What It’s Like for Your Parents to Divorce When You’re in Your 20s: An Interview with Jacqui Scheiwe

What It’s Like for Your Parents to Divorce When You’re in Your 20s:

An Interview with Jacqui Scheiwe

WRITTEN BY ELLA BRUMM

What was your childhood like?

My childhood was very normal. Just mum, dad, me and my brother. We never moved house. We never changed school. We would holiday at the beach every summer and ate far too many prawns and serves of trifle every Christmas. We went to church on Sunday mornings, and visited our grandma on Sunday afternoons. Mum would take me to my dance classes and dad taught me how to drive. Both me and my brother grew up with a sense that we were a ‘normal’ and ‘perfect’ family. Of course, we didn’t know any better.

How old were you when your parents divorced?

out from underneath me. I felt silly that it was making me as sad as it did because I was an adult and society was telling me I should have been fine to cope with it. I distinctly remember telling myself “You’re one of those people now. A person from a broken family.” I felt like I couldn’t tell my friends because their parents were still together and they just wouldn’t understand. I felt like a character in a movie. Films and TV shows I had previously loved which had a storyline of divorce, tugged at a new, relatable nerve.

Were you blindsided by the separation or did you see it coming?

I was 24. I think. Even though it was only a few years ago, that period of my life is a blur. And my mind has actively suppressed the details. It’s crazy what your brain does under stress!

What did it feel like hearing your parents were divorcing?

I went numb, yet felt sad and angry at the same time. I was shocked it was happening. After being a ‘normal’ family for so long, it didn’t feel real. It felt like the rug had been pulled I was gut-wrenchingly blindsided, even though months beforehand my dad had moved into the spare bedroom of our house, before signing a lease and moving into an apartment down the road. We just thought it was a phase he was going through and he’d come back. He never told us he was planning on divorcing. He was also diagnosed with prostate cancer during this time, which convinced us he would come home and reconnect with our family after his surgery. He didn’t. What blindsided me the

most was finding out dad had actually been having an affair for almost a decade with a family friend of ours from church. She had also been married at the time. And, she also happens to have the same name as me. I felt like not even Hollywood could write a script that ridiculous.

The blindsiding continued all through their property settlement. It became apparent dad had been siphoning off money from their joint bank account. He also tried to claim more than 50 per cent in the property settlement by devaluing the items he wanted to keep, and overvaluing mum’s things. But the best moment was probably when my dad sent mum a legal letter claiming defamation because she told her friends about dad’s affair. Except the lawyers spelt it as ‘defamination’! I couldn’t even recognise who my dad was anymore.

Did it make you question any of your childhood memories?

Absolutely, it made me question every childhood memory. I would lay in bed at night looking at our happy family photos on social media and wonder just how long our family had been living a lie? It made me long nostalgically for my trouble-free childhood. But with every happy memory I would go back and relive, I would find clues about the cheating. Memories about things I didn’t think anything of at the time and had dismissed, but now all made sense. Like when my dad used to get angry if we touched his phone, or when he would come home late from work every Friday night. How my mum would always worry about not being attractive enough for dad, even though she was stunning.

Did the separation change how you saw your parents?

Absolutely. You grow up thinking your parents have life figured out and you can go to them for advice. But all I could see them as was broken people. During the separation the parent/ child roles reversed completely. I would cook dinner for the family while my parents argued for hours on end. I would drive my mum to work because she couldn’t stop crying over the separation. I would put her sleeping pills under my pillow in case she decided to take too many that night. I felt so betrayed by my dad when he tried to convince mum she was mentally insane because she was so upset by the divorce, and had the car keys in his hand ready to drive her to hospital. I had to physically stand up and stop him because mum has no signs of mental illness or a history of it. I had a crash course in identifying a gaslighter that night.

How did your life change after the separation?

The biggest change was I lost my relationship with my dad. It was as if he had died, but I never got a funeral to grieve. While he was the one who left and decided to cut me and my brother off, I decided the best way for me to heal was to make sure I had no contact with him. At least until he is ready to admit he cheated and lied to our family. It made me lose myself in a few bad relationships. But in another way, it slowly but surely made me more confident in myself. I’ve had to become the one to back myself in everything because my parents weren’t there for me when I was grieving our family’s separation. It’s made me try new things out of my comfort zone to show dad what he’s missing out on now he’s left.

If you were a child the expectation is usually that you have one or two weeks with each parent but considering you’re an adult how has that developed? Do you feel the burden of having to share your time equally between both parents?

As an adult I’ve had all the freedom to cut off contact with my dad, and I am so thankful for that. If I was younger, I think I would have been somewhat forced into accepting his affair. It’s been an interesting journey learning not to feel guilty about cutting out a toxic person from my life, even if they are a parent, with cancer.

I was told every inner detail of their separation because of my age. From their lack of sex, to reading through every legal document exchanged between them. I was told about everything.

What is the biggest misconception you’ve noticed that people assume about divorce in the family?

The biggest misconception I’ve encountered as an adult child of divorced parents is people think the separation wasn’t such a big deal for me or my brother. Because we are older, people thought we were doing fine. When we started telling them our honest feelings, how much it actually upset us, our friends really did a double take. They slowly started realising just how painful it was for us to watch the two people who had been our rock for our entire lives, crumble before us.

Many research articles and psychologists have commented on the impacts that divorce has on children but many neglect people of divorce in their 20s, why do you think that is?

I honestly don’t know. Because I know I’m not the only adult who has suffered through their parent’s rough divorce. Having said that, I know my story is a little bit unique. But I think because there is a lot of awareness of how trauma in someone’s early years impacts their development and future success, there is more demand for research on that topic. I think divorcing parents are more aware of the impact they are having on their younger children. But if you do know of any resources for adults like me, please let me know because I’d love to read it!

Did they treat you like their child or a confidante?

They treated me and my brother like we were both children and their psychologists. They told us everything and confided every one of their emotions. Yet at the same time, they told us we were too young to understand. It was a difficult path to tread, and it always left me with knots in my stomach. I felt like I was going to be blamed for talking to one parent more than the other, and be accused of taking sides. It didn’t matter how careful I was because I was accused of it anyway.

Were there any silver linings that eventuated from your parents’ divorce?

It forced me to rebuild myself and my ideas about the world from the ground up. It’s made me more aware of the subtle ways people manipulate others. It’s made me see a psychologist to learn healthy ways of dealing with grief and anger, and to unlearn every toxic thing I subconsciously learnt from my parent’s marriage and divorce. Most of all, it’s made me, my mum and my brother the closest and happiest family we’ve ever been.

What has your parents’ relationship taught you about romantic relationships and has it made you reflect on your own relationships?

It’s taught me happily ever after is a lie. Haha I’m joking! I still believe I will find my Mr Right, and I still believe long-lasting marriage is absolutely possible and worth it. But it has taught me no matter how amazing your partner is or how religious they profess to be, they will always have the capacity to betray you. I now know the importance of being an emotionally healthy person before entering into a relationship to not only build a strong foundation for a healthy partnership, but to also help weed out the narcissists and gaslighters before you marry them.

Did the separation bring you closer to your sibling?

In a strange and unspoken way, it has. We are the only people in this world who truly know what each other has gone through. We were both lied to by our dad. We both watched our mother’s breakdown. We were both misunderstood by our friends and extended family. And we’ve both come out the other side as stronger and better people.