In life, more often than not, we do not get the apology that is due to us. And when we do, it frequently falls short of the words we need to hear. I have come to realize, for my personal situation, there are no words big enough, or deep enough, or sincere enough to compensate for what has been stolen from me.  With this realization, I finally stopped asking and waiting for the apology that does not exist. My pastor says, “It takes one to forgive.  And it takes two for reconciliation.  One can forgive without reconciliation, but one cannot have reconciliation without forgiveness.” I chose forgiveness.

Prior to the divorce, mine was a picture-perfect nuclear family: a dad, a mom, a little boy, and his dog. The dog, a Cockapoo, was named after my kindergarten best friend, Shawn. I don’t remember anything about the young human Shawn, but I do remember the canine one. He was the love of my young life, especially after we moved when I was six. I did not like being “the new kid.”

As a teenager, I began to experience mere anger, seemingly without any other emotion or feeling that I had no control over, and had no idea where it came from or why it would get so out of control. ... This was a tomb that I suffocated inside of for years throughout much of my adolescence.

One common ACOD challenge is that typical sibling-to-sibling relationship “issues” can be impacted by the family upheaval, and relationships between step-siblings bring fresh challenges, which sometimes can make a bad thing (divorce) worse and can cause even further alienation and discouragement between existing and new family members.

Between Two Worlds is not a hateful attack against parents who did divorce (and neither is this review), but it is a strong cautionary warning to those who seek to minimize or invalidate the wounds of adult children of divorce, wounds that deserve recognition, validation, and most importantly, compassionate understanding so that healing can begin. Because after all, adult children of divorce deserve no less of a quality life than any other human being. But this realization can be hard for an adult child of divorce to embrace because they have often been asked to sacrifice or settle on their own expectations for their lives, starting from the moment of their parents’ divorce.