I Thought My Parents Hated Their Marriage—A Picture Revealed the Truth

While cleaning my grandmother's basement a few years ago, I stumbled upon a grainy Polaroid of my parents in their twenties. I stared, dumbfounded. In the image, my dad grins at my mom through round glasses, and she reclines in a large leather chair, her shoulders scrunched up in laughter. They look lovestruck and carefree as if they just shared a hilarious inside joke. Who were these people?

Growing up, I frequently witnessed my parents fighting and assumed they hated each other. Their words ricocheted off the walls like angry arrows, transforming our home into a battleground. When I was eight or nine, a particularly heated argument culminated with my dad dropping a bomb: "Then maybe we need a divorce!"

Divorce hovered in midair. At the time, I still slept with stuffed animals and wore bright pink glasses with butterfly punch-outs on the sides. This was the first—but not the last—time I recall my parents discussing divorce.

Though my parents didn't separate, their unhappiness seemed apparent. They slept in different bedrooms and didn't spend time together one on one. I never saw them kiss or hold hands. Throughout my childhood, my mom warned me and my siblings, "Don't get married. It's a mistake." My dad told us, "If it weren't for you kids, we'd have gotten a divorce."

I found these statements confusing and sad. If my parents thought getting married was such a mistake, did that mean they also regretted the result of their marriage—their kids?

Part of me wished my parents would split so that I could better explain the animosity or apathy my peers occasionally witnessed between them at school functions. Saying your parents are divorced is immediately understood. But there is no socially admissible way to say, "My parents hate each other, and their negative energy consumes our household."

I felt alone: my classmates, with separated parents, attended support groups for other children living between two homes, but no affinity groups existed for me, a child whose parents had fallen out of love yet remained legally bound.

My parents' discontent not only made me hope they would call it quits but also made me hesitant to date as an adult. My mom and dad never described their dates or shared pictures of their wedding. They, in no way, encouraged finding a partner, so I didn't try until my twenties. Even then, I was scared to wind up in an uncommitted relationship because seeing my parents in an emotionally distant marriage showed me what I didn't want.

What if I ended up like them? When I did date, I often settled for guys who weren't suited for me because I jumped anytime it seemed like someone wanted a long-term relationship. NYU Langone clinical psychologist Dr. Lori Evans suggests that this experience is not uncommon: "We learn about healthy relationships from many different models. However, it's hard to form good relationships when your parents don't demonstrate this for you because they are a primary model."

Though I felt alienated as a kid, I now realize that countless people share my experience as the child of a strained marriage. A recent Bowling Green State University study reveals that between 1990 and 2021, the divorce rate increased for people aged 45 and older, and tripled for couples aged 65 and older.

These individuals separated once their kids entered young adulthood, indicating that a significant population of children likely experienced fraught parental relationships growing up before their caregivers split.

When I first began considering how my parents' relationship affected me, I couldn't understand why they and so many others waited to end things. To me, remaining in a broken union only delayed the inevitable and thrust children into tense situations. According to Dr. Evans, "The effects of conflict on kids can range from post-traumatic stress disorder if abuse is involved to a more positive response like a child deciding they will be different from their parents or go into family law to help others."

So kids can recover from a troubled upbringing—but why risk all the negative effects? Just sign the paperwork and call it already. Then I found the picture of my parents and had to consider the possibility that I had completely misread their relationship.

Under the guise of a college project, I asked my now 64 year old dad about the past and listened to their love story for the first time. He told me about meeting my mom in grad school and frequenting Chicago's jazz clubs together until he proposed a year later. He shocked me by explaining that even though my mom shuts him down anytime he suggests moving back to Colorado, where my sister and I were born, my mom once loved the state as much as he does.

In fact, after they went on vacation there in September of 1992, they loved it so much that they returned to Chicago early, put their place on the market, and moved to the mountains that spring.

The most momentous discovery from this conversation was that I was wrong to assume my parents hated each other. Clearly, at one point they were aligned in their preferences and very much in love. And perhaps they still were, in a way.

"Why do you stay?" I forced myself to ask my dad. "Why don't you get a divorce?"

He stared out the window. Then he said, "I've found ways to compromise, which you have to do in any marriage. No marriage is without challenges."

There was the truth. For decades I thought my parents remained unhappily married out of a sense of duty to their kids, or out of familiarity or unwillingness to untangle their finances. All of that is probably somewhat true, but to my dad, their marriage was not terrible or loveless. It was simply an imperfect middle ground. I thought about all the times growing up when he told me, "Let's keep the peace." And he did–he moved to places he didn't necessarily want to go, he accommodated vacations my mom planned that he wouldn't have chosen on his own. He compromised.

I now also recognize that deciding to divorce is complicated. As a kid, I didn't realize that it involved anything more than signing a paper. But since my mom hasn't worked in decades, splitting would necessitate financial accommodations.

While the cavalier way my parents threw around the word divorce during arguments led me to believe otherwise, the decision to separate is nuanced, time-consuming, and life-changing.

I was wrong to see divorce as a quick fix, but I understand why I sought an easy solution: I yearned to exit the liminal state where my parents didn't seem like they were in a gratifying relationship, but they weren't in an undoubtedly failed one, either.

Confronting the ongoing, messy in-between is a painful process that exposes the challenging compromises my parents made and how their choices affected all of us.

Just because something is wrong for me doesn't mean it's wrong for everyone.

Maybe my parents are the exception. Possibly, their relationship that seems austere to me strikes them as comfortable or preferable to solitude. Perhaps being fulfilled in non-romantic aspects of their lives–work and supporting their kids is enough for them to see their marital commitment through. It's even conceivable that their relationship has steadied now that they're not raising three kids.

Regardless, it's time to respect their decisions, to stop expecting divorce or wanting their relationship to look a certain way. Even though I acknowledge the impact their fighting had on me, I also recognize the need for individualized choices when anyone is considering divorce.

As Dr. Evans says, "There's no simple answer. There's a lot to be said about each particular couple selecting their own path." I can't say for sure what guides my parents' reasoning, nor can I select their next steps for them. All I can do is love them and move forward making different decisions for myself.

Jacqueline LeKachman is a New York-based freelance writer and English teacher who has contributed to The Washington Post, WIRED, Business Insider, and Shondaland. She is writing a book about complex family dynamics.

All views expressed are the author's own.

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