Although the divorce rate seems to be fairly low at about 20%, it's interesting how statistics from the US Bureau of Census gives us statistics that over 50% of US families are remarried or re-coupled, 66% of those living together or remarried break up when children are involved, and that 1300 new stepfamilies are forming every day.
I find it extremely interesting how no two families are the same. How are these statistics helping our future generations to create and maintain nuclear families? It's fascinating that divorce rates first spiked in the 1970's when no-fault divorces became prominent, this gave couples the opportunity to divorce just because they no longer desired to stay married together. The four A's that reasoned a divorce before this time period were known as Abuse, Addiction, Adultery, and Agenda's. The children of those divorces in the 1970's also seemed to have high divorce rates in their marriages as well, which was the start to witnessing generational patterns of divorce. I wonder what patterns or family systems we will see within 10 years from now.
While on the topic of blended families, I would like to share my observations from my own experiences. After many many years of putting up with abuse, addiction, and adultery from my father, who would exclaim he's working overtime but would go out clubbing with his buddies, and continually manipulating and abusing those members within our immediate family, my mother's final decision of filing for divorce didn't come until events seriously peaked in our home.
The divorce process for our family which was started in 2010, took about a year and a half. During this time my first youngest brother being age 11, and myself at 14 were given our own legal lawyers who would speak on our behalf concerning our living desires moving forward. The outcome of the divorce was that our mother had full custody of both my younger brother's and I. Visitation rights would be granted to my father in a family counseling facility which I thought to be fair.
My mother remarried in 2013, expanding our family with 4 older step-siblings and a newly older step-father. I personally was not a fan of this marriage, particularly because my brothers and I barely knew this guy.
6 years ago, I unenthusiastically slumped into the beauty chair, seated next to my mother for her wedding day hair and makeup. “She barely knows this guy”, I quietly thought to myself as my makeup artist started to fill my pores with foundation and such. Small talk over wedding plans for the day filled me with uneasiness over what the future could hold with this new marriage, scared for another repeat of what once was.
Any sort of adult male figure at that time of my life filled me with slight anxiety. My mother is a simple, quite, logical thinker whose taken much hardships silently over the course of her life, never allowing her outside appearance to show such emotions. The last thing I wanted was her heart to become broken again.
Although my feelings towards Bill started off very cautious and closed off, it didn’t take long to see that sometimes he understood me better than I had previously thought. By small and simple means, I grew to have a great amount of respect and love for a new father who learned to fill that empty role in my heart. The title of Father surely didn’t come easy, as it took years of building our relationship with trust and respect, as I believe that special title is to be earned. Today I’m extremely happy that my mother found such a loving, and hardworking man who can give her the much needed love and respect that she so well deserves.
I would be lying if I said this transition was easy, in fact it's still a transition that my youngest brother, being the only one in the nest at home still continues to struggle with. I hope that we can all continue to grown in love and strength throughout many years to come.
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