A few more readers chime in:
I love your blog, but your comment on this subject, sadly, missed the point. I agree that it’s never too late to seek happiness in life. I divorced after a 10-year marriage (no kids) and have discovered happiness and a life now that is more complete than I ever imagined.
I’m also an adult child of divorce. My parents split when I was in my late 20s (and while I was still married). It has had a profound impact on me. When you’re an adult child, the roles are reversed. You aren’t the “kid” who mom or dad or other family members reach out to make sure you’re ok and handling the grief of seeing your family being torn apart. You are the “adult” who becomes the shoulder for your mom and/or your dad to deal with their grief and their emotions.
They open up to you about the other in ways that make you look back and question memories of your childhood. The father I thought I knew becomes an ex-husband who “wasn’t this and wasn’t that”. The mother I thought I knew, becomes a ex-wife who “wasn’t this and wasn’t that”. People think since you’re an adult and already grown up, it’s easier for you to rationalize that relationships fail and deal with the loss.
Even though we’re adults, we’re still kids at heart. Experiencing the break-up of your family and loss of decades of established family traditions is hard too. Yet few recognize the impact this has on us kids even when we’re grown-up. We’re expected to understand. And, as a result, the loss and grief we go through are often ignored.
Another makes an interesting point:
Several readers wrote in objecting to the use of “stepmother” to refer to someone you first met as an adult. English is a flexible language. It is up to us to determine what words mean.
Reading the letters of how people think of a person who becomes attached to them as a result of the legal act of marriage, I realized that these people are discussing their “stepmothers” exactly the way I think of my two mothers-in-law (I’m widowed). Neither one was someone I had a choice in. Both were attached by marriage. One is someone I’m cordial to, but not all that close. The other is a great friend.
I just realized that these people are describing mothers who arrived by marriage. If she arrives when you’re already and adult, your dad’s new wife is really a “mother-in-law”, not a “stepmother”.
The Dish 