Program: FamilyLife Today

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Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, October 27th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. What does an adult child of divorce do? If that person feels like he's wearing ankle weights that can never come off. Stay with us.

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And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. One of the realities that parents raising children in this generation are having to recognize is that it's as likely that your children will wind up dating, falling in love, and marrying someone who comes from a background of divorce as it is that they've come from an intact family background.

Dennis: Right.

Bob: And, if that's the case, as we've talked this week, there are going to be some issues that they just need to be alert to and be aware of as they start to form their own marriage relationship.

Dennis: And, Bob, if we've learned nothing else this week, we have ? and it's really the reason why we've given a full week of broadcast to the subject of children of divorce, it's that divorce has a dramatic impact on the lives of children. In fact, we're about to look into the research here as we go through the broadcast today, but I want to read you the findings ? one of the 10 findings from the first-ever national survey of grown children of divorce, and the first finding was this ? even amicable or good divorces have significant negative effects for children.

We have learned that this week that divorce is not good for children and for families.

Bob: The person behind that national study also wrote a book called "Between Two Worlds," and her name is Elizabeth Marquardt and, Elizabeth, welcome back to FamilyLife Today.

Elizabeth: Thank you.

Bob: Jen Abbas is also with us this week, and Jen has written a book called "Generation E-x" ? "Generation Ex," that comes not from a national study but from a lot of study, a lot of conversations with a lot of people and your own experience as an adult child of divorce and, Jen, welcome back.

Jen: Thanks for having me.

Dennis: You guys have been good sports and I now kind of feel like you're friends, all right? Especially you, Elizabeth. You've written this book, "Between Two Worlds," which is a national study, and I wanted to get your take on this, because throughout your book, you have the word "good" divorce in quotes all throughout your book. Now, I looked up the word "good" in Webster's dictionary. "Good" means beneficial, healthy, or sound; honorable, worth, virtuous, able to endure. Juxtapose that with the word "bad." A "bad" divorce, and the word "bad" means not as it should be; faulty.

Now, I want to ask you a question. When you put that in quotes, what was behind that? Because you were very careful to not refer to divorce as being "good," but you called some divorces "good" divorce.

Elizabeth: One of the things I do in this book is take on this idea of the "good" divorce. It was a term coined in a book in the early '90s by a family therapist named Constance Ahrons, and it's widely used in the media ? it's really evolved into this idea that it's not divorce itself that's bad for children but simply the way the parents divorce. And if we can just teach divorced parents how to divorce better, then we'll have fewer damaged and suffering children of divorce.

This is the idea I'm really trying to take on, and one of the things we did in this study is we found that for children there is no such thing as a "good" divorce. It is certainly better for children if divorced parents stay involved in their child's life and don't fight with each other. That's certainly much better for the children; I think we can all figure that one out.

But their parents doing ? even doing the right things in the wake of the divorce does not take away the pain of the divorce and, in fact, in many ways, the children of so-called "good" divorces look worse than those who grew up in unhappy marriages so long as the parents' marriage was low-conflict, which is the majority of marriages ending in divorce.

One of my messages to all the married parents listening is that your imperfect, good-enough marriage is doing great things for your kids.

Dennis: It really is. And you shouldn't undersell it.

Elizabeth: Exactly.

Dennis: And, I'll tell you, I'm holding in my hands just a small fragment of the comments that come back from our Weekend to Remember Marriage Conferences, and we'll have anywhere from 400 to almost 4,000 people attend these events across the country ? 150 of them this coming year. And, Bob, you've read these. I'm always staggered by the number of comments of people who say, "You saved our marriage. We were at the verge of divorce. We already had the papers. We were ready to call it quits." I mean, here is one right here. "We have committed to restore the oneness that years of hurt and rejection have destroyed by being served with divorce paper five" ? count 'em ? "five individual times." The following sentence is underlined ? We serve a powerful God who answers prayer. My husband ? after 28 years, my husband wants to grow old with me.

Elizabeth: That's beautiful.

Dennis: I'm going to tell you something ? we get these comments ? there's page after page in here ? "I believe it has saved our marriage." "My wife and I were separating." "My husband filed for divorce six weeks ago after 27 years of marriage." Over and over and over again people are tossing the towel in because they think there's no hope, and I think, importantly, as we pointed out all this week, there are consequences regardless of the ages of your children, regardless of the ages of your children to the next generation.

