Late-Stage Divorce Takes a Toll on the Adult Children Caught In the Middle

Here’s how your adult children are changed by your late-stage divorce.

When I leaned full time into personal coaching a couple of years ago, I didn’t realize how many children of late-stage divorce I’d be dealing with. Having been a child of divorce myself, I saw it as a common thing. But that wasn’t the same story for everyone. For many, happy families have always been the standard.

That’s why they are blindsided when their parents call it quits in the golden years of their relationship. There’s a real unraveling that comes with being the adult child of divorce. Your entire perspective is transformed, and within that, the way you see love, intimacy, and partnerships in general.

Children are always in the crossfire of divorce.

There’s no escaping the fact that children are always in the crossfire of divorce, no matter the age. There’s a lot of fallout that comes with a late-stage divorce, and some of it is tangible (like finances and assets) and some of it is intangible (like family conflict).

Finding our peace requires being honest with ourselves, but that can be hard — and even impossible — to do in the moment; when you’re handling all those feelings and nuanced thoughts. Below are some of the most powerful stories from a range of my clients over the years. Note: All names and identifying details have been changed to protect anonymity.

Camille, 47

Camille was already grown up with a family of her own when her parents called it quits.

“It was devastating,” she told me one afternoon as we chatted through her weekly session. “We thought they were the perfect couple, and it was a total punch in the gut when my mom called me.”

The consequences of that divorce weren’t just emotional, though. In the end, Camille ended up losing a relationship with her father and her other siblings as well.

“We all ended up picking sides in the end,” she told me. “My brothers sided with my dad, and I couldn’t forgive the man who left my mother in her golden years. It created battle lines we couldn’t overcome. I haven’t talked to them in years.”

The cost of a gray divorce isn’t just emotional. The choice wrenches apart families, forcing them to separate in such a dramatic way. Not only do children turn against parents as they struggle to make sense of this change — they can turn on one another as well. Cracks ripple through the entire unit until (as Camille explained) battle lines get drawn.

Harper, 39

Harper was one of the more tragic stories that came across my lap as a coach. At 39, she was recovering from the death of her mother and an entirely new family dynamic that was both toxic and alienating.

“The divorce killed my mother.”

Her voice was muffled. Tear-filled. It was hard for her to recount the events, but it was part of the explanation she knew she needed to give.

“She was never the same after that. Yeah, she had been sick before. But still had her will. When my dad gave up on her. That was it. She didn’t have the strength to keep going anymore. And I get it.”

Harper’s mother had been diagnosed with a rare heart condition when she was in high school. Although she hadn’t been given long to live, she had championed on — only to decline after doubling the dates her doctors had given her.

“When my dad gave up on her. That was it. She didn’t have the strength to keep going anymore…”

The decline was fast, and Harper’s father became the primary caretaker of a wife he no longer recognized. What had been a vivacious woman with a head full of wavy blonde hair quickly deteriorated into a skeletal, gray-haired shadow that rarely left the house or the safety of her bed.

After almost another 5 years of full-time care, Harper’s father had given up. In the middle of the night, he had packed up his bags and driven away. Next to his wife, not an empty pillow, had been the divorce papers (already signed by him).

“I couldn’t get past that. I haven’t talked to him in years.”

This was an important lesson. The fallout from gray divorce encompasses not only the act itself. It also includes the intricate ways in which the act is processed, managed, and handled by all parties involved. It’s one more layer to consider as you make the decisions that are best for you.

Robert, 63

“My parents had me when they were young. After over 60 years of marriage together, we thought it was all a done deal. But it wasn’t, and it shocked us.” Robert, 63, started working with me a year or so ago when he and his wife hit a rocky patch. It didn’t take us long to trace a lot of the issues he was having back to the breakdown of his parent‘s’ marriage only months earlier.

“Dad was 80 at the time. Mom was 79. They were young in spirit and active for their ages. Everyone thought they were so in love, but they weren’t…”

In Robert’s case, he struggled with a loss of faith in his relationship after the marriage of his parents collapsed. Having held them as the pinnacle of love for so long, seeing them separate blew a hole in the side of his world that detonated his relationship with his wife of 24 years.

