Mrs. Tiramisu, Annapolis, MD/Maine
Age and Occupation: 26, Eye Doctor
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Project Manager/Real Estate Management grad student
Engagement Date: May 15, 2007
Wedding Date: July, 2008
Blogging Since: March 4, 2008
Venue: Oceanfront lawn and tent
About Me: I was born and raised in Maine, now living in Annapolis, Maryland and planning a hometown wedding from afar. I’m nothing short of obsessed with wedding planning, and am loving the do-it-yourself madness that has now taken over my life! As for me, I’m a craft-loving, martini-drinking, girly-girl who loves traveling, photography, my schnauzer, and above all, spending time with Mr. Tiramisu.
Warning! Serious Post Ahead
June 2nd, 2008 @ 9:29 am by Mrs. Tiramisu
My parents are divorced.
I’m not unique in this fact. I don’t even have a sob story to tell about how my life was ruined, and in fact I had a happy childhood during which my parents never fought. Both my mom and my dad are now remarried, and in the end I got an extra (both awesome) set of parents out of it, not to mention a brother, sister, and a slew of cool step-relatives. So I’m really not here to complain. But the truth is, sometimes having divorced parents sucks.
There’s the obvious split up holidays, which I’ve mostly gotten used to, but still manage to have a yearly mini panic attack over. There’s the awkwardness that is unavoidable at events with both sets of families. There’s the question of what to call my brother and my sister- really my step-brother and half-sister if you want to get technical, but those titles seem so weird to me and we’ve never used them. And at the moment, there is the huge bummer of not having my mom and dad sitting together, smiling proudly at my wedding.
Allow me to whine for just a moment- I want to have pictures of both Mr. T’s parents and my parents on their respective wedding days, cutting their cake, displayed on our cake table. I want to send our invites with pictures of our parents on their wedding days on custom stamps- I love this idea- LOVE it. I want a big wall filled with family wedding pictures- parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings… everyone smiling and proudly representing whatever wedding style decade they fell into. But I can’t have these things, and that’s okay. What I do have is two (four really) totally supportive and awesome parents. I am so very thankful for that.
This post is a little sad, so I’m going to throw in this picture, since it won’t be on display at our wedding. Maybe the real tragedy is that no one will see the awesomely stylish tuxedo that my dad sported in 1974. No one except Weddingbee’s thousands of daily readers that is. 
The bigger question is what having divorced parents means in terms of how I’ll view my marriage. I can easily see how people with divorced parents choose not to get married, or are cynical about successful marriages. Recent statistics (mine are from the New York Times) show that the rate of divorce is falling just a bit, and is probably closer to 40% than the oft-cited 50%, but that’s still more than a little discouraging.
All my life I’ve known that I would get married, and I look at it like this- seeing the consequences of a marriage that ended in divorce firsthand, I am even more committed to making mine work. Mr. Tiramisu and I have had lots of conversations about this, and I think it’s so important that divorce is just not an option for either of us.
How has your parents’ relationship affected the way you see yours?
29 Responses to “Warning! Serious Post Ahead”
This may help to ease your mind a bit (with divorced parents as well, it helped me with this same complex):
The woman in the relationship having a college degree makes the divorce rate considerably lower than that 40%. The higher the education, the more that number goes down. So I think it’s safe to say you’re doing pretty well for yourself. (This alone makes me happy I went to college!)
Thanks for a great post.
My fiancé and I both have divorced parents - mine are both remarried; his are not. The other day I was joking with him that more traumatising than the effect it has on you in childhood is the effect it has on you now having to regularly visit four parental homes between you rather than two!
Seriously though, I agree it can make you committed to making it work. I read an article just an our ago in Psychologies magazine that posited that people who get divorced are idealists (believing they just married the wrong person and the right one is out there somewhere) and those who stay married are realists (truly understanding that marriage is hard work.) I thought that was an interesting take on it.
You know how I look at it? Even if it is just 50%, or if it’s even better at 60%, those are pretty good odds. If it’s somewhere over 50%, that still means you’re more likely to stay married for the rest of your life than not do. I think that’s amazing! (I guess that answer to your question is that the effect for me of my parents’ divorce is that I learned to manage my expectations!)
Anyway, I’ll shut up now… but thanks for raising this and also for sharing that wonderful photo of your parents! Nothing that has happened since can take away from the glory of that tux and really, isn’t that what weddings are all about?! (Kidding!)
I am in the same boat as you, with the divorced parents. I had the happy childhood too. I, like you, have had the situation make me want to work harder, and not view divorce as an option for myself. I am also extra picky about who I choose to have in my life. I guess some positive has come out of that.
I, too, have two sets of parents. So I’ve decided to use photos from my parents’ second marriages. Those are the people they’re supposed to be with — they’ve each been married more than twenty years to their “new” partners. More than that, those photos represent lasting marriages — they’re the relationships upon which I want to base my own marriage.