There is a generation today that's wanting us, as an older generation, to finish well and to finish and fulfill what we promised at the wedding altar.

Bob: I want to go back to when Jim Marquardt came to you and said, "Will you be my wife?"

Dennis: She's grinning.

Elizabeth: I am, sweetheart.

Bob: Were you aware, were you in touch ? this was 10 years ago, longer than that, right?

Elizabeth: Right.

Bob: Were you aware of what was in your soul as a child of divorce, and was there any hesitation ? did you feel like saying, "I need a" ? when you sell a car, you're supposed to give a truth in advertising, a truth in ? here's the car report. You need to know what you're getting yourself into. Did you feel like you needed to have that disclosure with him?

Elizabeth: Not about myself. I did feel like I had no idea how to evaluate how you make a marriage decision. And all I knew ? it sounds silly ? all I knew at the time is that in 20 years I'd be glad I'd married him. I couldn't figure out how to figure out, as a 24-year-old woman, if this was the right idea, but I knew he was a good person who was my friend and who I thought was cute, and we had many similar interests, and I just knew, more than anything, that he had, I felt, enormous integrity, and in 10 years of marriage I haven't seen anything different, and I just feel very fortunate about that, while not taking anything for granted.

Dennis: You didn't have any discussions with him about this? I mean, I'm talking about ...

Elizabeth: Well, we talked about my family a lot but, you know, I probably would have prickled at the idea that my family background meant that I might be damaged goods when it came to marriage.

I remember when my mom and my soon-to-be-ex stepdad sort of insinuated on the phone with me that this ? and yet another divorce in my family might be damaging my own prospects for a future marriage, and I was furious. I was just furious. This idea that something I had no control over could be held over my head and make others think differently of me.

Dennis: You did the research. That wasn't just your feeling. There's a whole generation that doesn't want to be labeled and have a stigma attached to them.

Elizabeth: Exactly. I have noticed that children of divorce, fortunately, are not particularly stigmatized anymore. I don't think so. As a child of divorce, I didn't feel much stigma. But I think there is a new stigma emerging among those who grew up with married parents who are reluctant to marry a child of divorce. And, in a sense, you can see why. I mean, we hear every day children of divorce have a much higher divorce rate themselves; they have much higher rates of all kinds of problems. You know, divorce can be transmitted ...

Dennis: Hey, I read your book. I know the ending, yeah.

Elizabeth: So ? but I saw it here, you know, I've heard in interviews or things I've read or letters to advice columnists ? young people with married parents saying something like, "You know, my parents have been married 40 years. I want a happy marriage like they have." "I'm dating this guy, he's from a divorced family, I don't really know if I want to marry him." Or another person saying, "You know, my boyfriend, we're really in love, but he grew up in a divorced family." It's almost like he grew up in a different culture, you know, and I'm just finding a lot of these anecdotes, and I think it would be a real shame if people overlook the many wonderful qualities that we have to offer because of our family background.

Bob: Jen, you are in your 30s, never been married. You have experienced the stigma that Elizabeth is talking about, right?

Jen: Yeah, and I think especially in Christian circles there is this ideal of the happy Christian family that we're close and when you come, even though I became Christian when I was 19, and I obviously had no control over the fact that my parents divorced, I have had guys say, you know, "I want the kind of family that my family had, and that's been my dream is to marry into somebody else who has this family, and, you know, I really like you, but all those Christian broadcast people say when you get married, you marry their family, too, and, you know, I can deal with you, but I can't deal with your family."

Bob: Okay, I've got both of your books right here. Both of you talked about the profound, deep, emotional, spiritual impact of growing up in a divorced home.

Dennis: I want to answer this question before they do. Go ahead and ask it, though.

Bob: So why wouldn't I, as a dad ? my daughter comes home and says, "I've met this wonderful guy. You know, his parents divorced," and I'm thinking dootoodootoodootoo, you know, warning, warning, I read Marquardt's book, I read Abbas's book. He's going to come with all of this stuff. I mean, "Honey, find somebody that doesn't have the stuff." So you want to answer that first?

Dennis: I do, I do, and I want to answer it as a father-in-law.

