r/ChildrenofDivorce

I am going through a divorce and I met someone who’s in their 20s now and their parents divorced when they were 12. This is close in age to my kids.

They said when their parents divorced all they wanted was someone to talk to them about it but that conversation never happened.

I’m being told by lawyers and therapists not to tell the kids what’s going on, but based on the story I heard, it’s making me challenge the current line of thinking that kids don’t need to know.

I don’t think 12 year olds are fragile and I think they just want to know. Should I tell them a little bit without trashing the other parent what’s going on and answer their questions?

im 13f found out my dad is texting another woman other than my mother. he was acting strange on his phone. never letting me or my mum see what he was doing, so me being curious i paid attention when he unlocked his phone and eventually learned his password. Then during dinner one night i said i needed the toilet knowing my dad puts his phone to charge during dinner, i went upstairs into his office and put in the passcode, first i looked in his whatsapp. at first glance there was nothing, then i realised he had some locked chats, i looked pressed on it and put in the password (it was the same as his phone one) and then i saw 2 chats one to a woman called jane who he was having an affair with via text, i took videos of it . i also saw another chat he had with this man who sent him NSWF content that he reacted to with things like: "a girl did that to me once" "thats a nice girl" (all the people in the NSWF content were adults, there was no cp). I also found out he had over £10,000 pounds investments on on app, on IG his account was worth £20,000 pounds he was also hiding these investments from us, he was doing these investments with the lady he was having an affair with (who was named jane). Finally i looked in his notes app were he was writing about how my mother was also cheating, by sleeping with 2 other men, taking nudes in the bathroom to send to them and buying hotels for them. My parents still dont know i know this, makes me upset yk but i cant tell anyone my friends would just make fun of me, my friends are all boys and are super toxic one of them keeps calling me the n word over and over i pretend i like it, but they just joke about racism sexism homophobia ect and inwardly i hate it, my best friend (who is also part of the friend group but dosent see me as his best friend but i spend the most time with he so just roll with it) has a girlfriend and every time i see them together it reminds me how much i want that, how much i want a boyfriend, but i know im prolly to young, not ready ect, but it would be nice to have someone who loves not have any secrets someone i can tell everything too without judging me, but i suppose ill just wait till 16

this is kinda just a rant and some advice needed because i dont know how to cope (basically a long story short because this has been many years coming)

My dad has a history of mental health issues and over the past 6-8 months hes been leaing himself off his meds against my moms advice. They're constantly arguing and my mom has had enough of it so they're splitting. the root grows deeper than this because she's been unhappy for the past 2-3yrs and my dad's mental health has been getting worse in the past four.

my mom is planning on moving me and my brother back to the usa and my dad would be going to a different state than us so. (not really looking for a lot of comments on this because ive want to go back because of a lot of reasons). she would be getting full custody and decision rights over us so thats fine as well.

im sad and not sad at the same time. mostly because my birthday is in like less than two weeks (thing im sad for because this is most likely the last one that they'll be "together for"), but also because my moms been unhappy for years now and i can see it on her face.

sorry that this is brief im just trying to clear my head and process everything

i kinda just want someone to ask for more details thats not just my boyfriend or the few friends that i have so im confiding in internet strangers.

I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for about eight years. The first five years were long distance, and since then we’ve lived together on and off for many reasons - mostly because I’ve started grad school and travel for clinical rotations.

To be totally honest, in the beginning there was no huge spark or chemistry. Just two people who were consistent and showed up for each other. But from the beginning I wondered if this was the right relationship for me. However, he is a good partner- consistent, thoughtful, kind, down to earth. We’ve worked hard to strengthen our bond over the years. there are some flaws of course- defensive, can be immature, and lacks some emotional and cognitive intelligence. But we still have a good time together. However it’s 8 years later and I’m still questioning things, which scares me because I want children and would like to start trying asap.

If I’m being totally honest with myself I probably should left in the beginning when there was no real spark but I didnt and of course now things are complicated. He has a ten year old daughter. For all intents and purposes I am her mother. Her birth mother lives in another state and has had problems with drugs and the law. She pops in and out of her life. But for the last 5 years I have been the one who has been around acting as her mom.

I feel incredibly stuck. This little girl has already lost one mom. Shes incredibly resilient and doing well but I am terrified that if I would leave she would spiral. She’s just hitting that age where moms are super important- she asks me about puberty and friendships and she’s very emotionally needy. If I leave, all of that is stripped from her. In order to make a clean break from my bf I feel like I would need to distance myself from her too. I just don’t see how that’s possible. I need advice. Do I stay and make things work with him, potentially sacrificing finding a relationship better suited for me? Or do I leave and risk traumatizing this child?

First time poster here…

So…I (26F) found out yesterday that my parents (51) are getting divorced and I’m getting married in 6 months.