I understand how you feel. (Really, I do!) But I believe that the stress of split holidays and feuding parents (my parents don’t even speak) is outweighed by the extra love and support I get from my amazing stepparents. I feel that my parents’ divorce has given much more than it has taken away.
I hope you can celebrate the current, happy marriages of your parents on your wedding day.
BTW, LOOOOOve the tux.
Honestly, this sounds horrible, but some people are better divorced than married. I know some couples who stay together ‘for the sake of the children’ and end up making it much worse for everyone involved. Your parents divorced, but it sounds like they had a great relationship after it and found wonderful people to remarry and spend their lives with - I think those are better role models than those who stay together in their original marriages and are miserable.
When we went to get our marriage license, the guy at the counter asked us if either of us had been married before. We both said, “nope.” He seemed surprised: “first time for both of you? Wow… good luck!”
My husband pointed out that the person who issues marriage licenses sees the people who are getting married the 3rd or 4th or 5th time more often than he sees folks like us - because we’re only there once! At the same time, that divorce statistic takes into account all those 2nd and 3rd and 7th marriages that ended. People who are in their first-and-only marriage contribute only one data point to the stats… so they are a little skewed.
It sounds like you’re doing the most important thing about all this - learning from the tough lessons of the past, and working to do things differently.
Also, it’s not too late for Mr. Tiramisu to get an awesome tux like that, is it?
Have you talked over the picture thing with your parents? It might make them feel weird to see pics of themselves in happier times displayed for everyone to see (and it might make their new spouses feel a little weird, as well). I wouldn’t want to see a picture of my fiance with his ex-girlfriend displayed at our wedding, so your parents might not want to be reminded of the whole divorce thing.
I am really glad you posted this. It’s good to know there are other people that think about things like this. I’d also love to hear any ways you are creatively handling situations like these - especially ways of including step-parents in the wedding.
My parents divorced while I was in college. I always knew it was coming, and never really minded because I knew that in the long run it would be the best thing for both of them. I could just tell that they weren’t meant for each other.
The actual way it happened, however, was what I had not expected, and the years following their divorce were very, very difficult for me & my younger sister. It impacted our family in a traumatic way.
Recently, things have begun to seem a little more “normal”, and as I’m planning my upcoming wedding I’ve started to think a lot about it all. I agree with you whole-heartedly when you say that your parents’ relationship has made you want to make yours work even more. It is difficult sometimes because my fiance comes from a”happy little family”, and it is hard for him to understand the issues that my family often goes through.
The one thing I really and truly wish I could say is that the people that have entered into my parents’ new lives are a wonderful addition to our family… but unfortunately, I’ve had the opposite experience and so planning to have them attend the wedding is even more diffcult (think: evil stepmother… seriously.)
Know that you’re not alone in your thoughts, and while we are still very lucky, it’s ok to lament at the situation every now and again! 
heheh - I LOVE THE TUX!!!
It means a lot to you - what about asking your parents if you can display this? Or if they can sit next to each other with their respective spouses/families extending out from them.
I have a half brother (with happily remarried parents), and at his wedding, my dad and jinny (my brothers mother) sat next to each other. To my dad’s right was my mom, and to jinny’s left was jinnys husband. It worked out really well for this situation.
Just a thought when it comes to those statistics: That includes Hollywood AND Vegas!! Does a day go by that some famous so and so gets divorced after 3 months? Or a morning go by that someone wakes up in Vegas and thinks “i dont even know my last name!”? Taking that into account - the statistic has to be at least a few points better. =)
My parents divorced the year I was getting married (after 23 years)! And my mom moved out to her apartment the night of my rehearsal. Talk about traumatic. I did question marriage and whether or not it was worth it if in the end it was going to end up in divorce. Mainly because I strongly disagree in divorce and believe marriage is a life-long commitment. But I really loved my now husband and thought I’d marry him and work my hardest at making it work. To prove to my little sister that love is real and that marriage can last til death if you really work at it. So we’ve made many an investment to our marriage by attending marriage retreats, taking vacations together and sticking it through in the good times and the bad. It’s worked. We’re four years strong =)
I’ve been really blessed to have parents that have been together… I think 45 years and they have given me a great example of what my marriage should look like. They’ve gone through a lot together and it’s definitely given me more passion and desire to stay with my husband, like someone said before, divorce is just not an option.
Also, like someone else said, those divorce rates include the people that have remarried and divorced several times. It does seem the norm these days to have been divorced at least once, but that doesn’t mean us first-timers can’t stay together!
