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Step 2 It’s a Family Affair And We’re All Family Now

“We are family”

SISTER SLEDGE – WE ARE FAMILY

“Don’t cry Daddy”

ELVIS PRESLEY – DON’T CRY DADDY

“He’s the greatest dancer”

SISTER SLEDGE – HE’S THE GREATEST DANCER

Divorce has never been so popular! The statistics prove a remarkable fact – that children of divorced parents are more likely to then go on to experience divorce themselves.

In that sense divorce can be like an heirloom – a vase, a painting or in my case a rifle, handed down from generation to generation.

Proud Mary

Approaching the subject from this viewpoint we can see divorce as something to be very proud of, particularly for the already divorced parent of the divorcing child as they see their offspring carrying on the family tradition. In a society that moves faster and faster and seems so impersonal, parents are searching for something to pass on to their children. In the past, one of the most significant things would have been their trade and this would have been reflected in their name.

For example we would know that Tommy Cooper’s ancestors were barrel makers, and this skill would have been passed down from father to son. In the television series Porridge, Norman Stanley Fletcher’s ancestors would have made arrows, and the man who played him, Ronnie Barker, would have come from a long line of dog handlers. We Barrets have prided ourselves in the manufacture of low-cost, high-quality starter homes. Not really.

It’s a bit of fun!

The point is that the name was a source of pride to the family because it told the world so much about them. Nowadays it is the same but different. We can still learn a lot about a person from their name, e.g. we know when a person has four or five children with different surnames then it’s highly likely that family has experienced divorce, or at the very least, separation. This is not the whole of the story though. A person can choose to buck the trend and change the course of the family tradition; it is with no small amount of pride that I, Keith Barret, am the first in my family to sip from the golden goblet of divorce! (Immediate family I’m not including Gethyn.) Just because your parents are happy contented and facing their twilight years bathed in the rosy glow of companionship, that’s no reason for you not to embark on the safari of separation that is divorce.

That Pioneer Spirit

There are some who see my situation (and others like me, people like you) as a failure. Fine, as Bobby Brown would say “that’s their prerogative”,^[1] I prefer to see us as pioneers, charting a brave new world of happiness and opportunity. Particularly in my case as I come from parents who didn’t divorce, they stayed devoted to each other right to the end. It was much harder for me therefore to make that break with tradition and begin walking down a different path. How much easier it would have been if I’d come from a broken home, to then go and break one myself. If this is ringing bells with you, then take heart. Just because divorce was beyond your parents doesn’t mean that it’s beyond you. It won’t be easy; you’ll have to dig deep inside your heart for inspiration as you take your family tree in a new direction.

Speaking of family trees, divorcing can be a wonderful way of adding colour and variety to the tree, as it struggles to cope with the new sprouting offshoots that point outwards with new names and faces. Keen gardeners will get a kick out of this and a sense of genetic topiary as they prune and trim their own trees, letting their creative instincts run riot amongst the heartbreak and emotional chaos.

Why Not Me?

In an age when so many marriages end in divorce, we find ourselves with the odd situation of the normal becoming the unusual and what once was the unusual now becoming the normal. What I mean by that is that whereas it was once normal for couples to stay together it is now more likely that they won’t and so it is the families of the couple that stay together that can feel the stigma of being different. It is far easier nowadays to divorce and to live your life as a divorced person or as the friend or immediate family of a divorced person.

This can lead to great problems for the friends and families of those couples who have chosen not to divorce and can lead to the syndrome known as Why Not Me?, or The Why Not Me? Syndrome, or WNMS. This is a feeling of exclusion, a feeling of not fitting in, a sense of not belonging, and can prove quite debilitating. For our purposes in this step we are concerned primarily with the WNMS experienced when our parents didn’t divorce but stayed together. Typically the child of this sort of marriage will have experienced a set of conditions similar or identical to those detailed below:

 Happy, contented well-matched parents.

 A feeling of security and emotional well-being.

 Rosy glow childhood memories.

 A lack of psychological intricacies or hang-ups.

 Joyous family get-togethers/meals/reunions.

 Wise advice.

 Frequent telephone conversations with parents.

These conditions will be more than familiar to sufferers of Happy Parent, Why Not Me? Syndrome, or HPWNMS.

HPWNMS
(Happy Parent, Why Not Me? Syndrome)

Case Study

For the purposes of this case study I have reprinted a letter I received from Angela Coulthard, a twenty-eight-year-old lady, living in Kent. She has a good job, a loving husband, two daughters that she dotes on and a top-of-the-range Chrysler car with power steering and tinted windows. Yet she feels unhappy. She mentions her parents in her letter and their plans for another trip to Egypt, even after a pair of hip replacement operations! There’s also an offer for Angela and her family to go with them on the trip. Here’s Angela to tell us more…

Dear Keith,

I am a 28-year-old lady, living in Kent. I have a good job, a loving husband, two beautiful daughters on whom I dote and a Chrysler Grand Voyager with power steering and tinted windows. On the surface I seem to have everything. So why am I so unhappy? It’s not as if I come from a broken home. My parents recently celebrated forty happy years together and even after joint hip replacement operations are currently planning their second trip to Egypt; they’ve even offered to take us along!

Why am I not happy?

Please help …

Yours,

Angela Coulthard

This letter is typical of many that I have received and highlights an alarming case of Happy Parent, Why Not Me? Syndrome. Angela, if you’re reading this (I didn’t reply), please don’t despair, I’m about to show you that you’re not alone and that there are steps you can take to escape this jungle of contentment. She points out that she doesn’t come from “a broken home”; that’s OK, it doesn’t matter. I myself am not the product of a broken home but that didn’t stop me from producing one. It’s all part of HPWNMS; here’s some background:

Sufferers of HPWNMS find themselves increasingly marginalized in today’s society All around they see images of parental discord: in the newspapers, on the radio, on the soap operas, families split up and torn asunder, tears, anger and recrimination. Vows broken, promises forgotten, irons thrown; at home they see nothing of the sort. It is said that people watch the soaps for many reasons, not least to see themselves reflected on the screen, to see their lives writ large. In the old days this was possible. Think of the idyllic family set-up portrayed in The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie, even Upstairs Downstairs with its now outdated class-ridden hierarchical household, nevertheless showed people basically getting on, up to a point. This gave the unhappy in society something to aspire to and the happy something to identify with. Nowadays the television is a constant source of conflict, from Albert Square to The Rovers Return, even genuinely groundbreaking television programmes like Changing Rooms often end in a furious bust-up.

It is easy to see how the happy child of happy parents can begin to experience feelings of alienation and unease, made all the worse by the fact that these feelings are occurring while the person is happy. Therefore adding confusion to the list of problems. So what can be done for these people? Some would say that they should see their situation for what it is, something to be proud of