My mom filed on Thursday after finding out my dad cheated….again (first happened 5 years ago when dad was going through shi mentally, I saw it coming from a mile away) but this time it completely came out of left field. They had just retired, moved back to the U.S., bought a beautiful forever home, and honestly…it felt like they were falling in love again. We had finally gotten our family back. The four of us were talking again, having dinners together, laughing like we used to.

Now I feel like the ground disappeared beneath me.

I don’t know how to process the wedding side of this. How do I ask a man I’ve dreamed about since I was little to walk me down the aisle when he’s now broken the vows of his own marriage? I’ve had my daddy-daughter dance song picked out since I was 9 years old: “Butterfly Fly Away” by Miley Cyrus. I always imagined ending the dance with my mom, dad, and brother joining us on the dance floor. I was planning on doing a king’s table with both sets of parents sitting beside us instead of a sweetheart table. Now I’m wondering if my parents will even be able to sit at the same table….damn.

What makes this harder is that my dad has genuinely always been a good father. He’s supportive, intelligent, dependable, and has always shown up for us. My mom is truly an angel on earth. She’s devastated and furious, and her family is too. It breaks my heart hearing everyone speak about him with so much anger while I also see him sobbing and falling apart over what he’s done.

My brother is currently deployed in a war zone and won’t even be home until a month before my wedding. We haven’t told him yet, likely won’t until he gets back….hes going to be furious.

Selfishly…I’m heartbroken for myself too. I feel guilty even saying that because obviously my mom is the one going through the real betrayal here, but I feel like I’m grieving my family and the version of my wedding I’ve imagined my entire life. I’m struggling.

Okay, so for context, my parents recently got divorced around 10 months ago, and ever since my dad has been really on edge. I recently discovered that any time me or any of my sisters had an argument with him, he began to film with a recording device (he is a cop and used to work undercover so he is good at hiding that kind of stuff) it has gotten to the point where he leaves the recording device on our kitchen counter and leaves it on at all times. I would kinda understand if me an my siblings where a bit older, but they are 10,12, and 14, so there really isn’t any reason he should be recording us. He keeps claiming that the 14 year old sibling, I’m going to call her Emily, is gaslighting him, and keeps saying he’s gonna bring up the video to prove it, and when he does it’s literally just her mixing up her words a little. I feel very violated by finding out he’s been recording me and my sisters without us even knowing at first, and it’s causing me to feel paranoid and like I’m unable to freely talk with any of my sisters. I just feel like I’m going crazy, what should I do? I don’t think any of this is illegal from what I can tell, what do I do?

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I’m 16f and I live in the Netherlands. I go to my dad’s house every other week, and most of my stuff is there.

I’m not close with my mom. She used to bully me, and honestly I don’t really care about having a relationship with my parents anymore. The main problem is her house. It’s just disgusting. I can’t fully explain it, but it’s dirty, smells weird, the shower barely works, and the house looks unfinished. She doesn’t really care about cleaning.

I already didn’t like being there, but since last year I’ve been feeling more depressed, and this week I can barely do anything except cry. I really can’t handle being there anymore.

There’s also nothing to do at her house. My friends have kind of ghosted me, and I have social anxiety, so I don’t like going out alone.

Food is also a problem. My mom is vegan, but there’s barely any food I can eat, and a lot of it is expired. I usually have to buy my own groceries, and she’s not good at cooking, so I often don’t even eat dinner.

She has a boyfriend, and I really don’t like him. He makes me uncomfortable. He asks me weird questions, like whether I’ve kissed someone or if I do drugs, even when my mom is there. Then he says things like, “I don’t have a daughter, so I don’t know what to say,” as if that makes it okay—like he would talk to his son that way. I genuinely hate being around him.

Every time I tell my mom that her house is gross, she gets extremely angry.

At my dad’s house, things are different. It’s clean, I feel less depressed, and I actually have things to do. There’s normal food and a working shower. But he doesn’t like me being there. He constantly tells me to leave and go to my mom’s house at specific times, and if I’m there when I’m supposed to be at my mom’s, he gets really mad. I even asked to spend my birthday at his house, and he got angry about that too. I don’t understand why he seems to hate having me there.

My parents are still friends, and they joke about me wanting to live at my dad’s house, but I’m serious. I really can’t handle living like this anymore.

I feel like a loser. I don’t have friends, I don’t go out, and I feel like I’m bad at everything.

Every time I have to go to my mom’s house, I feel like I want to kill myself.

I’ve contacted child services, but they didn’t really help. I don’t have a trusted adult to talk to. Whenever I try to explain, people just tell me to be nicer to my mom, but no one tells her to change.

