Anecdotally, this rings true for me. Father walked out on mother essentially, when I was in my early 40s. Rocked my world thoroughly, hadn't seen it coming. Several years of therapy to come to terms with it.

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Baader-Meinhof a day ago | parent | next [-]

Also anecdotally, I experienced the opposite. After three decades of constant fighting, the divorce was almost cathartic. Their marriage was more traumatic for me than their divorce.

Interestingly, their relationship became much better after and they are ok as friends now.

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newAccount2025 a day ago | parent | next [-]

I wonder what percentage of our feelings on the spectrum of “ok yeah makes sense” vs “omg how could this happen” is even based on the actual marriage.

GP’s comment vs yours mirror my brother’s reaction vs my reaction when our parents divorced. Same divorce, completely different feelings about it.

	▲	skissane a day ago \| parent [-]
		Research suggests there is a big difference between how children experience divorce between high-functioning and low-functioning families - children from high-functioning families often experience parental divorce as traumatic, children from low-functioning families often experience it as a relief from ongoing traumatisation Even within the same family, both divorce and dysfunction can be experienced very differently due to differences in each child’s individual psychology and also family dynamics (sometimes one child is made to bear the brunt of the dysfunction much more than the others-the “black sheep” versus the “golden child”)

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Aloha a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I can second this - my parents were good friends after their divorce, as all of the issues of contention were related to sharing a house and relationship.

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331c8c71 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I would assume ones's parents divorce would be much easier to come to terms with for someone in their 40s compared to 20s, teens or kids (that doesn't mean it wouldn't suck).

	▲	deadfoxygrandpa a day ago \| parent [-]
		my parents split and got divorced when i was in my 20s, and both of them had remarried within about 5 years. it didnt really bother me very much at all, i was already living very far away from home, and its good to see theyre both happier than they were before the divorce. the biggest change to me is i have to visit two houses when i go home for a holiday instead of just 1 house