FACING DIVORCE AS AN ONLY CHILD

An only child, being the recipient of all the affection, attention, and attachment that parents have to offer, often has more to lose in divorce than do children who are used to sharing what parents have to give and can depend on siblings for companionship and support. The only child must go through divorce alone.

Parental divorce is disillusioning to an only child:

"How can my parents who love me so much bear to cause me such pain? I can't trust them anymore. Now my family is broken, and I'm going to have to look out for myself!"

The Pain of Parental Divorce
When divorce occurs, an only child feels caught in the middle between two loved and loving parents who no longer love each other, an excruciating place to be. Now, the downside of the child's intimacy with parents can be strongly felt.

Parents cannot divorce each other, without divorcing their only child, who loses the secure sense of feeling embedded in the parental relationship. The threesome in which she played such a central role, is no more.

Competing for the Only Child's Affections
It is very common for divorcing parents to vie for loyalty of their only child, lobbying the maintain the primary attachment.

Divorced parents who insist on competing with each other to be "most valued parent" in their only child's life create a losing contest all the way around. The child is in a game of favourites, a losing game because to appear to like one parent better create the appearance of valuing the other less. In addition, the child now feels like a prize to be won, rather than just a child to be loved.

The parents create a contest between each other that gets in the way of collaboration for the sake of the child, neither willing to cooperate if that might give the other some competitive edge. To support the other parent creates the risk of undercutting one's advantage with the child.

Stopping the Competition
What helps absolve the competition, is realizing that there is none.

When it comes to the only child's affections, divorced parents can declare that there is no competition between them. The two parental relationships are simply valuable in difference ways, and always will be. In addition, each parent wants the child to have the full benefit of both, not just the partial benefit of one.


Liked this article? Re-tweet it by clicking on the green button above to share it with your fellow twitter pals! To easily receive updates on new articles, subscribe to our RSS feeds.