My name is Marshall and I am twelve years old.  I live in San Francisco’s Mission District with my mom and my cat.  My parents got divorced about three years ago.  I don’t think adults know how much divorce hurts kids. They think we should just accept these big changes in our lives and go on about our business.  I think about the divorce a lot because it happened so fast and without notice.

One day my mom and dad were laughing and getting along fine and the next day my mom is throwing my dad’s clothes out the window.  My mother tried to prevent me from finding out why she did this, but I heard her talking on the phone to her best friend.  She said that she found out my dad was cheating on her again and enough was enough.

I tried asking my dad what happened and he says that this is adult business and I shouldn’t be burdened with my parent’s problems.  I wanted to tell him that they were causing me a huge burden by not living together anymore.

Since they got separated and then divorced, I don’t see my dad much.  He moved to Los Angeles because according to him, my mother was asking for a huge sum of money every month.  He said the job in LA paid him enough to send what she and her lawyer demanded.

I am lucky if I see my dad once day per month.    It doesn’t help that my mom is always saying negative things about him.  She wants me to know how dishonest and unreliable he is.  I try to keep an open mind and want to think for myself, but he does promise to see me and then either cancels at the last minute or doesn’t bother to show up. Most of the time when he doesn’t bother to show up, he never apologizes or tells me why he didn’t make time for me.

Everyday I walk down sunny 24^th Street. I check out the beautiful murals honoring The Latin Culture mixed in with new coffee shops and other new, expensive stores. My friends are with me and I hear their voices, but they seem far, far away. I am deep in distressful thought wondering why my father doesn’t visit me very much.

I wonder how he feels about me. Does he enjoy my company or does he think I am boring?  Does he think that I love my mother more than him and that kind of loyalty is not acceptable to him?   I’m not sure if I love my mother more than him. Matter of fact I don’t know what love is.  I think I know what hate is.  That is the emotion my parents devote to each other in their phone calls, emails and text messages.

When they first separated, they both told me on different occasions that although they were getting divorced because they didn’t love each other any more, but they both still loved me and always would.  I was relieved at the time they made this statement, but now I wonder if any of it is true.

When I do see my dad, he is always on the phone and not really paying attention to anything I am saying.  I could tell him I have cancer or killed somebody and he would say, “That is really super!”  I don’t know why he even bothers to see me the few days a year he actually shows up.

I have thought about telling him how I feel, but I see how he acts when someone tells him something he doesn’t like.  His face goes all red, his voice raises and he starts cursing.  When he is like this, he doesn’t see to care whose feelings he hurts.  I don’t want him to go off on me like that.  I am also worried that if I say something he doesn’t like, he will choose never to see me again.

My mother brought me to a therapist because she told him that I had become sullen and my grades were dropping.  I didn’t know what the word sullen meant and my therapist told me it meant sad, depressed, withdrawn, unsmiling.  Yeah I could buy that and it was true my grades were going down because I stopped caring about school quite some time ago. My mom is really going to be pissed off once she finds out how often I have been cutting classes.

If my dad doesn’t care about me, why should I care about myself?  My English teacher tells me I’m a good writer and do well in her class when I bother to attend.  My therapist says that I am a smart kid, but I don’t know if I can believe him or not.  The truth is that I have become very good at not letting others know how empty and sad I really feel.  This is because I don’t really believe that I am worthy of getting help.  I know no one will ever really be there for me.

My therapist suggests I invite my dad to a therapy session where I can share my feelings with him.  I shrug my shoulders when I hear this idea. I think about this for a moment and then say, “I might as well do this.  It will be my chance to ask him why he doesn’t love me.”

Stay tuned for the next addition of Marshall’s Parents Terrible Divorce.

Please pick up my book Divorce Recovery for You and Your Children here.