I hope I worded it correctly, but my mom and step-dad were married for 20 years and just got divorced about a year ago give or take. As if that new dynamic is weird enough - now my mom is actively dating... And she's been with 4 different dudes over the course of about 6 months and feels the need to send me pictures of her with each guy whenever there's a new one. And always some form of the same text "This is ________, he's such a good guy. I'm still dealing with abandonment issues and they come up from time to time but he's such a good guy and processes it with me. Who knows where it will go". LITERALLY EVERY TIME THE SAME MESSAGE AND PHOTOS! Them hugging and kissing and shit. It's weird!

Now she's an adult and can do whatever she wants. Irrespective of how I feel, she has to live her own life and process it however she feels best. That being said, it doesn't take away from how gd weird it is or how I feel about the fact that she's pogo-sticking from one guy to another to another to another. If she told me she felt healed and was dating in that state of mind and these relationships just happened to fall through cause life is like that then I'd feel less uncomfortable about it. But the fact that she always brings up healing and insecurities and dealing with being "abandoned" (which don't get me started on that word), leads me to think she absolutely shouldn't be dating yet.

Has anybody else gone through this? What do you think? Those that are on the other end of this weird... Mid-life crisis, post-divorce parent dating thing... Am I looking at this weird? Did you have conversations about these discomforts with your parents or did you just leave them be? LMK!

I’m 16, my parents told me they were getting a divorce back in late August of 2025 (like 2 weeks after my 16th bday 😭). I keep feeling sort of guilty or like i’m being over dramatic and ungrateful whenever I’m upset about the divorce. It’s been super hard for me and even though it’s been like 9 months, it’s still extremely upsetting and I cry often about it, especially as I continue to experience and learn what life is like with divorced parents, and it feels like my life has been completely upended. Except I know that compared to a lot of other people, my situation is great. My parents didn’t fight or anything a lot before the divorce, everything seemed completely normal and it came completely out of the blue for me. They’re very civil with each other, or at the very least when I’m around, and they refuse to talk badly about each other to me. My mom moved out but she still lives in our town and is a 5 minute drive away, and there’s no custody battle or anything so I can just go there whenever I want. I can tell that individually they’re much happier, they’ve both started excising more and eating healthier and lost a lot of weight, they’ve both started trying new hobbies and making new friends and building a good social life. Neither of them are dating anyone, though I know they go on dates and stuff, but they have both sat me down and made sure I was ok with them dating (I’m not, but I feel super guilty and selfish about it so I told them it was ok) and set ground rules about how if they did date anyone, they would never be at the house or meet me until it was appropriate. I know countless other people have way worse situations in divorces, but I still feel so… upset, i don’t know what other word to use. i’m sorry for the rant but i’ve been sitting on this with no one to talk to about it and i want to know if anyone else has dealt with this

how do you guys deal with the fact that you dont understand love and your marriage in the future (if u want to get married) and future kids may be impacted by it?

As we know it’s graduation season. I’m getting my AA degree in a few days and my college just sent us the tickets for our ceremony. I was given 5 tickets (my dad, mom, brother and sister, and my aunt). My best friend has an extra ticket she won’t use so she’s giving it to me so my boyfriend can go to my graduation. My mom and dad divorced about 5 years ago and my mom remarried 6 months after their divorce get finalized so I don’t have the best relationship with her husband, I barely tolerate him and my relationship with my mom is decent but could be better. My mom keeps trying to make me feel bad about not getting a ticket for her husband and keeps telling me that he already requested the day off from work and that he deserves to be at my graduation more than my boyfriend. I already had this exact same problem during my high school graduation, I had to pay some girl like $20 to get an extra ticket for my mom’s husband after I got into an argument with her because I was able to get extra tickets for my grandparents and she had suggested that I should give her my grandparents’ tickets so her husband and his family could come (he doesn’t even talk to his other kids). Long story short, what should I say to her? I know the obvious answer is that I can’t please everyone and if she doesn’t want to come to my graduation because of something that’s out of my control then it’s her problem but I really want my mom at my graduation, I just want a day with the people that I actually like having in my life and a part of me wants to have one day of feeling like my parents never get divorced.

Whenever i read about if divorce is better option for kids than a functional but unhappy household, i get this - the kids should learn about what love and a healthy relationship looks like. Did you really learn that or would you rather your parents were still together

I am 17 years old. At the age of almost 17, my parents divorced after violence and screaming at home. Today, after a year, I can say that my sense of home and security in the world has changed. Every day ends with longing for my parents' soft hands to hug me before bed. Right now my parents are in a mess with lawyers, one parent has cancer and the other doesn't know and won't let go of revenge. And I'm stuck in the middle, afraid, wanting to run away but coping, hurting, and hoping that God will heal us. And I don't know how to cope with so much, I'm just a 17 year old boy, I need a warm place, I need to know that my parents are okay. And hard to say but I'm scared because I have my own things and my own worries and can't believe that my world is shaking but I'm trying to stand