No couple gets married looking forward to being unhappy in their marriage. But no couple avoids times in marriage where one or both spouses feel unsatisfied, restless, lonely, or just plain unhappy. Does that mean they have fallen out of love? Should they doubt their commitment? What should an unhappy couple do about their unhappiness?

With being an Adult Child of Divorce comes a healing journey that is complicated and messy, at best. This is the most succinct way to describe my own personal healing journey. It is one that I am very much still on, but I know that I am healing and am on the up and up. Like you, my journey has not been linear by any stretch of the imagination. It is one of many turns, bumps and painful feelings resurfacing—but that is because I, like you, am still healing. Healing is not linear;  however, the healing journey is always oriented towards heaven, so we are always headed heavenward in our healing. In this post, I will share six points that have been instrumental and life-changing—for me—in my journey towards healing.

For adult children of divorce and parental separation, having trusted resources for the healing journey is important. The burdens and wounds caused by parental separation or divorce can have a significant impact and last a lifetime. That is why I think it is good to know about and consider if the Litanies of the Heart and a Catholic approach to Internal Family Systems might be something to add to your healing tool box.

This past Christmas, like many others before it, was hard.  My “difficult” father tends to “act-out” during the holidays to get the attention he craves, and this Christmas was no exception.  So, my therapist suggested I do some restorative care to help heal my immediate father wound, and to help me manage my long-term depression: what Rick Springfield calls, “Mr. D.” 

As we continue this series on Attachment Theory, building upon the key concepts we explored in Part One, we now turn our attention to how attachment facilitates human development and the ways secure and insecure attachment impact mental health.

Unlike the innocent childhood rites of passage that bring about a sense of pride and accomplishment, children who live through their parents’ divorce often experience an abrupt passage from childhood to premature adulthood. The hard and jagged rock of a parents’ divorce deeply and profoundly impacts a child even beyond what others see or notice.

I was inspired to re-read The Lord of the Rings specifically through the lens of this experience, especially since Frodo is also the “Ring-bearer.” I finished this project recently and I wanted to share my reflections with you here.

"The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves," by Curt Thompson, has been an important part of my healing journey. I picked up the book on the recommendation of a friend and a deep desire to dig into the pain of shame that was touching every part of my life. My heart was sore. I was on the path of recovery from habitual sin that had infiltrated my life for half a decade.

To give you a picture of what [childhood emotional neglect] might look like in real life, here’s my own CEN story: My mom (your mother is usually your primary attachment figure) has had schizoaffective disorder since I was about six years old. She was too deep in her own mental and emotional roller-coaster to be a stable presence.

After therapy, I had a break-through and began to reconcile with myself for the emotional and physical harm I had put on myself in the wake of the abuse. I realized that I had to work to repair the rupture I had in my relationship with myself, just as I would with a loved one who had been hurt by me.

Keep in mind that forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation (which takes two people), but sometimes must be offered unilaterally. It is a difficult process, but it is also freeing. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting, condoning, or approving the harm done, and it goes hand and hand with setting healthy boundaries. Seeking out therapy and empathizing with the other person’s own struggles helps.

When the home is shattered by the brokenness of divorce, one must boldly turn to the Church. And so, for those leaders in the Church who come into contact with adult children of divorce, here are five ways that you can help bring them Christ’s healing truth.

The year we got married, Dan’s parents completed their divorce proceedings, which had begun more than a decade earlier when they separated while he was in middle school. It felt ironic and deeply sad that we were beginning our life together as his parents were definitively ending theirs. And it caused some anxiety in us: Could we make it work? Would we last?