I Would Cut All Ties With My Parents if They Got Back Together

Not every child of divorce is hoping for a parent-trap reunion.

I’ve often been asked the question by numerous people in my life if I would like my parents to get back together. I’m sure their questions are fueled by the “right person, wrong time” narratives or the many movies showing divorced couples rekindling their relationships later in life. And of course, there are the occasional couple who does regret their divorce and reunite.

I always answer with a resounding, “if my parents ever got back together, I would cut all ties with them. No second thoughts.” To most people, this seems like a pretty harsh response and thought to have. For me, it seems like a pretty docile response because honestly cutting off ties is significantly better than strangling my parents.

What my well-intended friends and family don’t realize is my parents getting back together is one of my biggest fears (besides like impending climate disaster). Honestly, even them being friendly with each other triggers that fear. It may seem irrational, but from my perspective, it’s pretty logical.

Wait back up…why is friendliness a bad thing?

Valid question…friendliness isn’t bad. At least not objectively and if my parents had an average divorce friendliness would be preferred. Hell, in an alternative universe I’m sure I would love if my parents were friends.

But my parents aren’t friends. They’re enemies who occasionally forget they fought a 10-year long war and become friends for a few months.

If I hadn’t spent the majority of my childhood dousing flames from their battles, perhaps I wouldn’t feel so betrayed when they have their 3-hour long “friendly” conversations.

Maybe if there weren’t so many instances of me forced into the role of the owl (reference, anyone?), I wouldn’t mind their friendly phone calls and emails.

Perhaps if I didn’t spend too many hours of my formative years inside courthouses and lawyers cold offices, their banter wouldn’t be nausea-inducing.

The unfortunate reality is my parents were horrible to each other, absolutely horrendous. Both during their marriage and especially during their divorce. Of course, there were moments where olive branches were extended but moments later, the branch was stomped on.

From tense graduations with bitter stares to verbal accusations (my dad yelling my mom was “a selfish c*nt” during Christmas or my mom calling my dad a “narcissistic asshole”), safe to say their relationship has had its ups and downs.

Their inconsistent disdain for each other and aversion towards co-parenting has left a bitter taste in my mouth, so whenever they have a period of reconciliation and friendship I know it won’t last.

But I also can’t help but feel betrayed by their faux co-parenting and friendship. If they can hold it together for two-hour-long phone calls several times a week, where was this comradery during my formative years?

When I was forced to play mediator for my parents, I would have loved for them to figure it out themselves. It seems anytime there is a bigger issue at hand, they are always at odds. So friendship in the absence of conflict just seems insulting. Either stay enemies or be friends, the inconsistency is exhausting.

But hypothetically if they made each other happy, shouldn’t that matter?

Yes, of course, I want my parents to be happy. Despite any challenges in our relationships, I don’t wish ill on anyone. But those sentiments would very quickly change if they ever got back together. Perhaps I wouldn’t actively wish them ill, but I certainly would be seeing red for a time.

Logistically it isn’t a crazy scenario for my parents to one day reunite. They are both remarried but my stepdad has a degenerate disease and my father married an older woman. It is entirely possible they will spend their later years single.

And if in some distant future my parents find themselves interested in reuniting, I would not care at all if they deluded themselves into happiness. If by some miracle they actually found happiness in each other, I wouldn’t care. If it sounds bitter or heartless but I don’t care either.

I spent the better part of my childhood unhappy because of their relationship and then the dissolution of their relationship. I carried burdens no child should have to carry. I dealt with situations no child should have to endure. And well into my adulthood, I am still dealing with the fallout of their pathetic excuse of a relationship.

My parents have been very selfish in too many scenarios, so their happiness wouldn’t matter in a hypothetical reunion. They’ve sacrificed their children’s happiness on too many occasions for any possible future romantic relationship to be justified. Ever.

Too many parents think their children long for a reunion after they separate. My mom is one of them. She cannot grasp every fiber in my being despises a scenario where my parents get back together. “But wouldn’t you want your mom and dad to still be married, still love each other, be under the same roof?”

My answer to her is always very simple, I longed for a healthy and loving childhood. My birth parents being married has little to do with a healthy household. My parents were destructive when they were married, no part of me enjoyed those experiences either.

It’s selfish to assume marriage is more important than healthy parenting (in whatever form it comes in). I’d far rather prefer parents who effectively co-parent apart than ones who argue every night together. Most divorce children and adults I come across feel similarly. We all want an escape from the madness, which doesn’t always include remarriage fantasies.

And for parents who have their own remarriage fantasies, I would advise you to think about your family. If you want to be on and off with a significant other, that’s fine. But as soon as you have children, that behavior becomes unacceptable. Parents need to be far more selfless in every manner.

If my parents ever got back together, it would become their #1 selfish act. And god, do I have horrible examples of their selfishness, so that’s saying a lot. But if one day they thought it was wise to date, they would be disregarding all the pain and turmoil they put their family through…for what? To be reminded a few months later they never worked in the first place? Or worse…to actually work out and then insult everyone with the childish manner they chose to handle their first marriage.

So yes, maybe it’s harsh but if my parents ever got back together for whatever reason…I would never talk to them again and I would have no qualms doing so.

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