My parents are divorced and whilst one is happily remarried, the other isn’t remarried. I was thinking it would be cool to have wedding photos from my guests marriages as well but at a wedding with only 30 people, I think it would be very noticeable who’s wedding was missing and I don’t want any discomfort. I’m going to have lots of cool photos of me and my fiancé instead
My parents divorced and remarried and so did his, so we couldn’t do the whole family wedding pictures either. We have four sets of parents and only so many holidays, so that was stressful until we came up with a system of you get this year, I get the next, and here’s a year for our parents etc. It’s been working great so far.
I will say though that I was never going to get married. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with marriage, I just wasn’t a believer that it was for me. It took a really cool guy to change my mind, and I’m glad he did because it’s awesome.
Thanks for this post, Miss T. Although my own parents are still happily married after 37 years, Mr.GV’s had a terribly messy divorce when he was in college. He hasn’t talked to his dad or brother since (it’s been 10 years), and he has a very strained relationship with his mom, to put it mildly - they haven’t talked in about 2 years, and she doesn’t know that we relocated and are getting married. I’ve never met any member of his family in the 6+ years we’ve been together, and needless to say, they won’t be at our October wedding unless something earth-shattering happens.
I love the old photo idea too and would love to have my parents’ pictures, but since there are no Mr.GV family photos, it would be pretty awkward. It makes me sad, too, and his family situation has been the source of most of our fights over the course of our relationship. The important part, though, is that Mr.GV has grown to trust that our relationship will work as long as we’re both realistic and honest, which his parents weren’t. I think he learned a lot about relationships from seeing such a dysfunctional marriage, unfortunately.
I love the picture idea too! A good friend of mine did this @ her wedding & put pictures all over the mantel of a fireplace in the reception hall. I fell in love w/ the idea and then realized it would be difficult for me to do b/c FH’s parents are divorced… I’m going to talk to the FIL’s about how they feel about having both or just their most recent wedding picture up.
My soon to be in-laws are newly divorced and one will be re-marrying next year. Not only is the divorce still fresh, but my FMIL is still having a hard time dealing with the fact that her ex is now engaged. My fiance is dealing fairly well with it…he uses their marriage as an example of where things can go wrong (especially communication) and so he re-doubles his efforts.
Okay..the tux is amazing..and funny thing is that my dad wore exactly the same thing at his wedding in 1973! I think he didn’t have the vest.
i have divorced parents who’ve remarried as well, i’m just using the 2nd set of wedding photos
My parents are divorced and remarried…and divorced again. I’m hoping to do photos of my grandparents instead - I think it’s important to celebrate the marriage successes within your family heritage.
Both of our parents are divorced, but only our mothers are remarried. FI’s father is engaged, but hasn’t set a date yet. Both of my grandparents were divorced as well! FI’s are happily married, but only one is still alive.
Either way, my parents’ marriage really helped to open my eyes to the kind of man I wanted to be married to. I love my mom and dad separately, but can see how they would never have worked together. They say you always marry a version of your father, but I am marrying a version of my step-father which is a much better fit for me!
I agree with what most people have already said - you can learn from your parents experiences just as well as your own. While both FI’s and my parents are still married, they have each had their share of bumps and hurdles. Their marriages haven’t always been pretty, and that influences how we navigate our relationship on a daily basis. The good news is that your parents’ relationships can also show you the good. In your case, you not only have the example of two supportive and loving parents, but TWO examples of healthy (re)marriages.
PS - love the tux! My dad sported a similarly HOT tux at his ‘72 wedding
My parents are divorced, too, and though I am quite sure that is the best thing they could have done ( at the time, I was 13 and thinking “what took you so long”), it is really sad for me to try to work them into the wedding. My father had a secret relationship with my now-step-mother for years before my mom found out, and my mom and dad cannot be anywhere near each other without getting in a fight (my mom I know will do her best at the wedding but my dad is fairly tactless and likes to provoke her). However, I know I can keep them apart fine at the wedding and am not so worried about them encountering each other as I am sad about the things I feel I can’t do (like the pictures you would like to put up). I would like a good relationship with my dad, and to have a parent to walk me down the aisle, or to dance with, because my fiance has that in his parents - his parents have been together for a very long time (40+ years?) and have had many children who are all happily married. But because I don’t feel comfortable around my dad - I don’t feel like having him dance with me, which he won’t do anyway, or having him walk me down the aisle would really mean anything to me at all in actuality - yet I don’t want to hurt his feelings (or at the least, because I’m not even sure he would notice, cause any trouble with my step-mom…) by asking my mom or a close friend to replace him in the traditional “Dad” role, we are scrapping these events. Instead, my fiance and I will walk down the aisle together and the only specified dance will be our first dance together.
My parents went through a messy divorce when I was in college — long story short, there was Another Woman, whom my father is still dating. I’m dreading the inevitable conversation about whether my dad’s girlfriend is invited to the wedding. Weirdly, I think the experience really gave me a good perspective on what builds a strong, lasting marriage. My parents were terrible communicators and they both carried around a lot of resentments that they never voiced, which was a huge factor in their breakup. I like to think I’ve learned from at least some of their mistakes.
