TELL ME ABOUT IT

Dear Carolyn: As a child, I lived through my parent’s horrible, physically violent, 10-year divorceld, promising myself I would never divorce.

So, here I am, 51, my 13-year relationship broken up. I am the ONE THING I promised myself I would never be.

Any comments on my naive thought that never marrying would ensure I would never divorce? Or on how a person handles it when life shows them they are not in control, and they are faced with something they worked so hard not to have happen? How do I move on and respect myself? – The Person I Never Wanted to Be

No, you are not that person you never wanted to be, not because of this breakup.

And you’re not “naive.” I’d say traumatized, which is entirely different.

Your having to witness the horrible and the violent – between two emotional cornerstones of your life – likely compelled you at only 12 to script your own adulthood to take away this pain. When 12 is, clearly, way too young for that. You fixed on something before you could understand it.

Instead of beating yourself up for all of this, please just update your goals and expectations to reflect adult understanding.

Actually, no – please forgive yourself first. You can’t promise you “would never divorce,” because a partner can leave you, or you can find the relationship untenable for reasons you couldn’t foresee.

You can, however, keep a promise to yourself that you will never be “horrible [and] physically violent” during a breakup – or ever. And you can keep a promise to yourself never to drag out bad relationships or difficult decisions so long that they swallow up entire decades and cause widespread collateral damage.