Bob: Okay.

Dennis: All right? Who doesn't have stuff, first of all?

Jen: Amen.

Dennis: Okay, okay, who doesn't have stuff? Secondly, this is a broken culture, as every other culture has been. This culture just happens to bear the plague of divorce upon it. Is it huge? Yes. What is Christianity all about? At it's core, if you could slide it open and dissect it, it's about redemption, it's about broken people in the process of being restored and being loved out of their brokenness and, trust me, this is more than just theory. Because some of our children have married others from families that are less than perfect, they're broken, and do you know what they found out? They found out our family is less than perfect.

But do you know what they're doing? They, along with their spouses, are exhibiting love. They are linking arms in the greatest promise two people ever make with one another, and they're teaching one another how to love in an imperfect world.

And would it be ideal, would it be perfect, if all of us had these perfect little families? Yeah. I wish Adam and Eve hadn't blown it, you know? And I wish I hadn't blown it and Barbara as well. But the reality is this is a broken culture, and you're not going to have this perfect world.

Bob: Elizabeth, if a 35-year-old, never-been-married friend of yours comes, who grew up in an intact, loving, nurturing, supporting family and says, "I've met this guy, and he's a wonderful guy. His parents were divorced, and his mom and his stepfather were also divorced, and I'm thinking about marrying him," what kind of counsel would you give me?

Elizabeth: You know, we're all ? none of us are defined by one event in our lives, and we're complex people, but there certainly are some patterns that seem to turn up among a lot of children of divorce, and often a sense of guardedness, difficulty trusting, difficulty with intimacy, not knowing how to reveal how to set healthy boundaries, how to reveal how to protect yourself in healthy ways.

But even moreso, it seems like so many of the children of divorce grew up being a different person in each of their parents' worlds. They're their mom self here, the dad self there, and when they come of age when they're young adults, and they're seeking their place in the world, the overwhelming question is, "Well, who am I really? And how can my spouse know me intimately and how can God know me intimately when I don't even seem to be one person. I feel all torn up inside, and I don't even know how to name it."

And so I think that books like mine and Jen's and others can help all of us know the children of divorce better, and part of it is understanding how this fairly complex family they come from shapes who they are now.

Bob: So you're saying, "Go in with your eyes wide open, and there's going to be work to be done as there is in any relationship, and be ready to do the work and press ahead?"

Elizabeth: I'm fairly convinced that we're all sinners. We've all got problems and, you know, there are some problems that some of us deal with, but there are others.

Jen: My brother is married, and my sister-in-law comes from an intact family, and she has been such a healing agent for my family. She and my brother had a little boy about two years ago, and before my nephew was born, my mom and dad had not been in the same room for about 26 years.

And my sister-in-law was at a place that she could be the one that had to be strong. So she said, "You know what? I would like both of you to be a part of this birth, and nothing would make Chris and I happier. But you need to realize that you guys make your decisions, and you need to deal with the consequences of those, but this is our family, and so if you guys want to be a part of your grandchild being born, you need to come, and you need to respect the fact that this is our family."

And because she was coming from that intact family, she knew that was perfectly within her rights. For my brother, you know, it would have been a lot harder for him to have that conversation and kind of lay down the law that way because he was feeling these loyalty issues and all of this other stuff. But she was able to say it. And, to my parents' credit, they came; they were both there. I have this picture of my mom, my dad, my brother, and my sister-in-law and my nephew in one photo, and when I saw it, I wept, because I never thought I'd see the day.

And, you know, I shudder to think what would have happened if she would have not been open to that.

Bob: When you called her a "healing agent," Dennis, you kind of gave this little chuckle, this little heh-heh-heh.

Dennis: You know, as I'm listening to both of them really talk about this, there's three things I want to say just to this mythical couple who are about to get married. First of all, don't minimize the divorce. You can't deny the reality of the damage or of the hurt or of what that did. That, to me, is more dangerous, entering into a marriage than, well, a lot of things you could do.

Secondly, and I think Elizabeth mentioned this, but I just want to underline it ? realize that it is work. But you know what? Marriage is work regardless. It's just going to mean you're going to have a little bit more extra work, and there may be some fossils that have to be dug out and unearthed, and sometimes that requires careful, you know, careful digging, as you go forward.

