Book Review: “Home Will Never Be the Same Again: A Guide for Adult Children of Gray Divorce,” by Carol R. Hughes and Bruce R. Fredenburg
In their poignantly-titled book Home Will Never Be the Same Again, Carol Hughes and Bruce Fredenburg provide a wealth of valuable guidance for a sub-group of “children of divorce”: the ones whose parents split up later in life, a growing phenomenon called “gray divorce”. The authors are both professional therapists, and the book draws strongly from their psychological expertise. They’re also both children of divorce, and their personal experience as ACODs lends a great deal of compassion and empathy to their words.
“Gray divorce” is commonly defined as when the divorcing couple is fifty years old or older. So if they have children, those children are most likely young adults or adults themselves, and likely out of the house already. Gray divorce is a booming phenomenon: from 1990 to 2010, the divorce rate doubled for people over fifty, and more than doubled for people over sixty-five. And, the authors note, this trend doesn’t seem to be abating any time soon.
But, like many children of divorce, adult children of gray divorce often feel unseen and unheard, or they feel like the pain the divorce is causing them is not taken seriously. They may be told that because they are already adults, their parents’ divorce shouldn’t affect them much. It’s also not uncommon to hear advice given to struggling couples to at least “wait until your children have left the house” to divorce, with the implication that divorce has a less damaging effect on grown-up children.
Home Will Never Be the Same Again soundly rebukes these ideas, and unflinchingly catalogs the deep wounds that are caused to young adults and adults when their parents split up later in life. There were parts of the book that were truly painful to read because it was so evident what a loss the “grown” children have experienced.
Hughes and Fredenburg outline some unique challenges that adult children of gray divorce face, as compared to children whose parents divorce when they are young. (I’d add that many of these are challenges that every child of divorce will face at some point as their parents age.) These challenges include:
Worrying about your parents’ financial well-being, what the plan is for caring for them in old age, now that they can’t rely on each other, and how that will affect your own financial security.
Navigating your own major life transitions – attending college, joining the workforce, engagement and marriage, parenthood – without joint and steady support (emotionally, financially, etc.) from your parents.
Your parents treating you less like their child, who still needs a parent, and more like a fellow adult confidant or friend.
Navigating grandparent-grandchild relationships after the divorce, including potentially new romantic interests of the grandparents, and how to explain these changes to your kids.
Questioning whether any of the family memories you cherish are genuine, or whether that previously-intact family was just a mirage.
Tension with siblings about how to handle the divorce situation, whether to take a “side” and with whom, and what boundaries to draw with parents and other family members.
Serious questioning of your own marital stability, given that your parents’ relationship of several decades still ended.
The strengths of this book are many. Throughout, the authors take pains to emphasize that yes, divorce affects children even when they are already adults themselves. There is very little divorce “happy talk” that so often accompanies the subject in mainstream media. Instead, there are many refreshing passages that acknowledge and honor the Adult Child’s need to grieve the loss of his parents together, no matter his age or the circumstances of the situation. The focus stays on the children: their needs, their interests, their losses, and their pathway forward to healing.
Each chapter uses lengthy case studies to illustrate ways in which young adults and adults hurt deeply when their parents split. These narratives shed light on the different losses associated with gray divorce, and they make them more vivid by using first-person stories and concrete examples, followed by one of the author’s “therapist hat” description of what the person was feeling and why.
Several chapters go quite deep into psychological issues; while they can be at times dry (speaking as a non-psychologist), they also shed some interesting and new light on the experience of children of divorce. Notable here are chapter three, where the authors use attachment theory to explain why divorce is so painful for children, and chapter four, where the authors explore different theories about grief and why it is essential for the healing process.
Other chapters deal with communication among family members after a divorce happens (including a later chapter that extensively models how to approach difficult conversations with a parent) and the need for effective, healthy boundaries (and how to “do” boundaries well). Two chapters that seem particularly helpful address sibling relationships post-divorce, and dealing with the situation of parents entering new dating and marriage relationships. Here the attention to the children’s needs is so evident, for example when the authors speak directly to the parents, saying: “Often Adult Children and their children feel replaced by the children and grandchildren of a significant other…Assuming that everyone will be one big happy family is a mistake. Your Adult Child may not be as happy as you are about your new life” (183).
The final chapter, which looks ahead to the child’s future healing, speaks quite beautifully about the importance and power of forgiveness. It even echoes our approach in Life-Giving Wounds to see the wounds caused by divorce as potential resources for love: a “silver lining” found by many Adult Children of gray divorce, write the authors, is that “they realized how fragile love relationships are, so they redoubled their commitments and efforts to build and keep their healthy love relationships” (219).
There are some deficiencies to the book. One is that the authors encourage the use of “divorce rituals” to ease the transition from an intact to a divorced family. While there’s a possibility that some children of divorce may find solace in something like this, it also seemed to have the potential of “legitimizing” and even celebrating the family’s breakdown. Also, it’s important to note that this book is not written from a Christian perspective and there is scant reference to faith as part of the healing process. With that said, there was nothing glaring against Christian beliefs or morals, and some sections (such as the one on forgiveness) were strikingly similar to a Christian approach.
For adult children of gray divorce – and really, for all adult children of divorce, who will deal with the same challenges on a different timeline – Home Will Never Be the Same Again is a powerful read, with much good advice and a compassionate acknowledgment that the pain you’re experiencing is real, and matters.
Bethany Meola is the co-founder and co-director of Life-Giving Wounds, together with her husband Dan. She holds a masters of theological studies from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, DC.