He shut down. Stopped communicating. He and his wife started fighting more and more often. What’s the point? It’s all going to fail in the end, was a thought that became common in Robert’s mind. And when it did, that limited his efforts and his ability to manage his partnership in good faith.

Shaun, 24

For Shaun, the turbulence of his parents’ divorce meant an end to his plans in life. The baby of the family — and a surprise by a long shot — he had been working on his bachelor’s at a prestigious university when his parents announced the news of their separation. What should have been a pretty straightforward process turned into a disaster.

Shaun’s father (and older siblings) pulled away from the family entirely. Financial support was pulled, and Shaun lost the ability to fund the rest of his education. It forced him to drop from his program in the final year and assume full-time work that allowed him to support not only himself but his mother as well.

Understandably, this landed Shaun with all kinds of additional pressure and stress. His perception of self-changed and he became increasingly socially isolated. Self-esteem plummeted, and so did his outlook on everything from relationships to careers to family. Now, years later, he is a successful business owner who has worked through his issues. But not before losing out on a great deal of love and success in his youth.

Selena, 32

“I don’t remember my parents ever saying ‘I love you,’ or being close.” This was one of the first things Selena ever told me about her parents’ marriage.

She came to me earlier this year, struggling in the wake of a narcissistic relationship that she recently left. We were working on breaking down her patterns, and we inevitably got to the breakdown of her mother and father’s marriage — which had taken place a few years into her high school career.

“When they split, none of us were shocked. We just weren’t a close family and Dad was always gone for work, anyway. I mean, they had been together for 30 years and most of that time had been silent. Anything not silent was tense or angry. So I just never even really considered it. I always assumed it would happen somewhere, I think.”

“I don’t remember my parents ever saying, ‘I love you’…”

It turned out that this divorce had tied in directly to Selena’s relationships — or rather her parents’ entire partnership had tied into the places she put herself romantically.

She had watched her mother suffer silently beneath an overbearing father who was absent, both physically and emotionally. Those patterns had been emulated in her partnership with a man who dismissed her, discounted her, and devalued her at every opportunity.

Because she had always assumed that her parents’ poor relationship would end in a disappointing fizzle, she had set herself up to do the same. Almost every partner Selena attracted was someone with no long-term potential. It fits the pattern of her parents, her grandparents, and countless other generations before.

Tips for navigating gray divorce as an adult child.

Are you the adult child of a late-stage divorce? Try as you might, your emotions are going to be stirred by this major event. It’s important to be compassionate with yourself, and honest, too. Set boundaries and surround yourself with people who know what the experience is like. Open up, and don’t run from the pain that you may be dying to process. Your parents’ divorce isn’t simply a matter of their issues. The entire family is involved, and that includes you, too.

1. Give yourself space to process

Don’t rush into some grandiose action (or reaction) without first giving yourself the space and time to process the news. You’ve probably been knocked off your feet by the discovery that your parent’s marriage was not what you thought it was. Give this reality time to sink in before you confront your mother and father, or before you do something significant in your own life (like moving, getting married, etc.)

If you’ve just received the news, let your parents know that you’re going to take a beat to think through things. You don’t have to talk to them during this time. You don’t have to talk to anyone at all. Get out of your journal. Write about what you’re feeling. Set time limits and allow yourself to grieve within those timeframes.

All of this needs to happen within a set amount of time, though. You can’t afford to grieve their relationship forever. Unless you find the strength to pick yourself up and move forward, you’re going to end up wallowing in a place that makes you even more miserable. Holding on to this grief longer than you need to can destroy your relationships and your opportunities for happiness. Don’t deny yourself a future simply because your parents have changed theirs.

2. Set boundaries with your parents

A lot of us can get caught up in a lot of nastiness in the divorce of our adult parents. It can be tempting to take sides — even if they don’t urge us to. That’s the natural tick of things, especially if one of your parents is perceived to be more of a “victim” than the other.

For you to make sure you don’t get caught up in these waves of animosity and emotional warfare, it’s crucial that you set boundaries for yourself and your parents.