But a third is never forget that the marriage covenant is a pledge by two imperfect people to love one another for a lifetime, and even two intact families coming together ? what is it? It's still a marriage covenant by two selfish, sinful people with backgrounds coming into relationship where they are called "'til death do us part, for better for worse."

Elizabeth: That's pretty tough stuff.

Bob: That is tough.

Dennis: It is hard stuff. But then there's one comment I want to make right now to the in-laws, because as an in-law, you can wish for your children this dream that we talked about here of two intact families coming together in the perfect, idyllic wedding, and where it is happily ever after. That may occur in the storybooks, and I don't think there's anything wrong with two intact families, please, God forbid that we'd be found guilty of anybody thinking we're saying that. I think that is the ideal.

But if your child does marry a person who comes from a divorce background, your command, as a parent, is to love. And, you know, we now have five children who have been grafted into our family. You know, I'm asked how many children I have, well, six. But I actually have 11, because we have five who have come to us by way of marriage.

Well, you know what? I've found that there is a great privilege in that assignment of becoming a new father to a couple of young men who I gave my daughters to. I mean, talk about getting intimate, you know? But I love those guys, and I'm in the process of loving them, and I know that they need to see proof of that, but that's our assignment as parents, and if you've got daughters who have married your sons ? same deal ? you can find fault with them, you can look backwards at the mistakes they made or their families made, and you can find them guilty.

But you know what? That's not what the Bible is about. The Bible is about the command to love. Read 1 Corinthians 13, and read it with your son-in-law in mind, your daughter-in-law in mind ? "Love believes all things, bears all things, hopes all things, love never fails." What a privilege. So, you know, I think what we've talked about here all this week is real stuff. I mean, it's real hurt, real pain, real people, but that's the earth to which the Savior came, and I just want to say thanks again to Elizabeth, you, and Jen, you, for being real and for your writing these books. I think these books are going to help a lot of people. Thanks for being on the broadcast.

Elizabeth: Thank you so much.

Jen: Thank you.

Bob: You know, with both of these books, I'm thinking about not only the children who grew up in divorced homes, but I'm thinking about their parents, I'm thinking about their in-laws, I'm thinking all of us can grow from understanding ...

Dennis: ... no doubt it ...

Bob: ... what the issues are. We've got copies of both books in our FamilyLife Resource Center. Jen's book is called "Generation E-x," "Generation Ex," Elizabeth's book is called "Between Two Worlds," and we would commend both of them to you. You can order them online at FamilyLife.com. If you click the red button that says "Go" in the middle of our home page, it will take you right to the place where you can request copies of these books.

Again, the website is FamilyLife.com. Click the red button that says "Go," and you can order these books online, and if you order copies of both books, we'll send along at no additional cost the two CDs that feature our entire weeks' worth of conversation on this subject with our guests today, Jen Abbas and Elizabeth Marquardt.

You can also call 1-800-FLTODAY if you have any questions or if you'd like to order these resources over the phone. Again, it's 1-800-358-6329. 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and someone on our team will be happy to get the information we need so that we can get these resources out to you.

Again, I want to thank those folks who listened this week who are not just listeners but those of you who have helped to support the ministry of FamilyLife Today in the past with a donation. We are listener-supported, and so those listeners who do call from time to time or go to the Web from time to time to make a donation for our ministry, you are very much appreciated, and you play a significant role in helping to keep this program on the air in this city and in cities all across the country, and we are grateful for our partnership with you.

If you've been a regular listener and have never made a donation to FamilyLife Today, let me encourage you to go online at FamilyLife.com and make a donation or call 1-800-FLTODAY and make a donation as well. Help us continue to provide practical biblical help for your marriage, for your family and for this community through this daily radio program and the other outreaches of FamilyLife Today.

Well, I hope you have a great weekend. I hope you and your family are able to worship together this weekend, and I hope you can be back here on Monday. We're going to spend a little time next week learning about the stories behind some of the great patriotic hymns of our country. You know, we're getting ready for Thanksgiving, and we thought it would be good to just revisit some of these great songs that celebrate God's goodness to our nation, and Ace Collins is going to be here to help us do that. Barbara Rainey is going to stop in as well. I hope you can be with us. It's going to be a fun week.

I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you Monday for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.