So Much Sense In So Few Words

Dear Ann Landers: I long have admired your advice that divorced couples remain civil to each other for the sake of the children. Many a birthday or family event has been ruined by people who insist on replaying their lousy marriages before an audience 20 years after the split.

I work with children and also have seen the effects of parents who seem to regard divorce as a creative pathway to nirvana rather than a serious family breakdown that disrupts the lives of others as well as their own.

These self-absorbed bores go on, ad nauseam, recounting all the details of their marriage and divorce, romantic liaisons and the various therapies they are involved in. They are either writing a book or teaching a workshop about their traumatic experiences. While they claim to be so much in touch with their feelings (don’t you love that phrase?), they often are totally oblivious to the feelings of their children. Meanwhile, the children act out their pain through compulsive lying, fighting, nightmares, bedwetting and eating disorders.

I’m sorry this letter sounds so harsh, but I just finished talking to a child who told me it was important for his parents to divorce because if they had stayed together “Mommy would have gotten real sick and taken a gun and shot herself.”

I’m not saying that all divorced parents behave like this or that no one should ever get divorced. All I ask is that parents be a little more sensitive to their children’s needs. Even if you are deliriously happy with the situation, don’t assume your children are. - Fed Up in British Columbia

Dear Fed Up in B.C.: You scored a bull’s eye, dear. I have never heard it said better. You have written one of the most succinct letters I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you.

Dear Ann Landers: I work with a man who lost his wife two months ago. “John” is a wonderful person, hard-working, honest and loving and would not knowingly do anything to hurt anyone. Here’s what’s troubling me. John started to date two weeks after his wife died. I do not believe he was seeing this woman while his wife was alive.

John cared for his wife’s every need until the very last moment of her life. Members of his family are distraught over this lack of respect toward the deceased. I am merely a co-worker - it is not my place to tell him about conventional periods of mourning. I also have many questions about the kind of woman who would date a man whose wife had been dead only two weeks.

An additional observation that I find troubling: This woman helped John go through his deceased wife’s clothing and jewelry and decided how everything should be disposed of. I might add that he gave her some of the very nicest pieces of jewelry. I don’t care what he gives to whom. I have no stake in this at all. I am concerned, however, that he may be taken advantage of at a very vulnerable time of his life. Ann, he reads you every day and respects your opinion. Please print this letter. Perhaps it will get his attention. - Louisville

Dear Louisville: The facts you have stated speak for themselves. Thanks for writing.

Gem of the Day: Father to unmotivated son: “When George Washington was your age, he was a surveyor.” Son replies: “Yes, and when he was your age, Dad, he was president.”

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