The Impact Of My Father's Divorce On My Life

Throughout my childhood, my environment consisted of switching between my mother's and father's house every week. Since I was an infant, my parents have been divorced and I believe that being a child of divorce has shaped my life tremendous ways. Through the hardships that came with living in two houses for 16 years of my life, I had the time to mature and learn a lot about myself and who I wanted to be as a person. Watching my parents for many years, I realized what I did and did not want to be when I grew up. From my father, I wanted to have the dedication and perseverance that he exhibited. From my mother, I wanted to be friendly and beautiful like her. However, there was many qualities that my parents carried that I did not want to take

When I was 11, my parents were battling in an ugly divorce. I wasn't seen as a kid because for a brief moment I became an adult that could make tough life changing decisions. As a child , I was confused on what was happening. I didn’t understand why my mom was gone one day, returned the next and then  just gone. I couldn't comprehend why police officers would regularly come to my broken home. The gruesome divorce and after period was an emotional roller coaster that never ended until today. It was difficult to adapt to the new lifestyle with a new single mom. I vividly remember having to sleep on the floor for months , having an empty naked white fridge and having to support my single mother every night as she dealt with depression. Although, life was hard I stayed strong, supported my sisters and accepted the new life I  was given.

When my parents got a divorce when I was in the third grade, it affected me greatly. My parents had always fought, so the divorce did not come at much of a surprise. Yet I did not expect all of the changes that would come along with the divorce. I had to grow up a lot sooner than all of

There were many other losses that occurred as a result of the divorce of my parents. We had to move so I also lost my home. My mom became a single income family and we suddenly were financially insecure. My dad, who was my hero, was suddenly not a part of my everyday life. My mom became withdrawn and depressed and so in a sense I lost my mom too. All these changes and losses make this one incident in my young life the most significant. The effects of the divorce of my parents followed me well into my twenties.

I came home one day to see both of my parents sad. As a third grader, I didn’t completely understand at the time, but my father had been laid off from the job he’d had since his teenage years. My father had started at the age of eighteen as a student worker at Southern Miss, and after years of hard work he had been promoted to the manager of shipping and receiving on campus. When the recession struck, the need to save money resulted in his position being terminated. My father was without a job. My father loved that job and when he lost it, he changed. He found a new love, alcohol. He let his love for alcohol become an addiction. He would do anything for alcohol; he even had secret stashes when my mom had removed all the prior alcohol from the house. Quickly my father became a violent drunk and began to routinely beat my mother and me. He became unstoppable; no person could get him back on track so my mother, in an attempt to keep me safe, removed him from the house. Even my mother’s best efforts weren’t always enough, as my father constantly broke into our house. One day my mother and I came home and my father was waiting in our den with a gun. We walked in, he pointed the gun at us, and then back at himself. He couldn’t decide to kill my mother, himself, or just all of us. He had more hatred in his eyes

Going through my parent’s divorce was very life changing for me. I went through so many emotions, which until this day is a topic that is hard for me to talk about. It was very sad not seeing my parents together, having no clue where my dad was and seeing my mom sad. I would love to spend time with my parents and brothers. For example, our Sunday’s mornings, seeing my mom cook breakfast, watching my dad drink his cup of coffee, watching TV with my brothers, then playing Latin music seeing my parents dance. I loved that so much. So not having that out of

Often enough, divorce usually has a negative effect on people. I am no exception to that. Though I was too young to remember what life was like before my parents separated themselves, having that life for as long as I can think of was not a good experience. It caused me to have a serious case of anxiety before going to my dad’s house for visitation, during, and after. No one likes to feel anxious or stressed, and I felt that everyday, all the time. I was a self-conscious, shy girl who wasn’t ready for complex

Even though situations seem averse they might become positive in the end. To me and probably most people in my situation would say that their parents being divorced would be a negative situation. Although at the time I was distraught, I learned that my parents divorce might have not been helpful at first, but later on it affected my life dramatically.

I remember when I was younger and my parents got divorced, it was hard for me and my younger brothers. We were forced to grow up and accept the fact that a big change was coming. My maturity level skyrocketed, at least compared to other kids my age, because I understood what it was like to go through something life altering and they didn’t. I no longer was stuck in fairytale land. I had to wake up and move on along with the rest of reality.

At the age of ten, my mother told me she was leaving my father. I was not sad; in fact, the news was a relief. My sister, my mother, and I faced the aggressive side effects of my father's drug and alcohol addiction. I grew up with my dad treating my family like nothing, as if he was in constant control of us and we did not matter. At the time, I did not comprehend the divorce was because of my dad's drug and alcohol addiction. I assumed when he passed out on the couch and would not wake up it was funny. The irrational mood swings were because he was overworked. My life, my view of the world, shifted when I pieced together what addiction

When I was about 14 months old, my parents separated which then led to a divorce. Since I was extremely young, I cannot remember how it affected me. But once I got into grade school, I was in great knowledge that something was different. I then started to understand the affects my parents’ divorce had on me such as anger, resentment, feeling of loneliness, and prob-lems with communication. Now that I am a young adult, I still feel like I am being affected by those same problems except now I am able to control myself when I start to feel the symptoms. Divorce has had a huge impact on my life.

My father wasn’t a good man when we knew him. He was violent, and to be honest, a drunken bum. I was around 3 when he started getting really bad. He’d come home intoxicated, and start yelling at my mother about stupid things, like dinner not being warm for him. And every so often, I would have the misfortune of seeing him hit my mother. He had his days though. For some occasions, my mother would do something to get him to sober up. Most of the time it was for Maggie or my birthdays, but there were rare occasions where he’d be home, sober, and sweet to us for some reason.

The divorce made it difficult for me to cope with the other challenges of childhood, such as dealing with peer relationships,

My dad was unable to take care of me, so my aunt offered to. The language barrier between my aunt’s family and I was evident; she spoke Mandarin while I spoke Cantonese. As I was transitioning from one dialect to the next, I also needed to learn English. My six year old brain was still able to develop and grow fluent to this change. Soon enough, I began to memorize all the different foods I saw on the labels on the shelves when my aunt took me grocery shopping. Through my constant flipping of flash cardings of animals and everyday objects, I finally mustered up confidence to conduct a proper conversation with my peers during recess. I also engrossed myself into the cartoon TV shows everyday as I tried to comprehend what they were talking about. Little did I know that I began to question my family situation the more exposed I was to their portrayal perfect families. I always asked myself, “ If Arthur, Peppa, and Dora all lived with their parents, why wasn’t I?” As I grew older, I dreaded birthdays and holidays because it created a longing inside me for a family reunion that had no chance of happening. Seeing parents supporting their kids warped my mind into fearing judgement from others. I fought off that mindset because I started to see that I only had myself to

Whenever I hear people talking about divorce, or hear phrases such as “broken family” I want to either comfort or correct the person. I am able to set aside the sliver of pain that resides in the back of my head and realize all the wonderful things that have come out of my parent’s separation. I was pretty young when my parents started to have constant arguments but never really put the pieces together on my own. My worst childhood memories are not of scraped knees or broken bones but a broken heart. What had happened? What had I done? I can now confidently say that all the difficult times my parents’ divorce put me through have helped to bring my family together, separately. It left me with countless life lessons and the realization that things can always be worse. My parents’ divorce not only brought me severe pain but strength. It’s helped me to grow as an individual and I want to always remember that this is how things were meant to be.