my heart, and it will be a helpful resource to others one day, or just to act as a pseudo-journal for myself.

Despite not being Catholic myself, I still found many of the views and beliefs in this to be relevant even to Protestant Christians.

[Christina]

Heard about through... http://likemotherlikedaughter.org/201...
Read for free right now (4/21/20) https://www.leilamiller.net/digitalbook https://static1.squarespace.com/stati...

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important self-hand accounts of the lingering effects of divorce on adult children. Adult children of divorce who perhaps haven’t fully integrated their sufferings (though I’m not sure any of us fully do) ought to read it.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

SO eye-opening.

[Anthony D. Padgett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book

Highly suggest anyone considering divorce with kids no matter their age read this book. The kids will be highly impacted no matter their age.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy book to read

[Jack Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone even thinking of getting married should have this book as mandatory reading.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Leila Miller gives a voice for adult children of divorce, on how divorce can and does influence their lives in the moment and long term. I would recommend this to all, who are looking to understand how divorce plays a massive role in children's lives in the moment, as well as in some cases decades later. From their everyday relationships to how they trust others, how they carry themselves in society, etc. I would also recommend this book to couples who are married and going through a tough phase, as it challenges the social acceptance of divorce. The book also gives examples of couples that endured tough times together and came out the other side happier.

A must-read in today's pro divorce society.

'Marriage is the basis of the family and family is the foundation of every human society'

[Sara Christians · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult to read at times, this book powerfully portrays the grief and hurt that divorce causes in a family throughout their lives.