If you have a parent that’s leaning on you for emotional support, let them know that there must be limits. If you don’t want to talk about the divorce, tell them that, and explain how being caught up in the middle is making you uncomfortable. You don’t have to tolerate their mind games and the anger they have for each other. Do your parents refuse to respect those boundaries? Make it clear you won’t be a part of their environments until they do.

3. Make honest communication a must

Every relationship we have requires communication, and that is especially true for the relationship we have with our parents. While you don’t need to be put in the middle of the emotional struggles with each other, you deserve honest communication and due warning of what’s going on.

This can include the division of assets, and plans for family holidays. There are a lot of moving pieces that your mom and dad are going to have to sort out. Make sure you are maintaining honest communication throughout.

Schedule regular times to check in on each other, and come up with a protocol for delivering challenging or uncomfortable news. It’s not a good idea to dump a devastating update on our loved ones when they are at work, or dealing with important matters in their own families.

Tell your parents how you want this communication to look. Explain why it matters so much to you. This is also a part of setting boundaries and making sure that everyone is getting what they need in terms of respect and information.

There are going to be a lot of potential upheavals up ahead. Make sure you’re all navigating them in the best way possible. Be honest with each other and yourselves. There’s no use in hiding anything at this point because it will all come out in the open during the divorce.

4. Build a healing village around yourself

You’re going to suffer a lot as you watch your parents’ marriage breakdown. It hurts, and it takes a lot from us in terms of the values we hold and the beliefs we have. We need support groups during this time. We need a village of people who can hold us up and help us be strong as we develop a new vision of the world (and relationships) that we’re in.

It’s not wise to surround yourself with just anyone, though. You’ll benefit best when you find those who know what it means to experience a gray divorce from the perspective of the child. Look for those who have experienced the same things. Or professionals with experience helping people calm this pain.

Don’t turn down the help of a coach, a counselor, or a therapist. Find support groups and outreach programs online or in your hometown. We live in a digital age. There has never been so much information (or connection) widely available. All you have to do is reach out in the right places and you will find yourself surrounded by people who can ease the painful new journey that you’re on. Build a healing village around yourself and let it lift you up.

5. Look for better relationship mentors

Those who have parents who have weathered the years together can assume that this longevity makes them a good relationship example. But that’s not always the case. Your parents are susceptible to the same flaws and relationship mistakes that you make.

Where did you learn it, after all? Instead of holding them up to this impossible standard of being, allow them to be human and look for new examples of hope to inform your beliefs and behaviors.

Your parents are human, they aren’t infallible. Don’t expect them to be perfect — no one is perfect. Instead, look for better mentors you can invest your time and energy into. Find relationship coaches, and psychology thought-leaders.

Talk to counselors, therapists, and friends with stable and balanced relationships. Instead of assuming that your parents are the example to live by, forge your path with healthy examples of people who have done the work and explored who they are.

Where you put it all together.

Being the adult child caught up amid a gray divorce is no small thing. These late-stage relationship breakdowns are complicated, and they detonate the sense of stability and safety we find in our families. You need to be kind to yourself, and you need to understand the complex fallout and how it might affect you. Healing is going to take time, but it’s not impossible. It requires changing your relationship with your parents and their marriage, though.

First, give yourself time and space to process the news. Don’t reach out to your parents yet, or rush into some heroic action. Give yourself the time you need to calm down and work through the heavy emotions and thoughts you’re facing.

When you’re ready, have an honest conversation with your parents — and make that communication a must moving forward. Set boundaries with them and clarify that you won’t allow yourself to get involved in battles that aren’t yours to fight.

Make them respect those boundaries. Surround yourself with a support system that knows what it’s like to watch a decades-long marriage break down. Shift your focus from the relationship you thought your parents had and find better mentors to look up to. Your parents are human. Embrace that and give them space to sort out the mess they’re in. You don’t have to take on their pain and their upset anymore.

© E.B. Johnson 2024

I am a writer, artist, NLP coach, and podcaster who helps survivors build their ideal creative futures. Learn more about me at the link below or join my weekly mailing list.