Don’t let them meet the extended

It was not intentional, but boy did it work in my favor. It just so happened that my soon-to-be husband was never able to meet the extended family, before he vowed to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. Looking back, this may be one of my husband’s biggest regrets, but was one of my wisest moves.

If you have a perfect, functioning family, you should skip this part. For the rest of us, if you ever plan on getting married, you might want to learn this valuable lesson. Don’t let them meet the extended family until after the deal is done, and make sure the ink has dried. You may even want to wait until after you have your first child …

It all comes down to the gene pool. You have met someone so special that you want to spend the rest of your life with them, you want to reproduce, have little versions of yourselves running around, live happily ever after. Then the day comes to meet the distant relatives. You want their approval and their acceptance, but instead your world is shattered. Somehow it is all quite different from what you had imagined.

They are loud and rude, as opposed to reserved and dignified. They are intoxicated and obnoxious, as opposed to sober and agreeable. You may wonder if this is the wrong family: how could your perfect someone come from such imperfection? This can raise a series of troubling questions. Do I really want to be related to these people? What will our children be like? Doubt after doubt will fill their mind, until they run off, never to be seen again. It will all be traced back to the day they met the extended family.

Most men who have married into our family have done so without fully understanding what they were getting into. I look at it not as deceit, but as the decent thing to do. You will have plenty to fight about once you’re married. Enjoy your courtship, your wedding day, your first year as newlyweds. When they’re intoxicated on your love and cannot remember life before you, then the time is right. But until that day, don’t let them meet the extended.

Divorce damages

I recently tried to explain, to my youngest daughter, what getting a divorce meant. I said, “It’s when a mom and dad can’t get along and they decide not to be married anymore, so they don’t live together.” I thought it was a simple explanation for a five-year-old, so I was caught off guard when her eyes suddenly filled with tears and she started sobbing. She then said, “Are you and dad going to get divorced?” I tried to reassure her that we hoped never to get divorced, and she soon calmed down.

This brief, innocent conversation made me realize something I had kept buried for many years: divorce damages! I remember the day my mom told us she was getting divorced from my father. She did all the right things: she sat us down and talked to us about it, telling us she loved us and that it was not our fault. Lastly, she said, “It’s going to be really hard for the next few years.”

I appreciate her telling us this, but for some reason it did not prepare me for the future. “It’s going to be really hard” was actually an understatement. I was twelve at the time, in sixth grade. I looked forward to school as an escape. My little sister, on the other hand, was five, and just starting kindergarten. She would cry every morning when my mom dropped her off at school. The tears lasted all day long, for most of the school year. Some days I would have to go to her classroom to try and comfort her, but to no avail. She was damaged. Seeing my own five-year-old sobbing brought back the sadness I had seen in my little sister’s eyes. A sadness that we will both carry for the rest of our lives.

I once read a quote that struck me: “As a child I grew up without any visible scars. But inside I battled monsters of rage, depression and insecurity with out knowing why … my parents’ divorce took away from me every child’s birthright—the feeling of being secure and protected.” It was if I had written that statement. A few days later, I was talking to my husband, who is also from a broken family. When I mentioned this quote, he said, “That is exactly how I feel.” We have both been robbed of our birthright; we are both children of divorce. Our scars are invisible, and our wounds are internal. They will never heal, and we will carry them for the rest of our lives, because divorce damages.

Are you a child of divorce? How has it impacted your life?

I am really not adopted

Have you ever heard of children who find out they are adopted? It shatters their world. Everything they thought they knew about themselves is not true. They may have a need to find their biological parents and start a lifelong quest for answers.

That is not me! My dream was actually the opposite. I had this childhood fantasy that I was switched at birth, and that someday my real family would figure it out and come and rescue me. They would be wealthy and refined, loving and kind.

When I was a teenager, this dream came very close to reality. Applying for a social security card, I had to fill out a form listing all the information on my birth certificate. So I listed my parents’ names, dates of birth and so on. When I approached the counter, the woman looked it over and said, “I’m sorry, but the names of your parents that we have on record do not match those you listed.”

My heart began to race. Was my dream coming true? I knew it!
“Can you tell me who my real parents are?” I asked.
She replied, “Sorry, that is confidential information.”

Oh, how high my hopes were running. I soon returned with my birth certificate, listing my supposed parents. When she wasn’t looking I snuck my head around to peek at the computer screen. I had to know. Who were these secret parents of mine?

The names on the screen were Herb and Evelyn. What? My grandparents? Of course, they had been mistakenly listed as my real parents. Oh well, you can’t blame a girl for trying.… I left, with my shattered dream.

I will admit that, even as an adult, I still wonder if there was a mix-up at the hospital. But would I really be happy if you told me today that my family was not really my family? Probably not! I would then inherit another family that would have just as many quirks and probably be just as dysfunctional. What if they were worse? I’ll stick with the family I know, and appreciate the fact that I am really not adopted.

They make you stronger

Being part of a dysfunctional family is much like getting an immunization shot. As a parent, you know the agony involved: the dreaded anticipation, holding your own flesh and blood down as the nurse quickly stabs multiple needles into a little leg, the tears, the aches that last for days and the trauma of willfully inflicting pain on your beloved child. So why do we allow it? First, for the stamps that will be required before your bundle of joy can even dream of starting school. And second, you hope the injections will somehow protect your child from a preventable disease. The little amount of a toxic illness injected into the bloodstream will actually make your child’s immune system stronger.

A similar thing happens when you’re born into a broken family. As a child, you’ll experience multiple stabs, many tears, long-lasting aches and trauma that is willfully inflicted by your parents. If you’re fortunate, you may realize at an early age that these small toxic substances that you were exposed to on a daily basis will eventually make you stronger. Better yet, they may help you avoid the dreaded disease in the first place.

I am not a sculpted masterpiece, and neither is my family. We are more like an average coffee cup that has been dropped, broken and glued back together. We still serve a purpose, but you will always be able to see the cracks. I hope that, despite the imperfections, you will still appreciate the usefulness of these lessons.

I am thirty-four, with a husband and three children of my own. Like most of us, my life has turned out quite differently from what I had imagined. There is no perfect world and no perfect family—and mine is no exception to that rule. Despite their obvious flaws, I am forever indebted to my family because of the life lessons they have taught. I have not been able to avoid the dreaded disease of being dysfunctional, but the small toxic substances I have been exposed to on a daily basis have made me much stronger.