At Home in Splitsville
Divorce runs rampant in my family tree. Will it be different for me?
(Illustration by Kim Rosen)When I heard as a child that half of all marriages end in divorce, I thought that sounded a tad low. See, I'm not just a child of divorce - although I am that, since the age of 4. I'm also a grandchild of divorce, on both sides.
When I was born, my dad's mom was already remarried to a divorced man, who became my grandpa. And my dad's dad married a new woman - already divorced twice from the same man - who became my grandma; that pair are now divorced from each other. My mom's parents also re-coupled with other divorced people. My maternal grandma's new beau happened, through a previous marriage, to be the biological grandfather of three of my cousins. So he was both their paternal grandfather and maternal step-grandfather.
Of my parents' six siblings, five are divorced, and with their second marriages came more relatives who aren't really related to me.
I've never drawn a family tree, but I imagine it would be difficult to fit everybody. And I suppose the horizontal lines denoting relatives by marriage would have to be replaced by X's to show that most of my family is related by divorce.
My close friends are familiar with the situation and can usually discern which stepgrandparent I'm talking about. But conversations with the uninitiated are sometimes awkward - never more so than a few years ago when my cousin-by-divorce, whom I grew up around but hadn't seen in years, murdered his mother and stepfather. For most people, this would be a simple, if tragic, tale about their family. But my conversations went something like this:
Curious Someone: What happened?
Me: My cousin, who isn't really my cousin - let me explain. You see, my grandpa . . . well, he's not really my grandpa, either, but he's been married to my grandmother since before I was born.
Curious Someone: (Confused look.)
Me: Anyways, so this sort-of-grandpa had a son from a previous marriage, and that guy also had a son, and that's my cousin. And this guy who is pretty much my cousin, he killed his parents last week.
Curious Someone: (Gasp!)
Me: Yeah, I know. But, I mean, I didn't even know the victims.
Curious Someone: Wouldn't they be your aunt and uncle?
Me: Yes, they would be, if this guy were really my cousin, which he's not. His mom was related to me by two divorces, which means his stepdad was related to me by three divorces. So I knew the guy who did it, because he was sort of my cousin, but I didn't know the people who were killed, even though they were related to me, but not really.
Curious Someone: Um, I'm sorry?
If I sound a bit detached, I probably am. In college, when an acquaintance's parents were going through a divorce, I had trouble seeing it for the personal tragedy that it was. I was too used to my sprawling genetic mess of a family - where divorce is the rule instead of the exception and relationships aren't always close. This attitude throws some people. If someone asks about my father, for example, and I mention that I don't speak to him, I'm met either by a barrage of questions or an awkward apology. But for me, this is just the way things are. I've sifted through all the marriages and divorces to create my own idea of family, and I've decided that blood isn't necessarily thicker than water.
This is problematic, though, as my wife and I look to start a family of our own. If my goal is to have a happy family - and it is - then surely ending my marriage and losing contact with my future children would be a tremendous failure. It seems the height of folly to declare "never, ever," especially in print. But that's what I want to do. I want to shout from the rooftops: "It won't happen to me! I've learned from their mistakes! I'm different!" And I think I am. I certainly hope so. We don't need any more forks in our family tree.
Calvin Hennick lives in Brighton. Send comments to coupling@globe.com.
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