The desire to have children is a strong biological and emotional drive. Getting divorced before you have children can make not ever having children a very real possibility.
My current guest, Lucy got married after college and was married for seven years. She and her husband never had children and she was OK with that. That was ten years ago and now she’s remarried and is happy not to have children. Here’s Lucy.
At one point we actually were trying to have kids and I had a miscarriage. I considered it a miracle that we even had sex for me to get pregnant.
Then when I had the miscarriage, we just knew what that was like, “Okay, we can’t do this anymore. This is not right.” After that I never really had a strong desire.
I’m a middle school teacher, so maybe I’m kind of burned up with kids.
I’m OK not having kids. It wasn’t a big heartbreak in that respect.
People did say, “At least you don’t have kids.”
I just thought, “Wow, you have no idea.”
When someone comments, who I think to the outside world, is happily married with two kids, goes to church every Sunday and has this seemingly normal life, I think that seems like a normal thing to say. “Well, you’re fine, because you didn’t have kids,” but I think it just shows that nobody really knows, unless they’re in a bad marriage and then divorced, how it is.
The Divorce Coach Says
I know this is a much shorter than usual post but I wanted to share it on it’s own because I do think people tend to measure the pain of divorce by the degree of child involvement and it’s completely irrelevant.
My recent guest Elizabeth had adult children and experienced the “at least your children are grown” reaction when in truth her adult children were devastated by the divorce.
One reason people say things like this is because they think that by pointing out that the situation could be worse, they think they’re helping you see a brighter side. That doesn’t help if the situation is, in reality worse than they think.
Another reason is because they simply don’t know how else to offer support. It’s more about them than you.
There’s a very simple rule for what to say to someone to show support or concern and that is, never say ‘at least’ about anything. You’re better off asking a question, such as “How are you doing?” or “How can I support you?”
If someone says “At least ….” to you try not to overreact. They probably mean well. You can just thank them and move on.
What’s the most insensitive thing someone has said to you about your divorce? How did you handle it?
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