A less emotional annoyance of having divorced parents: the invitations need extra lines!! I had to scrap two invitations I really liked because there wasn’t enough room to list my parents on separate lines (which is apparently the etiquette-approved approach for divorced parents who are co-hosting the wedding).
ah, divorce. i wanted to do family wedding pictures as well, but it was not in the cards. FI’s parents are still together, which is great. My parents were divorced when I was fairly young (5 years), so it wasn’t as traumatic as divorces were for some of my friends whose parents split in high school or college. Mom remarried when I was in grade school to a fabulous person whom I consider to be my dad. Sadly, he passed away 6 years ago. My mom has since found someone who makes her happy, but because I was out of college and completely on my own, we’ve yet to gel as a family (it’s been about 4 years). Not sure if we ever will, but it’s been a challenge to find ways to include the rest of mom’s new family in the wedding. Her husband (sorry - step-dad will never seem quite right) has been pushing hard for some bonding, but I’m a bit peeved that he wants to push on the occasion of my wedding. We had an awkward moment when they wanted to invite his other family (his older daughter, her husband and two kids whom I met once - at mom’s wedding) to our very small wedding. That disaster avoided, it’s been interesting trying to make sure we have the day we want without hurting too many feelings.
The best we can do is make concessions where we can (inviting the youngest daughter who is 14 to be a guest book attendant), try to let go of things we can’t change (his insistence on wearing an old hat with lots of gold pins to the ceremony), and graciously avoid sticky issues (who participates in the family photos - still looking for a way out here). Best of luck and know you’re not alone!
We had photos of my grandparents on their wedding days, but I faced the same issue as you with regard to my parents. My father’s been remarried for 25+ years, but my mother’s second marriage just ended. I couldn’t have photos of everyone BUT her, so we stuck to grandparents. It was stressful enough for her to attend her daughter’s wedding — something she’d dreamed of all her life — alone, when her ex-husband (my father) was there with a whole happy family.
Can you keep the idea but use photos of your parents’ remarriages?
I feel the same way, actually. That having divorced parents makes me want to work that much harder at my future marriage, so that I don’t put my kids or myself through a whole world of hurt. And that divorce is just not going to be an option for me–you work through whatever issues come your way. Except for cheating, I suppose.
My parents started the divorce process just after I got engaged last year, and to put it mildly, it was devastating, but it gave me an even stronger resolve that divorce is not an option. They’ve recently reconciled, which has made it even weirder for me - display or not display the photos? Like katze, I don’t have a great relationship with my dad at the moment, and I’m really debating what to do on the whole walk down the aisle and father-daughter dance now.
my husband’s parents had an especially acrimonious divorce. completely horrible. and he has had several friends who have also been through some hard divorces.
so, when we started dating he especially felt like marriage was a bad idea. and at the time, i said to him (not thinking WE would necessarily get married)
i told him - look you can’t look to other people’s relationships to define the potential success or failure of your relationship. you are not those people. and the person you may want to marry, they aren’t those people either. you and that person define your relationship - and you make it as great or as awful as you choose to make it.
no one, sometimes not even the couple themsleves understand what made the relationship fall apart.
but it is important to remember that your relationship to your fiance or husband to be is unique and not to be compared to anyone else’s. any meaningful relationship takes first, the love to want to be there, but also knowing it take a lot of work and patience.
but i went off on a tangent.
for my wedding, my husband’s parents were both there. they probably hadn’t seen each other since their divorce was finalized. and while it was awkward and a little strange. they were both happy to be there for my husband and me. and, as my husband put it, they were on their best behaviour and no one on my side of the family. Heh!
remember, your wedding day is about you and your hubby and it’s a celebration of your love. that’s what they are there for.
My parents are divorced, but thankfully are very good at getting together for occasions like graduations, birthdays and more. It will be the first time my dad is with his girlfriend in front of my mom at a family reunion though. I hope it goes well. I want the three of them there, but I am a bit worried.
My husband’s family story is good enough for a soap opera, it would be too long to explain, but let’s just say there has been plenty of divorces on both sides.
So of course it affects us. it affects the way we see marriages. But I think in a way it helps us be realistic. We know that once the wedding vows are pronouced, it’s not happily ever after. We know it can be hard. We promised each other to work for this, we promised to be honest and to seek help if we feel something is not right and I hope we can stick to it. We both want this to work, maybe even more with our parent’s situation.
We thankfully have examples around us of couples who worked hard to keep their relationships and said no to divorce (or never had to think about it). Both my grandparents were married over 50 years. And that helps us have faith and believe that yes we can do it.
